RWBY Reacts to Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's Dubbed

by MasterSaixus

After a strange cloaked man ended up in the wrong place (Thanks Wade), the girls of RWBY will not be getting much sleep tonight. Instead, they will react to the dubbed-version of Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's! (Rated T for occasional swearing) (Interlude 1.5 - RWBY reacts to Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series by Little Kuriboh is now up!) (Fanfic now also available on AO3!)

7. Interlude 1 - Yu-Gi-Oh Original dubbed 1

RWBY Reacts to Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's Dubbed

*(Disclaimer : I do not own RWBY, Yu-Gi-Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh 5d's or Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged)

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So a little bit of info before you start reading this chapter. It's long. Like, around 55 000 words long. That's as long as most of my 5d's chapters combined! It's gonna take a couple of hours before you finish reading this interlude. I've considered splitting this interlude up into multiple parts, but I really wanted each interlude to cover an entire season. So yeah, hope you guys have plenty of free time.

SPOILER-WARNING FOR RWBY VOLUME 8!

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Interlude 1 – RWBY reacts to Yu-Gi-Oh Original Dubbed Season 1

Ruby was very excited to see the two men that had now joined the (kinda forced) marathon viewers. Specifically for the black-haired man.

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby excitingly yelled as she ran up to her favorite uncle in the whole world and gave him a bear hug. "It's so good to see you again!"

"Uhm, hey Squirt..." Qrow said awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head. "Not that it's not great to see you or your sister again but would somebody mind telling me what the juice is going on here?"

"A fair question to ask." The man next him said, who was none other than the very headmaster of the school, Ozpin, agreed.

"Uhm well…" Pyrrha had no idea where to begin. "This… might take a few minutes to explain."

"No time for that." Saixus stated before making his empty cola-bottle disappear. He then snapped his fingers, causing Qrow and Ozpin to get engulfed by a strange light, which quickly disappeared. The both of them rubbed their heads in pain before blinking at the information they had just received.

"…So this guy zapped himself here by accident and is now forcing you to watch some weird dimension where they play card-games on motorcycles?" Qrow asked, causing the near-adults in the room to nod. "…Forget what I said before, I need a drink."

Weiss turned to Saixus and said "Let me guess, you gave them the same crash-course you gave JNPR?"

"Yeah I gave them the basics of the 5d's universe including the Duel Monsters rules and what-not. I didn't give them any info about the characters or the current events tough. Wanna give them some surprises when we get back to that universe."

Ozpin cuffed in his hand while still processing everything the stranger put in his head. The man was used to taking in new information every time he reincarnated, though it wasn't an experience he particularly liked. "I'm sorry but if you don't mind me asking, who or what precisely are you?"

"My name is Saixus, you could call me Master Saixus but I'm humble enough to forgo the title." Saixus answered. "What I am would take too long to explain and I want to start this interlude already since, spoiler alert, it's rather long."

(More than 120 word-pages long!)

"You still haven't told us what this interlude is even about." Jaune reminded him.

"I put together an interlude that will show you guys some interesting moments from the past of this universe." Saixus explained. "Back before Yusei was born and Duel Monsters only just started implementing holograms."

"Uhm, who exactly is this Yusei-fellow?" Qrow asked confused.

Saixus deadpanned. "…Okay maybe I should have just zapped the episodes themselves into their heads… ah well, too late now."

"Do these past events have anything to do with what we're currently watching?" Weiss brought up.

"It will give you a bigger understanding of the game, where it originated from and so on." Saixus told them.

Qrow looked positively lost before shrugging his shoulders and said "Agh whatever. I would have been sleeping in a tree tonight if I didn't get zapped here so you won't hear me complaining too much. Besides, I was heading here anyway to have a chat with Oz."

"Not to visit us?" Ruby said teary eyed as she hugged her Stardust Dragon plushy which increased her cuteness factor by 50%.

Qrow was at first gonna tease her and say no but even he wasn't stoic enough to resist that face. "Hm, course I did Squirt." He then proceeded to rub Ruby's hair.

"So this is Ruby and Yang's uncle." Pyrrha noted. "He seems like a nice guy."

"Sooo…" Blake said awkwardly as Ruby continued to let her uncle rub her hair. "Are we gonna get any introductions or...?"

Blake's question caused Ruby's eyes to widen. "Ah that's right! I've got to introduce you to everyone!"

While Ruby was introducing her uncle to her friends, Saixus decided to finish watching season 8 on his phone.

A few minutes of introductions later and everyone was all set to start the interlude. Zwei had decided to move back to Ruby's lap, much to Weiss' disappointment.

"Hey Oz?" Qrow whispered.

"Yes Qrow." Ozpin whispered back.

"You think we can trust this Saix-guy?" Qrow asked as he pointed to him. Thanks to his hood, they couldn't see that Saixus was currently crying over best-girl's death. "Maybe it's the cloak, but he doesn't strike me as all that trustworthy."

"We'll have to wait and see Qrow." Ozpin casually answered. He didn't trust the stranger either but the idea of watching another reality without Grimm was a little intoxicating. "I think it would be best if we kept an eye on him though."

Saixus put his phone away, mentally cursing Cinder before finally starting the show.

---

The TV jumped on and a blue screen appeared with the following text in white.

Episode 1 : Yugi Muto versus Seto Kaiba

Great, they had only just started and Qrow was already lost. "Who against who now?"

Weiss held her hand against her chin and said "Well, Kaiba's supposed to be the one who came up with the holographic tech for the game, but I don't recall a Yugi Muto getting mentioned before."

"Yeah, who's this Yugi-person supposed to be?" Yang asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yugi Muto's our temporary new main-character." Saixus answered, trying his best not to sound like he had been crying. "He's the most famous duelist ever to have existed and holder of the title 'King of Games'."

"King of Games?" Nora repeated. "With a title like that he must be good."

"Yeah and it's way better than the title Jack had." Weiss agreed. Master of Faster? Really?

"Indeed, and you could say that this is the duel that started his whole career." Saixus told the group. "You see, Yugi's grandfather, Solomon Muto, was the owner of a small game-shop that sold all kinds of cards. His most valuable one was a legendary dragon called the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. A card so rare only four copies of it were ever made."

"Wow, talk about a collector's item." Jaune said impressed.

"Which is precisely what Seto Kaiba thought when he discovered Solomon had one of those cards." Saixus continued. "At first Seto offered him a bunch of rare Duel Monsters-cards in exchange and when that didn't work, he was willing to pay Solomon whatever amount of money he desired."

"WHAT?!" Weiss practically shouted. The idea that someone would be willing to pay so much just for a trading-card was mind boggling.

"Solomon still refused though." Saixus told them which surprised the rest of the group. "The card was given to him by a dear friend so he wouldn't part with it no matter how much money Kaiba was willing to offer."

"I'm guessing this Kaiba-person didn't take kindly to that." Qrow guessed correctly.

"Not at all." Saixus stated. "He kidnapped Solomon Muto and forced him to duel him. After Solomon lost, Kaiba called Yugi to come and get him since their duel was apparently so stressful he ended up in a hospital bed."

"WHAT?!" Everyone shouted this time aside from Ren and Ozpin, who's eyes did widen at this news.

"HOW ON REMNANT DOES PLAYING A CARD GAME END UP GETTING SOMEONE HOSPITALIZED?!" Jaune asked in genuine confusion.

"…You do remember Yusei and Jack crashed during their duel, right?" Pyrrha reminded him.

"Yeah but this wasn't a Turbo-Duel." Saixus put in. "This was a duel played in a Duel-Arena, which is pretty much a giant podium version of two normal Duel-Disks. Duel-Runners have yet to be invented at this point."

"...Then how did this Solomon end up injured?" Blake couldn't help but ask.

"It was the first time mister Muto played the game with holograms so I guess the stress was simply too much for him to take." Saixus explained. "That and he practically had a heart-attack when he saw Kaiba tear up his Blue-Eyes White Dragon card in front of him."

"He did WHAT?!" Yang yelled enraged as this action reminded her of another card-thief. "Why would he go through all that trouble just to tear it up?!"

"Because Kaiba already had the other three Blue-Eyes White Dragons in his possession." Saixus revealed as the students looked surprised once again.

Ozpin put the pieces together. "I believe I understand. According to the information Saixus gave us, each duelist is only allowed to have a maximum of three copies per card in their decks. If Kaiba already had three of these dragons in his deck, then he wouldn't be able to use the fourth-one."

"Couldn't he have kept it as a spare?" Ruby asked. "You know, in case he accidently lost one of his other Blue-Eyes?"

"He could have." Saixus answered. "But he'd rather destroy it if only to prevent another duelist from using a Blue-Eyes against him."

"Damn rich people." Qrow stated which caused Weiss to frown at the huntsmen. "…Oh right, the mini-Schnee, sorry."

"What do mean mini?!" Weiss shouted at the drunk while her classmates tried to contain their snickering.

The TV started up by showing Yugi facing three Blue-Eyes White Dragons while Kaiba said "On my next turn, all three Blue-Eyes White Dragons are free to attack. This game's over no matter what card you draw."

"Holy moly!" Nora shouted. "Those are some big dragons!"

Pyrrha agreed. "How powerful are those beasts?"

"One Blue-Eyes has the same attack-strength as Red Dragon Archfiend." Saixus revealed which shock the students while Qrow and Ozpin looked confused again.

"Uhm, what's a Red Dragon Archfiend?" Qrow asked for the both of them.

"It's basically this-" Nora answered as she held her plushy in front of her. "But bigger!"

This description however only caused Qrow and Ozpin to imagine a giant plushy dragon instead of the actual one.

Weiss stared in awe at the dragons on Kaiba's side of the field. The Schnee found them absolutely breathtaking. If only they weren't used by arguably the biggest jerk they had seen in this dimension so far. She then saw the scene switch to Yugi. "I'm guessing he's Yugi Muto?"

"…Sort of." Saixus cryptically answered which went unnoticed. "You see, after Kaiba beat his grandfather, Yugi challenged Kaiba to a duel using the same deck his grandfather used."

"Uhm, was that a smart move?" Jaune asked while tiling his head sideways. "I mean, if Yugi's grandfather couldn't defeat Kaiba with that deck, then how's Yugi supposed to beat him?"

"Also-." Qrow cut in. "What is up with that guy's hair? How did he even get his hair like that in the first place?"

Ozpin mentally agreed. He had seen some pretty weird hairstyles in his unnaturally long life but this Yugi-person's took the cake.

Kaiba continued to berate Yugi. "You can't possibly stand against my three Blue-Eyes White Dragons. It's over Yugi. You were never a match for me."

"This guy is giving me some serious Jack vibes." Yang muttered angrily.

Qrow turned to his niece. "And who on Remnant is Jack?"

"The biggest jerk I've seen all night." Yang answered.

Pyrrha didn't fully agree with that. "I think this Seto's much worse than Jack. At least Jack never caused someone to end up in a hospital."

'No, but he did endanger a child's life by putting them on a raft in the middle of the ocean.' Is what Saixus wanted to say if he wasn't actively trying not to spoil 5d's for them.

On the sidelines, a tall guy with blonde hair wearing a blue school-uniform shouted in support. "Don't listen Yugi!"

"Who's that?" Ruby asked curiously.

"That's Joey Wheeler." Saixus answered. "Another legendary duelist and Yugi Muto's best friend. He stayed behind to support Yugi while their other friends went to the hospital to look after Yugi's grandfather."

Blake raised an eyebrow at this. "Shouldn't Yugi have gone with his grandfather instead? I get that he's angry at Kaiba but-"

"For the record, Solomon wanted Yugi to duel against Kaiba." Saixus clarified. "In fact, he's the one who gave his cards to Yugi. What, did you think he just stole those cards and left his grandfather laying on the floor to suffer? This isn't the abridged-universe!"

"The wha-"

'Kaiba had three Blue-Eyes all along.' Yugi's thinking interrupted Weiss. 'He only wanted grandpa's card so it couldn't be used against him. My only chance now is to assemble all the pieces of Exodia. But the odds are against me.'

"Exodia?" Nora repeated. "What kind of monster is that?"

"A monster unlike any other." Saixus dramatically answered. "In fact, Exodia is such a powerful monster that the only way to play him is by having all five pieces of him in your hand. Yugi only needs one more piece in order to summon him. But if he doesn't draw it now-"

"He will lose." Ren finished.

"He needs one specific card in order to win?" Weiss asked to which Saixus nodded. "But, that's next to impossible! Look how many cards he still has in his deck. The odds of him drawing the one card he needs is miniscule!"

Yugi seemed to share Weiss' doubts. 'I don't think I can do this.' Just then, Yugi's surroundings disappeared save for his deck, which seemed to move away from him.

"Uhm, what's going on?" Ruby asked in worry.

Blake took a guess. "He must be afraid to draw his next card. The entire outcome of the game depends on what he draws next so his nerves are getting to him."

"Come on Yugi!" Yang started cheering if only because he didn't wanna see this Kaiba-jerk win. "Show that jerk what we think of bullying old guys!"

'The deck, it senses my doubt.' Yugi realized before suddenly a second, shorter Yugi appeared beside him.

"HUH?!" Everyone in the room reacted aside from Saixus and Ozpin, but the latter's eyes did widen considerably.

Ruby voiced out what everyone was wondering. "W-Why are there suddenly two Yugi's on the screen?!"

The taller Yugi tried to calm the smaller one down. "Don't lose focus Yugi, don't lose fate. Concentrate."

"Is Yugi having some kind of mental breakdown?" Pyrrha asked, unsure of what she was seeing.

"I never realized card-games could be so mentally taxing." Ren stated.

Saixus tried to calm them down for now. "I'll explain what's happening to Yugi after the next video. For now, please bear with it."

Blake still looked shocked even after the two Yugi's supposedly got together again, as she mentally analyzed the situation. 'It seemed like Yugi was talking to himself but why would there be two different versions of him in his mind? And why was he talking in the third-person? Could… could this be similar to what happened in that book I read at the beginning of the school year?'

Qrow turned toward the oldest one in the room and whispered "Uhm Oz? You don't think-"

"We'll have to continue watching to be sure but it does seem likely…" Ozpin whispered back as he took a greater interest in the boy on screen. 'I wonder. Could that boy and I share similar circumstances?'

Yugi's gaze then fell on something else. "Huh?" He noticed the markings on his hand. "Our friendship symbol?"

"Friendship symbol?" Nora asked the obvious.

Saixus elaborated. "Before Yugi and his friends split up, Tea, the only girl in their group, marked their hands with a special symbol so they would always be together even if they're apart."

Ruby awed. "That's so sweet!"

"That sounds way too corny for my liking." Yang had to admit before shrugging her shoulders. "But hey, as long as it gets him to calm down."

"I hope that isn't permanent marker." Pyrrha said which caused Saixus to stiffen a snicker.

Suddenly, it appeared as if all of Yugi's friends were there as they held their hands over Yugi's deck.

"Yugi, we're right here with you." Tea said.

"That's Tea by the way. Tea Gardner." Saixus quickly stated.

"Yugi, you've got to believe in yourself." A guy with an up-cut hairstyle encouraged.

"And that guy's Tristan Taylor."

"I like his voice!" Nora stated.

"Don't get used to it." Saixus replied cryptically.

"You can do it!" Joey encouraged Yugi further. "Just kick Kaiba's butt!"

Yang hold back a laugh. "Oh I can tell I'm going to like this guy."

Their advice gave Yugi the strength he needed. "There right, I've got to believe in my cards like my friends believe in me."

"Seems the kid got his confidence back." Qrow stated.

"Guys! We should totally come up with a friendship symbol as well!" Nora told them as she pressed her plushy down on her legs. "But it's got to be something way awesomer then that silly smiley face they came up with."

Jaune recalled the symbol and said "Huh, now that you mention it, that did look a smiley."

Saixus meanwhile had his eyes wide open as this was the first time he realized that mark was a smiley-face. 'How in the hell did I never notice that?! I watched this show more times than I can count, how did I never see that?!"

Epic music started playing in the background as Kaiba started to grow tired of waiting. "Draw your last pathetic card so I can end this Yugi."

"So that's what Kaiba's looks like." Weiss stated as she did not look impressed. "Not what I imagined."

"He does look rather plain compared to Yugi." Pyrrha admitted.

Qrow just stared at the girl with a deadpan face and said "Everyone looks plain when compared to that guy. Did you not see his hair?"

"Hopefully Yugi drew the card he needed." Jaune hoped.

"Aren't you hearing that sweet music?" Nora asked with a smirk. "He definitely drew the right card."

"My grandpa's deck has no pathetic cards Kaiba. But it does contain," Yugi then revealed the card he just drew. "the unstoppable Exodia!"

Kaiba's eyes widen in shock and fear. "AAAGH, IMPOSSIBLE!"

The viewers couldn't help but laugh at the face Kaiba was making, especially Yang. "Now that's the face of a guy who knows he's fucked."

"Yang, don't swear in front of your sis." Qrow said but in a tone that made it sound like he didn't care too much. "Tai would kill me if he found out."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "I'm not a child anymore uncle!" She said while hugging her dog and a Stardust Dragon-plushy. "I can handle swear-words just fine!"

"But you won't ever use them, will ya sis?" Yang said to Ruby with a teasing grin which caused the youngest member of the group to pout.

Yugi put all the gathered pieces on the field and said "I have assembled all five special-cards. All five pieces of the puzzle!"

A giant green-outlined pentagram appeared in front of Yugi. Out of the pentagram came a giant right-hand followed by a giant left-hand before Exodia completely emerged from the portal. He was revealed to be a massive stone spellcaster that dwarfed Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons. His very presence filled the atmosphere with awn and the music accompanying him most certainly didn't lessen it.

The people of Remnant were absolutely awe-struck by Exodia's presence.

"Oh." Ruby started.

"My." Weiss followed.

"Oum." Pyrrha finished.

"HE'S HUGE!" Nora shouted as her eyes had turned into stars.

"He looks absolutely amazing!" Ruby exclaimed as she for a second felt like she had turned back into a kid watching something awesome for the very first time.

"It's… incredible." Was all Ren could say about the Egyptian-themed monster.

"I am so glad I'm not Kaiba right now." Jaune said, hoping with all his heart that he'd never have to face something like that.

"Exodia…" Kaiba spoke out as he was absolutely filled with fear. "I-It's not possible! No one has ever been able to call him!"

Kaiba's face almost made the viewers feel bad for him… almost.

"Really?" Pyrrha turned to their host. "Yugi was the first duelist to ever summon Exodia?"

"He was." Saixus answered. "See, Exodia's one of the hardest monsters to play in the entire game. The main reason being because every single piece of Exodia is an incredibly rare-card. Back in that universe, very few duelists have even a single piece of the forbidden one, much less all five. And even if you have all five pieces, you have to gather them all in your hand to play Exodia and even with today's card-search support, that can still be difficult to pull off."

"So how powerful is this Exodia-guy anyway?" Yang asked. "Does he have a lot of attack-points?"

"Well you see-"

Saixus interrupted himself by continuing the show. Exodia created an orange-energy orb in his hand while his master yelled "Exodia, Obliterate!"

Exodia pulled the orb behind him before firing an immense burst of energy towards Kaiba's dragons. Said dragons got 'obliterated' immediately after getting hit by the blast. The energy rushed over Kaiba, who put his hands in front of himself for protection as he screamed. His life-points were next shown to drop all the way to zero.

If Exodia himself impressed the folks from Remnant, seeing him completely obliterate Kaiba's monsters left them awestruck.

Saixus picked up where he left off. "-Exodia doesn't work like any normal monster. As soon as he's successfully summoned, his owner automatically wins regardless of life-points or what their opponent has on the field."

Weiss tried to process what just happened. "He… he destroyed all those dragons in one hit…"

"Thank Oum we don't have a Grimm-like Exodia running around." Pyrrha stated.

"No kidding." Qrow picked up. "That thing could destroy any of our kingdoms in less than an hour. Good thing it's just a card and not an actual monster."

Saixus knew that statement was gonna change once this next part was over.

---

Episode 2 : Yugi Muto versus Maximillion Pegasus (first duel)

"Oh the next video's starting already!" Ruby stated excitingly as she read the title. "Pegasus? Wait, so Yugi's gonna duel the guy who invented this game?"

"Okay, how is that fair?!" Yang complained loudly.

Nora was confused. "Uhm, who's Pegasus?"

"Oh right, you guys weren't here when he was mentioned." Ruby recalled. "Well according to Saixus, Pegasus was the one who invented Duel Monsters."

"So now Yugi has to duel against the guy that created the game itself?" Pyrrha summarized and could see were Yang was coming from. "That does sound rather unfair."

Weiss also agreed that taking on someone in a game that they themselves designed was more than a little unjust. "Why does the inventor of this game wanna duel Yugi in the first place?"

"You'll learn if you keep watching the episode." Saixus stated, getting ready to really dive down the rabbit-hole.

"Start the clock and make your move Pegasus." The tall Yugi stated before the scene switched to Pegasus. The man had long silver-hair that covered his left-eye and his only visible eye was revealed to be brown. He was also wearing a black-colored suit.

"So that's Pegasus." Weiss noted as she could immediate recognize him as a wealthy individual. "I'm guessing he must be pretty well off if the game he published became so popular."

"He is one of the richest individuals in that world yes." Saixus confirmed. "He was already born into a rich family though and he's the boss of another major corporation called Industrial Illusions."

"Let me guess, he's another rich douchebag that doesn't take no for an answer." Qrow summarized and it didn't take a genius to know he was talking about the Schnee's again, much to Weiss' anger/discomfort.

"Well… he got better…" Saixus cryptically answered.

"I'm guessing this means that the Pegasus we're currently seeing is from back when he was, in your words, a jerk." Blake stated to which Saixus nodded.

Yang however was rolling her eyes over Qrow's statement. "Oh sure, I'm not allowed to swear in front of Ruby but you are? Cheez you're such a hypocrite."

Qrow was about to respond to that… but realized his niece had a very good point. Heck, he swore way more than Yang did without even trying. "(Sigh) Okay fair point. Let's just ignore eachothers swears and tell Tai we did, alright?"

"Deal!" Said both Ruby and Yang at the same time.

"I was talking to your sis Squirt." Qrow said with a grin while Yang let out a laugh.

Ruby pouted again.

"Certainly, let's begin." Pegasus agreed as a timer was revealed that began at 15 minutes and counted down.

Nora looked at the timer confused. "Uhm, what's up with the clock?"

"This duel has a time-limit of 15 minutes." Saixus answered. "If the duel is not over before time's up, then the duelist with the most remaining life-points wins."

Jaune nodded at this while Pyrrha was more focused on the background. "Are they dueling in the middle of the night? Cause the background seems quite dark."

"Yeah, unnaturally dark even." Qrow said while Ozpin narrowed his eyes at the scene. The darkness in the area did not look normal to him at all.

"Nervous Yugi-boy?" Pegasus said in a flamboyant manner as he put a card face-down. "You should be. You have never faced a duelist like me before."

"You may be good-"

Pegasus cut Yugi off. "I assure you I am."

Yugi continued. "But I will beat you to save my friends."

This sudden statement took everyone by surprise. "Save his- Are Yugi's friends in danger?!"

Saixus rubbed the back of his head at Ruby's question. "I'll… explain in a moment."

Suddenly, the eye covered by Pegasus' hair started to glow as he said "You won't save anyone with that dragon-card."

Yugi was shocked that Pegasus somehow knew his next move. "How?!"

Pegasus laughed as it was revealed Yugi's card was indeed a dragon. Koumori Dragon to be precise. "I told you, you've never faced anyone like me before. I know every move you'll make, before you can even make it!"

Jaune had a befuddled look on his face. "Wait, how did he-"

"Did he peak at Yugi's hand somehow?" Pyrrha wondered out loud.

"CHEATER!" Nora yelled angrily. "You can't just sneak a peek at your opponent's hand! That's cheating!"

"And what was with the glowing-light behind his hair?" Qrow asked. "Does he have a lightbulb for an eye or something?"

Saixus decided that now was a good time to discuss the elephant in the room. "Alright, before I start explaining what's going on, I have a question for you all."

"Which is?" Ren asked for everyone.

"Do you believe in magic?"

Everyone was silent for a few seconds as that was not a question they were expecting. Most students looked at Saixus with a face of surprise or disbelief while Ozpin and Qrow exchanged a worried glance.

"…What kind of question is that?!" Weiss asked as she crossed her arms. "Of course there's no such thing as magic!"

"I… would normally agree…." Pyrrha said in an uncertain tone. "But considering Saixus managed to teleport us out of our room and is making stuff appear out of nowhere, plus him being from a different dimension has made me a bit more open-minded."

"Well what I do is more like, you know, bending the laws of reality to my will…" Saixus told them like it was no big deal. "But I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about that other universe. You see, in this world, there are seven powerful relics known as the Millennium Items. These artifacts possess real magical powers. Each one different from the other, yet also similar. Anyone who possess a Millennium Item and is judged worthy of its powers, can use their ancient magics for their own benefit."

Some students like Ruby, Nora, Jaune, Pyrrha and Yang had their eyes widened at the possible existence of magic while Weiss, Blake and Ren remained skeptical. "I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to believe that there are ancient relics out there that can use magic. Such a thing sounds utterly ridiculous."

"Yeaaaaaah…" Qrow nervously said at Weiss' line, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean that, pfft, that sounds a little… farfetched?"

Ozpin shook his head at Qrow's attempted lie.

Saixus spoke up again, making sure not to reveal the ancient relics hidden in this world. "Well they certainly exist in that universe. In fact, that pendant that Yugi carries on his neck is one of them. It's known as the Millennium Puzzle. Meanwhile, Pegasus is in possession of another. Namely the Millennium Eye. And before you ask, yes he actually has the Millennium Eye stuck in his eye-socket."

"Ew! That's gross!" Ruby shouted in disgust.

"Ruby, that's a little rude." Yang told her little sister. "It's not like he plucked out a perfectly good eye just to put this Millennium Eye in its place… right?"

"No, of course not." Saixus answered.

"See Rub-"

"It was forced in by someone else."

Ruby and Weiss nearly threw up and the others looked pretty sick as well.

"It was less gross then it sounds." Saixus waved off. "And considering the Millennium Eye gives him the power to read other people's minds, you could argue that it was quite worth it."

"I'm sorry, that Eye lets him do WHAT?!" Jaune shouted wide-eyed with the others having similar expressions.

"T-That's… that's absurd!" Weiss denied. "There's no Semblance on Remnant that can fully read the minds of other people, or at least not one I've ever heard off!"

"But that would explain how Pegasus knew what card Yugi had in his hand." Ruby pointed out. "He just took the info straight from Yugi's brain!"

Qrow whistled before saying "Damn, that's one way to stay ahead of the competition. Guy most make a killing at poker-nights."

Ozpin was also impressed by the Eye's power. Being able to read the minds of others? With a power like that, he'd never have to worry about spies ever again.

Then again, if a certain witch were to get ahold of something like that... Ozpin decided it was best not to think about.

"If that Eye really works, then Pegasus' way of using it seems rather… petty." Blake stated grabbing the attention of the others around her. "I mean seriously? He's using it to cheat in a card-game. That's about as petty as you can get."

We then skip farther into the duel just as Pegasus put Yugi's monster away in a Dragon Capture Jar card. 'This is crazy, first he reads my mind, then he brings the monster on my card to life.'

"Wait what?" Ruby asked confused. "Is Yugi saying they're playing with real monsters and not just holograms?"

"Well you may not have noticed, but they're not playing with Duel-Disks or on a Duel-Arena." Saixus pointed out.

Jaune took note of this and said "But then… how did that dragon appear…"

"M-Maybe Yugi's just dreaming all of this!" Weiss quickly stated, somehow finding the concept of seeing other people's dreams more believable than magical monsters.

Ozpin was the one who took this news the calmest. "It would seem that there's much more to this game than you all originally thought."

Pegasus explained. "This dark dimension we're in is known as the Shadow-Realm. A mystical place where incredible monsters can be summoned and the impossible is quite possible."

"But what you're telling me can't be true!" Yugi denied.

"Dark dimension? Shadow-Realm? Okay can someone please explain what's going on here!" Weiss all but begged.

Jaune agreed. "Y-Yeah, it kind of feels like we've lost the plot completely."

"Another power all the Millennium Items possess is the ability to summon the Shadow-Realm." Saixus stated as he started speaking in a scary voice while the room seemed to become much darker. "It's a dark place where your worst nightmares can come to live and your every waking moment is a living nightmare. On top of that, monsters become real in this realm, and if you end up losing a game while present in the Shadow-Realm, you can wind-up trapped there for all eternity!"

Ruby was shaking like a leaf as she hugged the person nearest to her, which happened to be Weiss. Normally Weiss would have pushed her away but she wasn't doing too well herself. Pyrrha and Jaune had unconsciously gotten closer together as well as Ren and Nora. Yang and Blake put on a brave face while Qrow and Ozpin narrowed their eyes at the cloak wearing narrator.

Realizing he might have gone a bit far, Saixus made the darkness around him disappeared.

"Tell me Yugi, do you believe there is magic in these cards?" Pegasus asked as it was now shown he wasn't actually there but speaking to Yugi through a television.

"He's speaking to Yugi through a TV?" Nora asked before saying "That's… actually pretty normal."

"Yeah, Pegasus is likely nowhere near Yugi's house so it makes sense that he contacts him like this." Jaune stated while Saixus took a double take in. He remembered when he was terrified of Pegasus talking to Yugi through a television when he was a kid but in this day and age, that's pretty much the most normal thing in the world.

Then again, he did use a VHS-tape to contact him instead of the internet. …The fact that Saixus knows what a VHS-tape is made him feel old.

"Don't you know?" Yugi asked sarcastically. "You invented this game."

"What if I told you I didn't?"

"Huh?!" This caught Yugi off-guard.

"He didn't invent this game?" Ren repeated. "Does that mean he stole it from someone else?"

"(Gasp!), that's plagiarism!" Ruby of all people shouted.

"…How do you know what that is?" Weiss couldn't help but ask.

"Back when Ruby went to Signal, there was this guy in her class that wanted to copy her weapon." Yang explained. "When the teacher didn't do anything about it, Ruby purchased a law-book and threatened to sue the kid if he tried to copy Crescent Rose."

"…This is surprisingly the exact answer I was expecting to hear." Weiss said deadpanned while Ruby pouted.

"In ancient times, the Egyptians called this the Shadow Game." Pegasus explained. "Powerful Pharaoh's would hold mystical duels in other dimensions, just as we're doing now. But not with cards. They battled with real monsters and real magic. Magical forces so powerful, the Egyptians lost control of them and nearly destroyed the entire world!"

Everyone went wide eyed at Pegasus' story.

"T-The monsters on those cards nearly destroyed the entire world?!" Jaune stated loudly.

"Holy shit..." Yang slowly commented. "Those creatures have more in common with Grimm then we thought."

"Not entirely though. From the sound of it, these monsters could only be summoned by other people, meaning these 'Egyptians' endangered themselves." Blake pointed out. "The Grimm on the other hand… well, we don't really know how they came to be but I doubt they were brought forth by other people."

Ozpin didn't comment on that and instead narrowed his eyes at the screen. It would seem that dangerous monsters weren't restricted to just Remnant.

Yugi wasn't buying it. "It's a good story Pegasus, but these monsters can't be real!"

Weiss agreed full-heartedly with Yugi. "We shouldn't be buying anything Pegasus is saying. For all we know, he could just be making up this story so he can stall for time!"

"Stall for time?" Nora repeated before the answer hit her. "Oh right, they're still playing with a time-limit!"

"Then stop monologuing and play already!" Yang yelled at the card-designer, even though he could not hear her.

"Tell that to my Dragon Piper," Pegasus declared as he summoned a purple vase holding a flute. "as his Flute of Resurrection frees your Koumori Dragon, but puts him under my control!"

"I have to counter-attack!" Yugi realized as he played a new monster on the field. "Silver Fang!"

Yugi's new monster was a furious looking wolf-

Blake flinched at the close-dog relative.

-that jumped towards the TV, only for Koumori Dragon's head to come out before launching a stream of fire at the forest creature. Silver Fang had no chance against the flames, and got burned to ash.

"Well he didn't last long." Yang said unimpressed while Blake smirked at seeing the nearest relative to dogs get burned.

"Argh the heat!" Yugi stated as Koumori Dragon's flames went past him and his life-points dropped to 1500.

"Wait! W-Were those flames real?!" Weiss shouted in shock. While she was still convinced that there was no such thing as magic, she knew Yugi had no reason to fake his reaction.

"I did mention that monsters become real in this realm." Saixus repeated. "Why would their attacks be any different?"

"T-That's beyond messed up!" Jaune said loudly. "Why would anyone want to play a game in a place like this?!"

Pegasus was entertained by his opponent's suffering. "Ha! As you see Yugi these monsters are very real, hehehe, and also quite dangerous, hahahahehehe!"

"There's your answer." Qrow said with narrowed eyes. "The man's a lunatic."

Pegasus continued. "Ah, Yugi-boy. You really are quite entertaining. The way you scowl and sneer so defiant and yet helpless. And so completely ignorant of the power of your Millennium Puzzle."

"What?" Yugi asked confused.

"You mean Yugi's Puzzle has powers too?" Ruby questioned.

"Seems that way." Pyrrha stated. "But from the sound of it, Yugi has no idea how to use these powers."

"And I highly doubt Pegasus is gonna tell him how to use them." Ren concluded.

"Five thousand years ago, a powerful Pharaoh locked the power of the Shadow Games away." Pegasus explained.

"What's this have to do with me?" Yugi asked.

"The Pharaoh captured these vast magical energies in seven mystical Millennium Items." Pegasus answered.

"Seven items? You're saying that... my Puzzle's one of them?" Yugi asked to be sure.

"Is this why Pegasus' dueling Yugi in the first place?" Blake asked, her skepticism lost a while ago. "So that he can get control of the power inside the Millennium Puzzle?"

"There's more to the story then that, but yes." Saixus answered.

"But why duel him for it?" Ren asked befuddled. "Pegasus is a wealthy individual. He could simply hire some thugs to steal it from Yugi and that's that. Why would he use these 'Shadow Games' to get what he wants?"

"I did say that you have to be worthy of a Millennium Item in order to use it." Saixus reminded. "Pegasus may be worthy of the Millennium Eye, but if he wants the Puzzle he needs to first prove that he's worthy of it."

"By defeating its current wielder in a duel?" Ozpin guessed to which Saixus nodded.

We skip a tiny bit as we see Pegasus use his Millennium Eye to look into Yugi's hand, revealing a skeleton like monster.

"Woah, Yugi's monsters are pretty scary looking." Nora commented, to which Ruby agreed while shaking a bit at the sight of the skeleton.

Yugi eyed the cards in his hand. 'I've gotta try something, maybe my Zombie Warrior!'

"Don't!" Ruby hastily yelled. "He knows what you are planning!"

"Well what else can he do?" Qrow asked his student. "Because honestly, I can't think of any way Yugi can still win this game if Pegasus can just see all the cards in his hand."

As if hearing Ruby's warning, Yugi rethought his move. 'Wait a minute, he definitely knows what I'm about to do. But how? It's gotta have something to do with that weird eye of his. That's it, isn't it? That weird eye must somehow let him see the cards in my hand. So no matter which card I pick, he's already one step ahead of me. But that gives me an idea.'

"Hurry up now, Yugi-boy. Time is running out for you and your friends." Pegasus reminded him.

'I guess he's expecting me to play one of the cards in my hand. But what if I play a card even I haven't seen yet?! What happens if I draw a new card straight from the deck without even looking at it?' Yugi thought as he placed a card from his deck and put it directly on the field.

Qrow blinked at the screen. "That… is both stupid and genius at the same time. On the one hand, he's got no idea what card he just played, but neither does Pegasus."

Weiss wanted to comment that there had to be some other trick Pegasus was using to read Yugi's hand but was too distracted by the obvious flaws in Yugi's strategy. "B-But how can Yugi know for sure that the card he just drew was a monster? Is he even allowed to play his cards like that?"

"I guess he is or else Pegasus would have called him out on it already." Pyrrha figured.

Pegasus, unaware of Yugi's plan… somehow… made his move. "I already know you plan to play the Zombie Warrior, and I'm already prepared to counter it with a trap card that makes even zombies lie down and play dead."

Yugi smirked at this. "Not this time. I figured out your little game, Pegasus. You may be able to see the cards in my hand, but you can't see the cards I pull from the deck."

This seemed to catch Pegasus' interest. "Hmm?"

"My next card is... the Dark Magician!" Yugi revealed, as he flipped the card from before face-up. On it was the picture of a man wearing strange purple-armor, holding a green scepter.

"Alright!" Nora cheered. "He got passed Pegasus' mind-reading!"

"HOW?!" Weiss was all types of confused again. "If Pegasus can truly read Yugi's mind, which I still doubt, then wouldn't he know what Yugi was up to? Not to mention Yugi's new monster is too high-leveled to summon without any sacrifices!"

"Actually, early Duel Monsters didn't have the rule of sacrificing monsters." Saixus revealed. "That rule got added later to make the game more balanced."

"That makes sense." Jaune admitted. "Otherwise people would just stack their decks with powerful monsters and overwhelm their opponents that way."

"Whoa, the big, scary Dark Magician." Pegasus said sarcastically, not seeing Dark Magician as a threat at all."

Yugi did not let this discourage him. "Mock me all you like, Pegasus. But my magician will destroy that dragon."

"Go right ahead, if you think it'll help." Pegasus challenged.

"It'll do more than help, Pegasus. It'll bring you closer to defeat and bring me closer to saving my friends." Yugi said confidently

"If it can do all that, by all means, play it." Pegasus rebutted.

Qrow didn't like this. One-eye was far too calm. "You know, for a guy that just got outplayed, he doesn't seem worried about Yugi's new monster at all."

Ozpin nodded to this. "He must have some kind of strategy ready."

"Dark Magician!" Yugi declared as Dark Magician appeared on the field. "Dark Magic Attack!"

The original main-monster attacked Koumori Dragon by stretching out his hand and making the entire area shock in negative-colors. Koumori dragon caught fire while Pegasus stretched out his hand and let out a painful cry, as his life-point went from 2000 to 1200.

"Ha! Take that, jerk!" Nora cheered.

"Finally a break for Yugi!" Ruby cheered as well.

"By the way, I should probably mention that Dark Magician happens to be Yugi's ace-monster." Saixus commented.

"Really?" Ren asked in surprise. "I thought Exodia was Yugi's ace."

"He probably means in terms of monsters that can be used without having to gather 5 different cards just to play it." Blake figured, missing Saixus' awkward whistle.

We skip to the end of the duel as time was almost up.

"Uhm, did we skip ahead again?" Ruby asked confused.

"Look we're only at the second episode and there's a lot more to cover." Saixus explained. "If I don't cut the episodes somewhat, we'll never get back to 5d's."

Yugi had not lost fate yet as he drew precisely he card he needed to end this duel. "Time's not up yet, Pegasus. And you've left your Faceless Mage vulnerable to a physical assault." Yugi showed that the card in his hand was a massive skeleton with 2500 attack-points.

The image of Summoned Skull surprised the viewers. It looked far more menacing than anything else they had seen so far.

Nora didn't know why, but she fell some kind of kingship with the giant skeleton.

This certainly startled the game-creator as Yugi played the new monster. "Summoned Skull, attack!"

The nightmarish monster appeared on the field and rushed toward Faceless Mage, but time ran out before he could finish his attack.

While they first wanted to comment on the giant skeleton's appearance, the monster's sudden disappearance caught them all off guard.

"Uhm, what just happened?" Ruby asked confused

"It would appear time has run out." Pyrrha pointed out.

"We all saw that." Qrow said to the Mistral champion. "What we wanna know is, who won?"

Pegasus was pleased with this result. "Well, we've run out of time. But how close was that? If you had been able to complete that attack, I would have lost. But I didn't, did I?"

"Wait WHAT?!" Yang was outraged at this. "Are you telling us Yugi lost just because time ran out?! What kind of BS is that?!"

"Pegasus spend a large portion of this duel explaining the origins of this game." Ozpin stated. "Miss Weiss her assumptions of Pegasus doing so just to stall for time might have been more accurate then we first thought."

"Told you!" Weiss felt validated.

Pegasus continued. "I have taken the measure of your talents this day, Yugi Moto. And when next we duel, we shall play for far higher stakes."

"I'm done with your games!" Yugi stated angrily.

Yang agreed. "Yeah you tell him Yugi! This cheat doesn't deserve the time of day!"

Pegasus shook his finger at Yugi and said "You presume I'm giving you a choice in the matter. But..." Pegasus drew back his hair and revealed to Yugi what was underneath. "I'm not, for I too possess one of the seven Millennium Items. The all-powerful Millennium Eye!"

"A Millennium Eye?" Yugi said in shock.

This was the first time the watchers got a good luck at Pegusus' Millennium Item.

"So that's the relic that lets him read people's minds." Ozpin said curiously.

Pyrrha eyed the Eye warily. "While such a power does sound useful, losing an eye for it seems like a heavy price to pay."

"Yeah but I can think of a few people who would happily make that trade if only to become more powerful." Qrow stated with his sister at the top of that list.

"Okay can you all stop talking about that stupid Eye as if it actually has magic-powers!" Weiss yelled loudly at the others. "For the hundredth time, there is no such thing as magi-"

"That's right, Yugi-boy. And now I'll show you the true extent of its magic. You see, I have found that, given the proper incentive, anyone can be made to play my game." Pegasus declared as he used to power of his Millennium Eye to steal the soul of Yugi's grandpa.

"Yuuuuugggiiiiiiiiii!" The soul of Solomon Moto said as he seemed trapped within the TV.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" The students shouted in shock while Ren's, Qrow's and Ozpin's stared at the screen in disbelief.

"Did… did he just steal mister Muto's soul?" Blake asked wide-eyed. "As in his actual living soul?!"

Weiss looked at the screen in disbelief as her skepticism took a crippling blow. "T-that's not... not… possible..."

"We also didn't think an eyeball could read people's minds but that's also been disproven!" Jaune declared while Ruby hugged Zwei and Stardust for comfort.

"B-But how could he steal his grandpa's soul when he wasn't even the one Pegasus was dueling against?" Pyrrha wanted to know.

"Well Yugi's grandpa didn't have any kind of protection to prevent his soul from getting stolen either." Saixus told her. "Only Yugi's Puzzle could have saved the old man, but he did just lose a Shadow Game so he was likely too drained to make a rescue-attempt."

Qrow looked at the person trapped within a television. "Now that… that's just horrifying." After everything he's seen he knows removing a person's soul from their bodies was far from impossible. Heck, there was a machine underneath Beacon that could basically do the same thing.

"Indeed…" Ozpin commented but in the back of his mind his interest in the Millennial Items had only grown. If they could be used to steal the souls of men, could they perhaps work on a certain immortal witch as well?

However, Ozpin also quickly realized that if Salem ever got hold of such an item and used it on him, it would likely put a stop to his reincarnation-cycle as well.

"Sooo… do you think if any of our souls got trapped in a television we would still have our Auras?" Nora questioned, trying her best to lighten the mood. "Heck, would our Semblance transfer as well, cuz if so, infinite power-ups for me!"

The grown-ups and most of the students blinked at Nora's question, not knowing how to respond.

Yugi turned back into his smaller self before rushing to the TV. "Grandpa!"

Yugi suddenly shrinking into a younger-looking person took everyone off guard once again.

"Did-Did Yugi just become smaller?" Yang asked confused.

"Smaller?" Qrow asked deadpanned. "The teen just lost like half his size!"

"Yes, we will duel again, Yugi. How else will you reclaim your grandfather's soul?" Pegasus threatened as the screen turned completely static. The darkness surrounding the room disappeared and Yugi's friends became able to move again. All but Yugi's grandpa, who fell on the floor as soon as the darkness was lifted.

'He really did lose his soul…' Weiss thought to herself as she was finally starting to accept magic being a part of that universe.

Yugi shook the TV as he emotionally yelled "Grandpa! Grandpa! GRANDPAAAAAA!"

Seeing the smaller Yugi shake the TV like that while calling out to his grandpa caused the viewers to shake off their shock and replace it with sadness and anger.

"That bastard…" Yang said angrily while grunting her teeth and clutching her fists. "How dare he steal someone's soul like that! What did that guy ever do to him?!"

"The way he was talking makes me think he's gonna use Solomon's soul as some sort of bargaining-chip." Blake said while also looking at the television in distaste.

"You're correct." Saixus stated, deciding now was a good time to explain a few things. "Remember how I said Pegasus wants Yugi's Millennium Puzzle? Well he pretty much stole his grandfather's soul so he can force Yugi to duel him again in the future."

Ruby was confused. "But… didn't Pegasus already defeat Yugi just now?"

"Technically… yes, but I think we can all agree that winning by time-limit when your opponent is just about to deliver the final blow, isn't exactly a worthy win." Saixus reasoned.

"So he has to duel Yugi again and win the traditional way if he wants that puzzle." Ren followed.

"Okay but what the hell happened to Yugi at the end of the duel?" Nora asked curiously. "People don't just shrink out of nowhere… well not before reaching a certain age anyway."

"And he looked exactly like that younger Yugi we saw in the first part." Blake brought up as she turned to the intruder. "Care to fill in our gaps?"

Saixus coughed in his hand before starting to explain some important plot-points. "In his younger years, Solomon Moto used to be an archeologist, who one day discovered an ancient box with in it the Millennium Puzzle in multiple pieces. Solomon was never able to complete the puzzle, but the Yugi we just saw managed to complete it after eight years of trying."

"He spend eight years trying to finish a puzzle?!" Yang asked in surprise. "If it were me, I'd have giving up after eight minutes."

'More like eight seconds.' Ruby thought to herself.

Saixus continued. "Once Yugi finished the Millennium Puzzle, he awakened the spirit of an ancient Pharaoh that was locked inside said puzzle for 5000 years. Yugi now shares his body with an amnesiac spirit and whenever they duel, the spirit takes over Yugi's body and duels in his stead."

"He… shares his body with an ancient spirit?" Pyrrha asked a little skeptically. "That's… kind of hard to belief."

"Which is why I waited till the end of the second episode to reveal it." Saixus claimed. "I mean come on, you guys have seen monsters becoming real, real damage being done and a person's soul getting stolen. I think two spirits inhabiting the same body isn't that hard to belief at this point."

Qrow wanted to argue but then realized he was sitting next to a person with an ancient soul himself. "…He's got a point."

Said ancient person went over the info he had just received. 'There are some similarities but unlike me this spirit doesn't remember anything about his previous life, and that's 'life' in singular. If nobody found that puzzle before Yugi's grandpa did, then it's quite likely Yugi is the spirit's first and possibly only host. Would they eventually fuse together? Or can they be separated if that Puzzle comes off his neck?'

"I'm pretty sure you guys still have questions." Saixus stated the obvious. "So shoot!"

"I have a question!" Nora raised her hand. "What the heck is a Pharaoh anyway?"

"That's basically what the ancient Egyptians called their kings." Saixus revealed.

"What kind of people were these Egyptians?" Ozpin asked in interest.

Saixus gave him a brief summary. "The Egyptians were one of the earliest civilization on that planet." Not mentioning Atlantis yet. "They were a very religious culture who worshipped multiple gods and were located in ancient Egypt, which is pretty much a desert kingdom like Vacuo."

"…Does he have a name?"

This question was surprisingly asked by Weiss of all people, causing Ruby to turn to the heiress. "Uhm, what?"

"This… ancient spirit that's sharing Yugi's body." Weiss clarified. "Does he have a name or is he also called Yugi?"

"Like I said, the spirit doesn't really remember anything from his past, including his own name, but he will later be addressed as Yami." Saixus answered, deciding to keep the Pharaoh's true name a secret for now.

"Good." Weiss said as she sit up straight. "That will be much less confusing."

Everybody just stared at the heiress in disbelief. She had been denying the existents of magic the entire time and now she was suddenly onboard?

"Who are you and what have you done with Weiss?" Yang asked 100% seriously.

Weiss gave a quick glare at the blonde as she crossed her arms and said "I've just… changed my mind about magic not being real, okay? Like Saixus said, after everything we just watched it would be pointless to deny."

"That's… pretty mature of you miss Schnee." Ozpin admitted.

"Besides, it's only this other dimension that apparently has magic." Weiss stated clearly. "If you'd tell me that magic also exists in ours, then I'd be a lot more skeptical."

Ozpin decided it was best not to respond while Yang rolled her eyes and said "Cuz you were such a skeptic already."

Weiss narrowed her eyes at Yang and pouted while her other classmates and Qrow fought back their snickers.

Pyrrha however stopped as she realized something. "Hold on, if magic exists in this other world, then could that explain why that strange dragon appeared during Yusei's and Jack's duel?"

The others stopped laughing as they blinked in realization.

"That's… certainly a possibility now…" Weiss admitted slowly.

"And by possibility, she means likely as heck." Nora exclaimed.

Ozpin and Qrow had no idea what they were talking about but Saixus cut in before they could voice any questions. "You guys can theorize later. It's time for the third clip."

---

Episode 3 : Yugi and Joey's Flashback

"Oh, no duel this time?" Ruby asked to which Saixus nodded.

"Yep. In this clip you're gonna see how Yugi and Joey first became friends." Saixus revealed.

"Not that it isn't nice to get a break from watching card-games, but would you mind telling us how any of this is relevant to the future?" Weiss asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Actually, this is arguably gonna be the most relevant scene you're gonna watch all interlude." Saixus revealed, which caused the interest of the students to rise.

Yugi and Joey were both laying with their backs against a wall on the roof of their school. Joey turned to Yugi and asked "Remember the first time we met?"

"Woah, we're going straight into this." Nora commented.

Yugi nodded to Joey and said "I'll never forget it. It was all because of the Millennium Puzzle."

The flashback began with Yugi holding the Millennium Puzzle but it was still in pieces and contained within a golden box of some sort.

"So this was back before Yugi had finished the Millennium Puzzle." Blake commented before noticing the box. "Wait, is that box also a Millennium Item? Cuz it has the same characteristics as both the Puzzle and the Eye."

"What, like a Millennium Box?" Nora asked with a frown. "If so, that's easily the lamest Millennium Item ever."

Saixus simply said "No the box is not a Millennium Item, but it is gonna play an important rule later in the story."

"How much later?" Blake asked.

"Near the end of it."

"And how long is it gonna take before we get there?" Qrow asked with a raised eyebrow.

"220 episodes." Saixus revealed causing everyone's to blink at him.

Weiss let out a sigh and said "I'm never going back to sleep, am I?"

"The way grandpa explained it to me, the Puzzle was originally found in some Egyptian ruins." Yugi began. "My grandpa gave it to me and kind of dared me to solve it. It was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. As soon as I touched it, I knew it was special. I made a wish on the Puzzle. I asked it to give me a real friend. And I think the puzzle came through for me. That was when I met up with you and Tristan."

"Aaww!" Ruby said adorably. "That's so precious!"

"Poor Yugi though." Pyrrha said with concern in her voice. "It sounds like he didn't have many friends growing up."

"Who wouldn't wanna be friends with someone with such awesome hair?!" Nora asked in disbelief. If Yugi went to their school, she would have befriended him on day one.

Yugi then snarkely stated "Although you sure didn't act like my friends at first."

Ruby blinked at this. "Wait, what?"

Joey cut off the flashback to explain his actions. "Hah, you mean when we were playing keep away with the Millennium Puzzle? It was for you, man. We just wanted to toughen you up so you could stand up to the real bullies. We were only teasing you."

"Teasing?" Yugi asked in disbelief. "You took a piece of the Millennium Puzzle and threw it out the window."

Joey was shown as he threw the center-piece of the Puzzle into a river near the school.

"What the heck dude!" Yang yelled in disbelief. "You call that teasing?!"

"That was an ancient priceless artifact, you giant fool!" Weiss shouted. She was no Oobleck but that didn't mean she didn't see the value in ancient history.

"To be fair, who takes a golden ancient artifact to school in the first place?" Qrow asked. "That's just asking for someone to steal it."

"How did these two go from that to being friends?" Jaune asked completely baffled. He sure as heck would never wanna be friends with Cardin after all he did to him.

Yugi added "And I was the one who helped you guys out when that bully picked on you."

"The definition of irony." Blake commented.

Ren however was more focused on the bully standing in front of Yugi. "Hey, isn't that-"

"He was a mean one alright." Joey remembered as the face of their bully was shown.

"TRUDGE?!" The students shouted in major disbelief.

"What's he doing there?!" Yang questioned angrily.

"That guy went to the same school as Yugi?!" Ruby asked in surprise.

Weiss face-palmed. "And of course he's a major bully. Why am I not surprised?"

Qrow blinked in confusion. "Okay, I know I'm starting to sound like a record at this point, but who the heck is this guy?"

"I'm guessing he's someone you've already seen in the future episodes?" Ozpin reasoned.

Pyrrha nodded. "In the future, he's a police-officer with a grudge against Yusei, the guy we're following around in that timeline."

"He even dueled Yusei in the very first episode!" Ruby put in. "He's a major meanie!"

"Was a major meanie." Jaune reminded her. "We believe he probably… died after getting hit by a flood made out of trash."

"Actually, we're not sure if he died by that." Pyrrha stated before grimacing. "Though if he did survive that flood, he's likely in a hospital with all his bones broken."

"Was this uhm, 'trash-flood' really so bad?" Qrow asked, just rolling with it at this point.

"There were cars in it, so yes." Blake answered. "And remember that the people in this world don't have Auras."

Both Qrow and Ozpin shuddered, because that did not sound like a fun way to go.

"What do we do?" Flashback Tristan asked scared before Joey shushed him.

"Well look who just showed up, it's little Yugi. Just in time to watch me wipe the floor with these guys." The younger looking Trudge stated menacingly.

"Get back! Leave them alone!" Yugi demanded.

"Who's going to stop me? A little shrimp like you?" Trudge asked in disbelief. "I don't think so. Get lost."

Yugi quickly ran in front of Trudge and spread his arms out to protect Joey and Tristan."I won't let you. These guys are my friends!"

Qrow was impressed. "Wow, for a small fry, he sure is gutsy."

"Reminds me of when you jumped in front of Cardin to protect him from that Ursa back in Forever Fall." Pyrrha recalled with a smile which caused Jaune to blush a little.

"Huh?" Joey said, not understanding why Yugi was defending them.

Trudge laughed at Yugi's pathetic rescue attempt. "Okay, tough guy. You jumped to the head of the line. Say your prayers, you runt."

Trudge then proceeded to beat the crap out of Yugi, who could to nothing but tank the hits.

"STOP!" Ruby yelled at sight of little Yugi getting beat up and nobody stopping Trudge. "HE'S DONE NOTHING TO DESERVE THAT!"

Nora agreed. "I'D BREAK HIS LEGS IF I COULD!"

"All of a sudden, I don't feel so bad about this guy getting trashed anymore." Pyrrha stated with a cold-stare.

"You stood up for us, Yugi." Joey spoke up. "I'll never forget that. Because of you, we got that moron expelled."

"Good!" Weiss commented and the others were pleased as well. "He deserved nothing less."

"Hold on." Ren was confused. "How did he manage to become an officer if he got expelled?"

"Yeah, don't the police have like, a ton of regulations one has to follow just to join?" Yang asked. "You'd think they wouldn't accept someone who got kicked out of school."

Qrow shrugged at this. "Maybe the kid had connections that made the higher-ups look the other way."

Joey continued. "And Tristan and I learned what it was like to have a true friend."

Joey was then shown swimming in the river as he retrieved the piece of the Millennium Puzzle he had thrown away. "Well, at least you retrieved the lost puzzle piece. If you hadn't done that, I could never have solved the Millennium Puzzle."

"So that's how they became friends." Pyrrha said, quite touched by the story.

Ruby was doing her best not to cry. "Sniff, that was so heartwarming!"

"He's lucky that puzzle-piece didn't get washed away though." Yang commented. "Imagine if it got swept away by the currents."

Weiss nodded at this. "Those puzzle-pieces must be quite heavy for them not to get carried away by the river."

"Makes me wonder how heavy the actual Puzzle is." Nora said nonchalantly. "Kid must have some serious abs around his neck if he carries that thing around all day."

Saixus coughed to get everyone's attention. "All right, a little more info before we watch the next scenes. The following moments are gonna take place during a Duel Monsters tournament named Duelist Kingdom, which takes place on an island under the same name. Yugi… well technically Yami, is forced to participate in this tournament because the man in charge of said tournament is Pegasus himself. If Yugi/Yami manage to survive the entire tournament, he'll get the chance to duel against Pegasus again and win his grandpa's soul back. Simply put, winning this tournament is the only way Yugi has to save his grandpa."

"Wait a minute..." Qrow was confused. "You're telling us that One-eye stole the old man's soul… to force that spirit guy into joining a card-game tournament? …Why?!"

"That's… a good question." Ren agreed. "If what he's after is Yugi's Puzzle, why force him through an entire tournament instead of simply dueling him again himself?"

"There is an actual reason for that, but it's better I explain that in a later clip." Saixus told them.

---

Episode 5 : Yami versus Weevil Underwood

Ruby read the name of Yami's opponent. "Weevil Underwood?"

Yang let out a laugh at that name. "50 bucks says this guy uses bugs."

"I'd be disappointed if he didn't." Nora agreed. With a name like that, it was no rocket-science what kind of cards he would use.

Weiss grimaced at this. "Not again! Lenny's bugs were bad enough. I don't wanna watch someone else use those giant-sized abominations!"

"Maybe Weevil's bugs won't be as bad?" Ruby tried to assure her.

The scene started with Yami laughing while facing Great Moth.

Weiss turned green at the sight of the gigantic green moth before turning to an awkward laughing Ruby. "You were saying?"

"Hey, hey! What are you so happy about?" A boy with green hair wearing yellow-glasses and a green-jacket asked. "Stop that snickering!"

"Wow." Yang said in an annoyed tone. "That has got to be the most annoying voice I have ever heard."

Jaune agreed. "He sounds like he's got something stuck in his throat."

Yami explained himself. "Weevil, I know it will be very difficult for you to accept losing a duel. Especially after spending so much time finding inventive ways to cheat."

Yang shook her head in disappointed. "First Pegasus and now this guy? What's the point of winning if you have to cheat for it?"

Ruby looked at Yang deadpanned. "Says the girl who 'advised' Weiss to make a certain move only to immediately counter it."

"That's different!" Yang said, wanting to defend her honor. "I never forced Weiss to make that move, I told her she COULD make it. I never said she should."

Weiss rolled her eyes while Pyrrha asked "So how did this Weevil cheat then?"

"Apparently he somehow managed to steal the rulebook for the tournament." Saixus revealed. "In which he discovered how to give himself a very unfair advantage. You see, there are Duel-Arena's all over this island, and said arenas have built-in field-spells so certain types of monsters can gain a field-power bonus if they're summoned onto their hometurfs. Weevil lured Yugi and his friends towards this particular field cause it was mostly forest, and insects get more power on such a field."

"And he got that from a rulebook he stole?" Blake asked with a raised eyebrow. "Wouldn't such a thing be under strict security? How did this kid manage to get his hands on it?"

"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Pegasus let the kid steal that rulebook if only to give Yami more of a challenge." Saixus stated, even though he knew in the subbed Weevil was just told about this by Pegasus as an extra prize for winning the regional championship. "But that's still nothing compared to what Weevil did before the tournament had even officially started."

"Why? What did he do then?" Jaune asked.

"He asked Yugi if he could see his Exodia-cards and Yugi, being the nice but naïve kid he is, handed said cards over to Weevil, who then immediately threw them overboard while they were heading to the island."

"WHAT?!" Ruby yelled in shock. "HE LOST EXODIA?!"

Weiss resisted the urge to face-palm and sighed instead. "What on Remnant made Yugi think giving his most powerful cards to a complete stranger was a good idea?"

"Like I said, nice but naïve." Saixus repeated and both teams got reminded of their leaders. "One more thing, in order for Yugi/Yami to duel Pegasus, he has to collect 10 Starchips first. Every competitor gets 2 Starchips and they have to bet in the beginning of the duel how many Starchips the winner will get from the loser. If you run out of Starchips, you're officially out of the tournament."

"So there are no brackets in this tournament?" Pyrrha asked curiously. "It's one big survival-battle?"

"One that covers the entire island." Saixus answered. "And there are brackets in this tournament but those won't come into play until enough competitors have collected 10 Starchips.

Weiss was thinking up the best strategy already. "Well in that case the safest thing to do would be to only bet one Starchip on the first match so Yugi can still continue in the tournament in case he loses."

"That's unfortunately not an option." Saixus said. "See, Joey wanted to compete in this tournament too but he didn't get an invite so Yugi gave him one of his Starchips so he could compete as well."

"…Was he allowed to do that?" Jaune asked bewildered.

"Apparently." Said Saixus with raised shoulders.

"But if you thought bending the rules would help you win this match, you're wrong." Yami stated confidently.

Weevil did not believe this. "No! This is a trick!"

"You play dishonestly so you expect the same of your opponents. But I duel with honor Weevil, and that makes all the difference." Yami said while preparing his final move.

Ren agreed with Yami's assumption. "Criminals do tend to be wary of one another."

Pyrrha nodded at this. "Honor is its own reward."

Weevil grinded his teeth and said "You've got nothing!"

"Here's what I got." Yami said as played a new monster. "The mighty, Summoned Skull!"

The field lit up as purple fog gathered around, creating a vortex were a giant skeleton came out of. Said skeleton let out a terrifying cry as it stepped onto the field.

"This guy again?" Weiss said wary. Wasn't the giant bug bad enough?

"That really isn't a monster you'd expect a good guy to use." Jaune said, thinking the fiend would make for a pretty terrifying Grimm.

Nora disagreed. "Well I think he looks awesome."

"Whoa. What's that?" A blond woman with purple eyes wearing a purple jacket asked.

"Who's this woman?" Blake asked for the group.

"Mai Valentine." Saixus told her. "She's another duelist who's participating in the tournament."

"This is the first female duelist we've seen so far." Pyrrha pointed out, not realizing Tea also played the game.

"Well she certainly looks like a lady who can handle herself." Yang said while approving of Mai's looks. "Plus I like her style."

"This is it Weevil. Your ultimate insect won't withstand my next attack." Yami said fully sure of himself.

Weevil tried to calm himself as he thought 'Ha! Yugi must be losing it. His Summoned Skull IS strong, but my Great Moth's stronger still! If he's foolish enough to attack, my monster will most certainly squish his monster, and wipe out the rest of Yugi's precious life-points as well!'

Yami laughed again as if he read Weevil's mind. "There's something you overlooked Weevil. My magical mist is still dampening this entire field."

Both Weevil and Mai gasped at this as the former said "He's right!" He looked at the field in fear as a droplet of water fell on the ground. "Everything's wet! My Great Moth's totally soaked!"

"How did that happen?" Jaune asked, confused by the sight of the wet bug.

"Earlier in the game, Yami used a card called Makiu, The Magical Mist." Saixus explained. "It basically made a downpour which Yami needed to wash away the poison that moth was giving off. Otherwise said poison would have drained Yami's monsters attack-points down to zero."

Weiss was utterly confused by this. "So, what? Did this magic mist negate Great Moth's ability or-?"

Saixus really didn't know how to answer this question. "…Technically? Look, early Duel Monsters was weird. You'll agree with me in a few minutes."

Seriously, they might as well call early Duel Monsters the D&D edition.

Yami then stated an interesting piece of trivia. "And my Summoned Skull attacks with electricity, making your waterlogged bug a giant-sized lightning-rod."

Nora perked up at this. "Ohoho! Bring on the lightning!"

"I hope you're in the mood for some fireworks Weevil, because all this water boosts my monster's electrical attack by one thousand points." Yami said as Summoned Skull's attack-power climbed to 3500.

"Summoned Skull, Lightning Strike!" Yami ordered as electricity rushed out of Summoned Skull's body and into the sky, causing a giant strike of lightning to shoot down and hit Great Moth head on. The giant soaked bug stood no chance against the attack and exploded, letting out a final death-cry before his remains fell on the ground on fire.

Nora cheered at the massive lightning attack. "WOOOO! That skull ROCKS!"

The fire illuminated Yami's face as he said "It's over, I won."

Weevil stared at his defeated bug in denial. "No! Impossible! My Moth's unbeatable!" His life-points dropped to zero before he fainted on the ground.

"Wow, what a drama-queen." Yang said deadpanned. "Ruby might cry after losing a game, but at least she doesn't faint on the spot."

Ruby narrowed her eyes before pointing her tongue out at the older sibling.

---

Episode 6 : Joey Wheeler versus Mai Valentine

"Seems like we'll see Yugi's friend duel this time." Ozpin stated.

"And against the woman we saw earlier." Ren pointed out.

"That's it." Joey realized before narrowing his eyes at Mai. "I see through your card trick!"

"Huh?" Mai asked pretending to be ignorant.

"You've sprayed all your cards with different perfumes!" Joey stated as he could now clearly smell the different aromas on her cards. "And by smelling each different scent, you can tell which card is which, even when they're face-down. So you don't have to look in order to play your cards. That way, you can psych the other player out!"

And now Yang wished that she never complemented Mai's fashion-sense. "Oh for crying out- how many cheaters are there in this tournament?! First Pegasus, then Weevil, now her!"

Mai looked comically at Joey in disbelief. "No way! How could an amateur punk like you see through my aroma-strategy! It's just impossible!"

"How did he figure out something like that?" Jaune asked, both impressed and confused. "Did he manage to smell the perfume on her cards? But how could he? They're standing pretty far away from one another."

"The perfumes she used must be pretty strong ones. A bad-timed wind could have been enough to make Joey aware of the smells." Blake pointed out but had to give complements when they were due. "It's kind of impressive that Mai can still tell each smell apart though. You'd think only a Faunus would be able to pull something like this off."

"While I doubt her sense of smell is that strong, it must have taken quite an amount of training to tell all those scents apart." Ozpin said. "If she wasn't using such a talent so shamefully, I'd have been impressed."

"Well if you ask me, she did nothing more than waste perfectly good perfume!" Weiss complained.

We skip a little bit to when Joey played his next monster. "Baby Dragon!"

A very small, young, orange dragon appeared on the field with 1200 attack-points and 800 defense-points.

The girls couldn't help themselves. "D'aaaaaw!"

"That's the cutest little dragon I've ever seen!" Ruby said with glittering eyes.

"Careful sis." Yang spoke up. "You might make Stardust mad."

Ruby responded to her sister's commented by hugging Stardust and Zwei at the same time while sticking her tongue out at her sister again.

Mai made her move next. "My card will be Elegant Egotist. Its magic will make duplicates of my Harpy's Lady."

Mai's one monster suddenly became three. All of them were blue-skinned ladies with feather-wings on their arms and different hairstyles.

"Well those girls don't look half-bad~" Qrow said in a flirty-tone, which his two nieces immediately winced at.

"Aside from the blue-skin, these three could pass themselves off as Faunus pretty easily." Blake commented.

"Are there any flying Faunus' out there?" Nora inquired. "Because I don't remember ever meeting one that could."

"Not many." Blake admitted. "But it's not unheard of either. I remember once seeing a Faunus who had batwings back in Menagerie."

Later on in the duel, Joey drew his last card. He nervously looked at it before smirking triumphantly. "All right! It's the Time Wizard!"

Joey's Time Wizard was revealed to be a blue-red alarm-clock with arms and legs, holding a time-scepter.

"That's… a pretty odd monster." Pyrrha said, not sure what to think of the alarm-clock with a face.

"That card was given to Joey back on the ferry by Yugi." Saixus informed them.

"Well if his friend gave him that card, it must be good." Nora reasoned. "The card Rally gave to Yusei didn't seem all that good either, but it turned out to be very useful."

Qrow decided not to question who Rally was. He figured he would learn eventually.

Mai looked at Joey's new monster confused. "Hm? What good is that thing?"

"Don't you know?" Joey asked. "The Time Wizard can make time go faster, by a thousand years to be exact, causing my Baby Dragon to grow into a Thousand Dragon!"

"Time Magic!" Time Wizard cried out before making a 1000 years pass on the battlefield, causing the once small dragon to turn into a much bigger and older looking one with 2400 attack-points and 2000 defense-points.

"Aw, now he's not cute anymore!" Ruby complained.

"Talk about a serious growth-spurt." Yang commented.

"I guess dragons can live more than a thousand years apparently." Ren observed.

Pyrrha turned to the headmaster and asked. "Are there any Grimm out there that are that old?"

"It's not impossible." Ozpin reasoned. "But such Grimm are no doubt very rare. Not to mention both dangerous and intelligent."

Mai did not seem worried. "So now you have a bigger dragon, big deal. My Harpy Ladies still have greater attack-power. Attack it, my three Harpy Sisters!"

Mai's Harpies however did not look good at all. They looked like they had just become a thousand years older, which they did.

Suddenly, Qrow didn't feel like flirting with the virtual monsters anymore.

"What the hell?!" Yang yelled out in horror. "Why are they so old?!"

"Because a thousand years just went by." Ruby stated to obvious.

"Well the centuries sure as hell haven't been kind to them." Nora said. All those wrinkles… brrrr. "I hope I look better than they do at that age."

"Nora, by the time any of us reach a thousand years, we'll be skeletons." Ren pointed out while Ozpin looked away awkwardly.

Weiss looked confused at the screen. "Sooo, how does Time Wizards ability work exactly? Does it increase your own monsters power while decreasing that of your opponent? Does the effect differ from monster to monster or-"

"Again, early Duel Monsters was weird." Saixus stated again.

Mai looked at her Harpy Ladies, who's attack-points had dropped to 1300, in shock. "WHAT?! What happened to my Harpy Ladies? They've gotten so old!"

Yami smirked on the sidelines. "A millennium has passed on the playing-field and your Harpy Ladies have become old and decrapped. Face it Mai, time's running out for you and your ladies."

Mai was so distressed that it almost seemed like she was about to cry.

Weiss let out a disappointed sigh. "Does everyone have to act so childish when they lose?"

Ruby agreed. "Yeah, show some better sportsmanship!"

"Nobody likes a bad loser." Yang stated.

Everyone looked at the three giant hypocrites with a deadpanned look.

"Go Thousand Dragon!" Joey started ordering his new monster that towered over Mai's older Harpy Ladies. "Attack with Inferno Flame Breath!"

Thousand Dragon shot a huge breath of fire from his nostrils and burned the Harpies to dust, dropping Mai's life-points form 2000 all the way to zero.

"One-hit KO!" Yang cheered.

"B-But that makes no sense!" Weiss said utterly baffled while wincing at the gross attack. "Thousand Dragon had 2400 attack-points and those Harpies 1300. Mai would still have 900 life-points left after this attack! Was every Harpy an individual monster and did Thousand Dragon have an ability that allowed him to attack all of them at once or-"

"Stop questioning early Duel Monster's logic, you're gonna get a headache." Saixus advised before starting the next clip. "Especially given the next clip we're about to watch."

---

Episode 7 : Yami versus Mako Tsunami

"Mako Tsunami?" Yang asked before turning to Saixus. "Hey quick question. Are there any water-themed monsters in this game?"

"Yes."

"50 bucks says Mako's gonna use those." Yang stated confidently.

"After seeing a guy called Weevil Underwood use insects, I know that's a sucker's bed." Qrow said to which the others agreed.

The scene started with Yami's Giant Soldier Of Stone being surrounded by underwater-creatures, such as a shark, octopus and sea-serpent while standing on nothing but a small batch of land.

"Well Yug-" Weiss corrected herself. "Yami seems to be in a bad spot."

"Yeah his monster is surrounded from all sides by giant fish." Jaune stated the obvious while Blake was drooling at the sight of the giant underwater fishies.

"This is it Yugi!" A man with dark-blue hair, green-eyes, a scar on his cheek, wearing no shirt claimed. "It's over, but you played honorably."

All the girls blushed at the shirtless Mako while the younger men of the group felt very inadequate, including Saixus.

The Pharaoh smiled at this complement. "You have been a fair and noble opponent too Mako-"

"Finally!" Yang suddenly cheered. "An opponent that doesn't cheat!"

"As long as you don't count hiding your monsters underwater, where they can't be seen or attacked by your opponent, while also receiving a field power-bonus, cheating." Saixus said with a frown.

"…Was it cheating?" Yang asked deadpanned.

"Well, technically no, but you can't tell me it was fair either."

"-but I also duel with the fate of a loved-one at stake." Yami revealed which caused Mako's eyes to widen.

"Wait, is Mako also dueling to save someone from Pegasus?" Ruby questioned as the others frowned at the thought of Pegasus kidnapping more people.

"No, but Mako did lose his father while they were fishing in the middle of the ocean." Saixus revealed. "A storm showed up out of nowhere and Mako's father saved his son's life by tying him up to the ship's mast. Mako survived the storm, but his father was nowhere to be found."

Everyone felt sorry for Mako's loss. Especially Ruby, Yang, Ren and Nora, who knew what it felt like to lose parent-figures.

"However, Mako's convinced that his father is still alive." Saixus told them, surprising the group. "See, after the storm had vanished, little Mako noticed that their life-boat was missing. He's convinced that his father survived and he's willing to do whatever it takes to find him. In fact, that's why Mako's competing in this tournament in the first place. He wants to use the prize-money to buy himself a ship so he can search all the seas until he finds his missing father."

At this point Ruby, Pyrrha and Nora were crying while Weiss and Jaune were fighting back tears. Ren and Blake stayed stoic but whished Mako nothing but luck in his search for his father. Ozpin found Mako's purpose a noble one but Qrow fell the need to point something out.

"Not to sound like a heartless-prick or anything, but how can he be so sure his old man survived?" Qrow asked as the group turned to him, the more emotional ones of the group glaring daggers at the huntsman. "I mean for all we know that life-boat simply got blown away by the storm. It's not enough evidence to suggest that his father's still out there."

"Perhaps not." Ozpin admitted. "But I have a feeling mister Tsunami will only ever admit his father's dead if he finds whatever remains of him. Until then, he'll continue to believe that his father is still alive and I don't think anyone here wants to robe him of that hope."

Ruby nodded at that, wiping away some tears. "He'll find his father someday. I'm sure of it!"

"He has the right to know what happened to his father..." Yang, murmured to herself. Honestly, she didn't know how to feel about Mako's backstory. She knew what it was like to search for a missing parent, but while Yang only wanted to know why her birth-mother left them, Mako's father was literally swept away by the tides. Hell, the guy didn't even know if his dad was still alive! Mako's father was either dead, stuck on an island with no way to go home or he had begun a new life somewhere, abandoning his son like Raven had abandoned her.

She hoped for Mako's sake that it wasn't the latter as she wiped away a tear.

"And I can't afford to lose." Yami stated as he switched his monster from defense- to attack-mode. "I switch my Stone Soldier to attack-mode!"

Giant Soldier Of Stone stood up, much to Mako's confusion. "Attack-mode? But why? He cannot attack my sea-monsters while they are underwater!"

"Somehow." Saixus muttered.

"But his target isn't your sea-monsters." Yami revealed. "I'm having him attack (static) the moon!"

Weiss blinked at this. "I'm sorry, he's attacking the what?!"

"Huh, looks like they have an unbroken moon in this world… one that's yellow." Qrow noted before going back to topic. "But seriously, did he go drinking somewhere before this duel started? Because he sounds like he lost it."

"No!" Make panicked.

"Now Stone Soldier, destroy the moon!" Yami ordered.

"What does he think he's doing?" Weiss asked, wondering if Qrow was perhaps right. "You can't destroy the moon with a virtual monster. It can't even reach the moon!"

Yami's monster aimed his stone-sword at the moon and stabbed it in with all his might, causing the moon to crack until it broke into multiple pieces.

"…WHAAAAAAAAAT?!" Everyone yelled in surprise at seeing the moon turned to ruble.

Pyrrha spoke up first. "How did he-"

Jaune interrupted. "There's no way that actually-"

"We just saw it didn't we?!" Yang shouted out.

Weiss eyes were wide as saucers before realizing something. If that was really the moon, those pieces falling down would have been much bigger. She thought back to the static and let out a sigh. "That wasn't the actual moon, was it?"

"Nope." Saixus said grinning from ear to ear. "That was just a spell Yami placed on the field earlier."

Ruby pouted at the cloak-wearer. "That wasn't funny!"

"Yeah!" Yang agreed. "For a second we thought Yami had doomed the world!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." Saixus said with his hands held up.

"I can't believe we fell for that…" Weiss said, more disappointed in herself then she was at Saixus.

"Agreed." Blake admitted, feeling silly believing the actual moon was destroyed.

"Makes you wonder what destroyed our moon though." Ruby pointed out, an age old mystery to all but one (maybe two) person(s) in the room.

Mako watched the moon-pieces fall into the ocean, before said ocean rushed away from the battlefield. "What's happening? The tide, it's going out! But how?!"

Yami, with a confident smirk on his face, answered. "As you yourself said before Mako, it is the moon that controls the ocean's tide. It's ap, and its flow. So I ordered my Stone Soldier to obliterate the moon, causing the ocean's tides to reverse and reseat."

"...What?" Weiss asked looking deadpanned at the screen. "That makes absolutely no sense! There's no way those cards have such specific effects! This is completely-"

"Say it with me Weiss." Saixus interrupted.

Weiss sighed before saying "Early Duel Monsters is weird."

"There you go!"

Mako did a comical 'I'm about to lose' pose.

The watchers couldn't help but laugh at his pose.

"My Stone Soldier has beached all your sea-monsters, you have no ocean left." Yami stated as all of Mako's water-monsters laid defeated on the ground.

Blake's watering mouth returned with a vengeance. Those massive fish were just laying on the ground, waiting for someone to eat them.

Mako's eyes twitched at this scene. "No… my precious fish…"

"Wow he's really sad about losing his fishies." Pyrrha observed.

"He's a bit of a freaky fish-guy, ain't he?" Nora sa-

Abridged Mako: "I AM NOT A FREAKY FISH-GUY!"

Everyone winced at the sudden thundering voice echoing through the chamber. Qrow let go of his ears before asking "Da hell was that?!"

"The abridged-universe leaked in for a second." Saixus answered. "No biggie."

Everyone just looked at Saixus confused and wanted to question it further, but the TV didn't give them the chance.

"And now I'll deliver the final-blow!" Yami said before summoning a yellow-skinned dragon to the field. "I combine my Curse Of Dragon-card with the magic of The Burning Land-card to wipe out you're remaining life-points. Burning Land Attack!"

Curse Of Dragon burned all the beached-monsters away in a torrent of flames, causing Mako's life-points to drop to zero.

Blake actually cried at seeing the massive feast turn to ash.

Mako dropped his cards in frustration and yelled "AGH NOOOOOO!"

"Okay at this point I think it's a rule that if you lose, you have to act as dramatically as possible." Yang stated.

"In that case, first place belongs to Kaiba." Ruby said and everyone agreed. Weevil's fainting was very dramatic but Kaiba's despair-face took the cake.

"Haha, way to go Yugi!" Tea cheered while Joey and Tristan made some meme-faces behind her.

Most watchers laughed at the faces they were making while Blake, Ozpin, Ren and Weiss tried their best not to.

"Destroying your own moon-card was a brilliant and unexpected move, Yugi." Mako complemented as he let out a sigh of defeat.

"Unexpected? Yes." Weiss admitted, still processing how that made any kind of sense.

He then laughed to himself and said "What a great duel. I salute you friend!"

"At least he's gracious in defeat." Pyrrha said, happy the half-naked man had more honor then Yami's previous opponents.

"He's a good person." Ruby noted happily. "I hope he finds his father one day."

"Yeah…" Yang nodded slowly, secretly wishing her birth-mother's disappearance was more similar to that of Mako's father. "Me too."

---

Episode 17 - 18 : Bandit Keith's backstory - Joey Wheeler versus Bonz - Yugi and friends shenanigans

"Wow wow, hold on." Qrow waved his hands back and forth. "That's a lot of info at once."

"Didn't we just watch episode 7?" Jaune asked. "That's a lot of episodes we're just skipping over!"

Ruby frowned at this. "Aw, but I wanna see all of them!"

"Look, I'll upload the full season to your scrolls to watch whenever you want." Saixus assured them. "After finishing the entire marathon of course."

Ruby was happy about this while Nora couldn't wait until they got to the 'shenanigans' part.

A rough looking blonde-haired man with a flag of the United States wrapped around his head stared at Pegasus' castle and thought 'You hear that Pegasus? Soon it will be payback-time.'

"This must be Bandit Keith." Blake guessed correctly.

This guy was already reminding Yang of Junior and his thugs. "And from the sound of it, he has a big grudge against Pegasus."

"What makes this guy so important that we have to watch his backstory?" Weiss asked, already placing Keith as a second-rate villain.

"World building." Was Saixus' simple answer.

We then enter a flashback in which Bandit Keith was dueling against Pegasus himself in front of a huge audience. 'Payback for the way you humiliated me at the Duel Monsters Intercontinental Championship.'

"Holy crap that's a lot of people." Qrow observed with open eyes. "And all that just to watch a card-game?"

"One without holograms no less." Ozpin stated, rather impressed that there was such a huge turnout for a simple game.

Bandit Keith continued his inner-monologue. 'It had all come down to you against me, and I had you right where I wanted you.'

Bandit Keith drew his next card and looked more than pleased. "Ha, any final words mullet-head?"

Yang, Nora and Qrow snickered at Keith's insult.

'I was sure I was about to win, but you just scribbled some notes and called over a kid from the audience.' Bandit Keith summarized in his thoughts. "Hey what are you doing? Asking for help is illegal!"

"Makes sense." Ozpin agreed nonchalantly. "This game appears to be played one on one, so calling someone over to help you could be seen as cheating. Even if the person you're calling over is just a kid."

"But what did he write down on that piece of paper?" Jaune asked curiously.

Blake had an idea but kept quiet for now.

"I don't need help." Pegasus assured him as he guided a small blonde-child into his seat. "A child could defeat you Bandit Keith, and I'm going to prove it."

Pegasus then handed a piece of paper to the kid and said "Just follow these instructions and you'll win."

Ruby figured it out too. "He read Keith's mind and knows his entire strategy!"

"And he wrote a counterstrategy for the kid to follow." Qrow finished with a scoff, feeling a bit sorry for Keith. "Poor sup doesn't even know he has already lost."

Jaune didn't get what Pegasus was trying to do. "But why let the kid finish the duel in his stead?"

"My guess? Simply to humiliate Keith further." Weiss figured.

The kid stared at the note intensely while Bandit Keith looked insulted. 'I didn't know what to make of it. Were you just trying to psyche me out, or did you chicken out? Either way was fine by me so long as I took home the prize-money."

"How much prize-money can you possibly get from winning a card-tournament?" Jaune asked curiously.

"I don't know the amount of prize-money for that particular tournament, but the Duelist Kingdom tournament Yugi/Yami and Joey are competing in has a prize of 3 million dollars exactly."

Everyone was agasp at such a large amount of prize-money. Even if they didn't know how much a dollar was worth, 3 million still sounded like a lot.

"Think of all the pancakes Ren could make for me with that kind of cash!" Nora said, already dreaming of a large table filled with buttery goodness.

"Okay punk, beat this!" Bandit Keith challenged as he played a card with a purple elephant-warrior on it called Garnecia Elefantis, which had 2400 attack-points.

"Good card." The kid commented as his teeth were revealed.

Ruby winced at seeing the kids teeth. "Ew! What happened to his mouth?!"

"I think those are just his baby-teeth that have fallen out." Pyrrha answered, certainly hoping that was the case.

"Given how it's the front-teeth that are missing, I'm estimating this kid to be no older than eight." Weiss triviad.

Yang looked at the Ice Princess with a raised eye-brow. "How can you possibly know that?"

"What, you guys don't read any medical books?" Weiss asked with a frown. "What will any of you do if one of us ends up injured during a mission!"

"There's a difference between reading how to patch someone up and when the baby-teeth of children fall out." Yang answered deadpanned.

"But the note says that if you play that, I should play this one in attack-mode." The kid said as he did what the note told him to do, summon Flying Elephant in attack-mode.

"NO WAY!" Keith shouted in disbelief.

"Uh, I think you just lost all your life-points." The kid commented, injuring Keith pride even further.

"As expected." Blake nodded.

Ruby was confused though. "But… didn't the kid's elephant have less attack-points then Keith's monster? How did he-"

"The elephant likely had a special-ability of sorts." Weiss quickly put in. "Isn't that right, Saixus?"

Saixus said nothing to confirm that statement. (Flying Elephant is a normal-monster without any abilities. How did playing THAT make Bandit Keith lose?)

The enraged duelist stood up and shouted "WHAT?! You little snot-nosed brat- there's NO WAY you could have known I was gonna play that card!"

"Hey don't get mad at the kid!" Nora yelled out. "He just did what Pegasus told him to do!"

"Girl, the guy just lost out on who knows how much cash because of a kid who looks like he's still in preschool." Qrow pointed out. "I'd be pissed too."

"Gimme that!" Bandit Keith shouted as he snatched the paper out of the young-boy's hand, only to stare at the paper in shock. "I-It's all here… the card I'd play- how to beat it! Everything!"

Pegasus smirked smugly as he raised the kid's hand into the air. "Sam's the winner!"

"Even though Pegasus did this purely to humiliate Keith, little Sam over there's probably having the time of his life." Yang said, even though she felt rather uncomfortable seeing the soul-stealing menace holding the kid's hand up.

"NNNNNOOOOOOOO!" Bandit Keith shouted while caved on the floor.

"And cue the dramatic defeat pose." Jaune commented.

Pyrrha shook her head back and forth. "He shouldn't get so upset over losing one game."

Qrow however looked deadpanned at the champion. "So you're telling me that if you were in a fighting tournament's title-match, and your opponent called out some random kid from the audience to take their place and they gave said child specific instructions to beat you, which also somehow results in them defeating you, you wouldn't get upset?"

Pyrrha… didn't know how to answer that one.

'You may have defeated me Pegasus, cheated me!' Keith corrected. 'But nobody makes a fool out of Bandit Keith!'

"So Bandit Keith is clearly no friend of Pegasus." Ozpin observed.

"Maybe Bandit Keith could team-up with Yugi/Yami and Joey in order to defeat that meanie!" Ruby theorized.

Saixus shook his head at that. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen."

"Why not?" Ruby asked confused.

"Cuz his subordinates just kidnapped Joey."

"They've WHAT?!" Ruby shouted out loud.

All of a sudden the screen showed Joey standing on a Duel-Arena that looked VERY different from the previous ones. Not only was this one in a cave of sorts, it was also surrounded by multiple skulls and bones, while the arena itself looked like some sort of graveyard while the dueling-platforms looked like massive tombstones.

The scenery on screen gave Ruby the willies. "W-What is th-this place?!"

"Why are there skulls everywhere?!" Jaune asked, equally afraid.

Weiss shivered as she asked "Please tell me those are fake."

"Most likely." Ozpin said, trying to calm the students down. "It seems highly unlikely that Pegasus would put a Duel-Arena there knowing the place was filled with the remains of people."

"But why would he even make such a spooky Duel-Arena?" Ruby asked shivering.

"This field likely gives a field-power bonus to certain kinds of monsters, similar to the ones Weevil and Mako dueled on." Ren assumed.

At Ren's observation, Ruby's shivers increased. "But if monsters get a power-boost from this field… just what kind of monsters is Joey about to fight against?!"

Joey looked in front of him and yelled "Geh, a tombstone!"

"There are skulls and bones everywhere and that's what freaks him out?" Weiss said in disbelief.

Suddenly a spooky humming sound could be heard as someone stood on the other end of the Duel-Arena. The platform rose up and a small boy with spiky-blue hair whose face looked like a skull appeared in front of Joey. "Welcome duelist, to the arena of lost souls!"

Joey screamed in fear. "GAH A GHOST! AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Ruby screamed and immediately embraced Weiss. "IT'S A GHOST!"

"R-Ruby let go of me!" Weiss protested. "It's not a ghost! It's just some kid with a serious complex-issue!"

"No kidding. That's a face only a mother could love." Qrow commented and nobody argued against him.

The ghost-like kid smirked at his victim. "The ghosts of the dead are all around you Joey, there's no way to escape from your fear!"

Joey turned to his opponent and said "Huh, who says I'm scared?"

"Says the guy who was screaming his lungs out 15 seconds ago." Blake said deadpanned.

"You can't hide the truth from the spirits, Joey." The guy continued his scary-act. "Whahaha, they see you frozen in fear!"

"Okay I was afraid," Joey admitted. "But not cuz of the graveyard or your ogaboga-rap. It's your creepy-face that gave me the willies!"

Yang, Nora and Qrow burst out in laughter while the others tried not to.

Bandit Keith and his companions couldn't help but laugh while Joey's opponent sweat-dropped. "You got to admit he has a point Bonz!"

"Yeah, you even spook me out Bonz and I'm on your side!" The black-haired muscle head commented.

"Well if you're on my side then stop laughing at me!" Bonz all but demanded.

While the watchers felt a little bad for Bonz, they couldn't help but continue laughing.

The duel started and Bonz was already excited to play his first card. "Here goes, my zombie-card…"

"Zombie-monsters… that would explain the graveyard-theme." Pyrrha said before turning to Ruby. "Uhm, Ruby? Is everything okay?"

Ruby was shivering again while hugging Zwei and Stardust closely. She'd hug Weiss too but the Ice Princess kept pushing her away.

Yang decided to answer for her. "Ruby here is a huge fan of monster-movies, but she's not very good at handling them."

"Yeah, I remember a few years ago when I was babysitting her that she watched this zombie-movie while I was asleep." Qrow remembered. "Once the movie was finished, she spend all week hiding underneath her bed. Tai was so mad at me I wasn't allowed to babysit either of my nieces for weeks."

Yang smiled at the memory. "The only reason it wasn't months is because dad had no luck keeping Ruby away from scary movies either."

But just as Bonz was about to play the card, Keith stopped him. "Not so fast Squirt. Hold that card for now, play the one on the far-left instead."

"Hey! You're the one who said giving advice during a duel is illegal!" Yang shouted at the screen. "What, is it only a problem when you're not the one doing it!"

We then get a quick clip-show of Bonz summoning a bunch of none-zombie monsters, only for them to get obliterated by Joey's Axe Raider and Flaming Swordsman.

Yang blinked at the scenes before grinning. "Then again, if you want Joey to obliterate all of zombie-boy's monsters, I have no issues."

Ruby was still holding on to Zwei and Stardust but let them loose a little in favor of fangirling. "Did you guys see that monster's axe! Or that flaming sword! Those weapons look so awesome!"

"The axe's a little basic though." Qrow commented, causing Jaune to look down a little giving that his sword and shield were pretty basic too.

Blake however didn't trust this at all. 'Bandit Keith was good enough a duelist to go up against Pegasus, meaning the guy is no amateur when it comes to dueling. So why would he give Bonz bad advice? Is there a reason he wants all those monsters destroyed?'

Joey started getting more and more confident. 'Creep-show's scared. I have him on the run. And I plan to keep him that way. There's way too much riding on this duel for me to blow it. My sister Serenity is counting on me.'

Seeing a transparent Serenity on the screen caught the watchers by surprise. "Sister? Joey has a sister?"

"Yep." Saixus answered Pyrrha's question. "Serenity is Joey's younger sister and she's the major reason why Joey wanted to compete in this tournament in the first place."

"Please don't tell me Pegasus stole Serenity's soul too." Jaune asked in worry while Yang was feeling her protective sibling instincts rise-up.

"No but she has an eye-condition that needs immediate surgery or else she'll go blind." Saixus told them, much to the group's shock. "The surgery is extremely expensive however, so Joey wants to win the prize-money so that he can safe his sister's sight."

Pyrrha wiped away a tear and said "Now that's a good big brother."

"You'll hear no argument from me." Yang said with a smile. Seems she and Joey had more in common then she originally though. She too would do whatever it took to help her little sister out.

Bonz drew his next card and once he saw what it was, he immediately understood why Bandit Keith forced him to get rid of his monsters. "Oh, wow. I had totally forgotten about this magic-card boss. Now I understand."

"I knew there was more going on than we thought." Blake spoke up. "Keith wanted all those monsters to be destroyed."

"But why? What can he possibly do with all those monsters now that they're all in the… graveyard… oh no." Jaune suddenly had a very good idea about what that card could do.

"You're finished!" Bonz declared as he slammed the card down on the field. "This magic-card is unstoppable! The Call Of The Haunted!"

"The Call Of the Haunted?" Joey ask both fearful and confused, seeing as how he had no idea what that card does.

Weiss was confused for another reason. "But… that's a trap-card, not a-"

Saixus cut in. "Early Duel Monsters-"

"-was weird, yeah yeah." Weiss finished for him while pinching her nose.

Bandit Keith took the liberty to explain. "It brings all of the monsters you destroyed back from the grave."

Bonz took over. "But they come back as Zombies with the power of immortality!"

The ground started to crack as a decaying dragon came out, followed by a zombie clown and a zombie samurai.

"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Ruby screamed again and hugged everything in her vicinity at once. (Zwei, Stardust and Weiss.)

The latter of which didn't object as she was feeling rather squeamish herself. "All of sudden, giant bugs don't sound so bad anymore…"

"Fallen enemies returned from the death, classic zombie-storyline." Jaune exclaimed which caused his teammates and RWBY to turn to him. "What? You guys think I only read hero-comics in my spare time?"

"Your monsters are back!" Joey said in disbelief.

"And now that they're zombies, they all get a power-bonus from the graveyard-field." Bonz reminded him. Armored Zombie's attack-points became 1950, Dragon Zombie's 2080, and Clown Zombie's 1755. "Dragon Zombie, attack the Axe Raider!"

Dragon Zombie crawled towards the axe-wielding warrior while brown-liquid kept leaking out. Joey refused to let Axe Raider go down without a fight. "Axe Raider, bash that lizard!"

Axe Raider slashed through Zombie Dragon's head-

"Alright!" Jaune cheered and Ruby smiled as well. "One zombie down and two to-"

-but the zombie reformed himself immediately, as if he had never been cut in the first-place.

Keith laughed at the side-lines. "They're zombies now dweeb, you can't destroy them with an axe."

"…Okay, that's bullcrap!" Jaune shouted, to the surprise of everyone else while Ruby wanted to say something similar.

Not that she ever would.

"You do remember that Dragon Zombie had more attack-points then Joey's Axe Raider, right?" Weiss reminded him as she managed to get out of Ruby's embrace.

"Well yeah, but in zombie warfare you always go for the head, that's their major weak-spot!" Jaune argued and Ruby nodded as well. Just because she was scared of monster-movies didn't mean she didn't pay any attention to them.

…In fact, that was kind of the problem.

The Dragon Zombie unleashed a foul-breath attack on Axe Raider, causing the monster to disintegrate into dust, axe and all.

Saixus grimaced at the dusted warrior. "Seeing someone get thanosed is never fun."

"Thanosed?" Pyrrha asked confused.

"Nothing you need to worry abou-." Saixus tried to assure her before remembering that this was Pyrrha he was talking to. "…You know what, forget I ever said anything."

Meanwhile, Tristan, Tea and Yugi were running through the cave trying to find Joey. Tristan turned around and asked "Hey, where's Bakura?"

"Bakura?" Ozpin tilted his head a little. "I don't recall these videos showing us someone named Bakura yet."

"He's someone who goes to the same school as Yugi and his friends. He joined the group in one of the episodes we skipped over." Saixus simply answered.

Nora meanwhile stared grinningly at the TV. She was pretty sure they had reached the 'shenanigans' part.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH" A sudden yell caused our heroes to turn around and see Bakura running towards them with a whole skeleton leaning on him. Yugi and his friends screamed in fear before running away from Bakura who yelled at his supposed friends. "Help! Get this thing off of me!"

Nora, Yang and Qrow laughed hard at this scene while Jaune asked "How the heck did he get a whole skeleton on him?"

"He likely triggered some sort of trap earlier." Blake reasoned.

Ozpin however noticed something interesting around the young men's neck. "Is that boy carrying another Millennium Item?"

His question caused to others to take a second look at Bakura. "It does look like one."

Saixus nodded at Ren's statement. "Yep, Ryou Bakura over there also possess a Millennium Item, namely the Millennium Ring."

Nora got confused by that name. "But, that thing looks nothing like a ring! Rings are supposed to go around your fingers, not your neck!"

"Well it's technically called a dreamcatcher but those didn't exist back in ancient Egypt." Saixus informed.

"But why's this Bakura-person even here?" Weiss asked. "Did he get invited here because Pegasus also wants his Millennium Item or-"

"Those questions are better saved for later." Saixus told her as he continued the show.

A little while later, they had finally gotten rid of the skeleton who's skull Tristan smashed with his feet. "From now on, don't go picking up any hitchhikers."

Nora snickered at that line.

"They should be fine as long as they don't go around triggering any more obvious traps." Blake commented.

Suddenly Bakura fell the ground on him lower as he had activated another trap. Not long after, a giant boulder started rolling towards the group. They screamed again before running away as fast as they could.

Blake face-palmed at Bakura's carelessness.

"Okay, Snowhead is not making a good first impression." Yang stated while snickering a little.

Weiss however could not see the humor in this. "This isn't funny! That boulder can easily crush them all to death!"

Yang blinked at this before realizing the heiress was right. "…Oh right, forgot Aura isn't a thing is this world."

"Why is that boulder chasing us?!" Tea asked in fear.

"Cuz we're down-hill!" Tristan answered.

"Hey, doesn't Tristan sound different then he did in the first episode?" Ruby asked her fellow huntsmen/huntresses in training. "Also, doesn't his new voice sound pretty similar to Yusei's?

"Now that you mention it, Tristan did sound different in the beginning." Blake confirmed.

"And he does sound very similar to Yusei now." Ren agreed.

"Maybe those two are related?" Nora shrugged while Saixus decided against telling them that Tristan Taylor and Yusei Fudo were simply voiced by the same person.

Damn, going from Tristan Taylor to Yusei Fudo sure was one heck of a promotion.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" Bakura apologized before tripping over a rock. He yelled in horror as Yugi and the others saw the giant boulder run over him.

Everyone forgot their previous inquirement about Tristan's voice and gasped at seeing Bakura get run over by the massive boulder.

Nora was the one to speak up first. "DID HE JUST DIE?!"

Weiss actually fainted in her seat while the others weren't doing too well either.

"It's a dead-end!" Tristan yelled as the cave ended. He and the others turned around as they saw the massive boulder approaching them. Tristan decided to stand his ground and said "Since there's nowhere to run, I'm gonna fight!"

"But you have no Aura or Semblance or anything!" Ruby yelled, afraid that the others were gonna die the same way as Bakura.

"Better to go down fighting then simply getting squashed!" Nora stated as she slammed her fist into her other hand.

There was a bit of static on the screen before Tristan, in a new voice yelled "My voice gives me super-strength!"

He punched the boulder and it exploded like a balloon. "Holy sh*t, it really does!" Tristan stated before the static went away.

"W-What the hell was that?!" Yang asked but couldn't help but laugh along with Nora and Qrow.

"Abridged-universe cut in for a second again." Saixus answered.

Ozpin was about to question what he meant, but the show continued.

"A balloon?" Tristan asked confused.

"Yeah, and that's a speaker!" Yugi pointed out. "Somebody wired that thing for sound and I'm betting it was Pegasus!"

"That giant meanie!" Ruby said with pouted cheeks. "That was not funny at all! I actually thought they were all gonna die!"

"Pegasus certainly has a twisted sense of humor." Ren said, not finding the situation funny either. "Filling the cavern with skeletons was bad enough, but putting in fake death-traps goes too far."

"I don't know." Nora said, still trying to suppress her laughter from before. "You have to admit, it was a little bit funny. And since it was just a giant balloon, nobody got hurt."

"Scaring someone to death is never a good joke Nora." Pyrrha said sternly.

Bakura laid traumatized on the ground, shivering like crazy.

"Poor Bakura." Ruby said, feeling massive amounts of sympathy for the boy while she shook Weiss awake.

Weiss slowly opened her eyes and said "Wha-What just happened?" She then blinked at the screen and saw the shaking Bakura. "Wait, didn't he just-"

"Turns out that boulder was just a giant balloon with a speaker inside." Blake informed her. "Apparently it was some sort of joke set-up by Pegasus."

Weiss blinked for a few seconds before turning red. "THAT INTOLERABLE SON OF A-"

Interrupting Weiss, the show continued. Back at the duel, Bandit Keith gave Bonz some new orders. "Play The King of Ghosts!"

Ruby shivered again. "K-King Of Ghosts?!"

"I hear ya boss." Bonz assured him as he summoned his new monster. "Pumpking, rise from the grave!"

A massive pumpkin with one eye wearing a crown appeared on the field.

Ruby cowered again while Weiss was trying to calm down from the fake dead scene. "Ruby, that thing is literally just a giant pumpkin, what's so scary about that?"

Ruby looked at her partner and said "Say that again after watching VegieGrimm 4 : Rise of the PumpGrimmQueen!"

"WHAT KIND OF MONSTER-MOVIES DO YOU WATCH?!" Weiss asked as she couldn't believe such a movie existed, nevermind someone who would actually watch it.

Once Joey's friends arrived to give him some support, Joey gained the courage to continue fighting. "Go Red-Eyes Black Dragon!"

A massive black-colored dragon with red eyes appeared on Joey's side of the field with 2400 attack-points.

"Holy crap, that dragon looks epic!" Yang felt the need to point out.

"Red-Eyes?" Bandit Keith asked in disbelief. "Where did this dork get a card that rare?"

"He got it in his previous duel which we skipped over." Saixus informed.

"I'm really starting to think it would have been easier if we just watched the entire series." Blake stated to which Saixus shrugged.

"Red-Eyes, take down that overgrown pumpkin!" Joey ordered. "Inferno Fire Blast!"

Red-Eyes shot a flaming orb towards Pumpking The King Of Ghosts and obliterated him from the playing-field.

"Haha!" Ruby cheered. "Sorry mister pumpkin, but you're not gonna force Joey to take care of your crops any time soon!"

"Again, what kind of movies to you watch?!" Weiss asked her neighbor.

The hype for Red-Eyes Black Dragon quickly died out as Dragon Zombie thanosed the none-undead dragon from the playing field, leaving Joey with only 150 life-points.

Pyrrha shivered, not understanding why her body was reacting like that every time a monster got turned to dust.

Jaune meanwhile, was wondering something else. "Hey quick question, why isn't Bonz attacking Joey directly with his other two zombies?"

"Because in early Duel Monsters, direct-attacks were a no-no." Saixus told him.

Weiss saw a big flaw in that. "…But then you can basically play nothing every turn and your opponent could never touch your life-points!"

"Well there is a rule in early Duel Monsters that says you have to have a monster on the field at the end of each of your turns." Saixus told them. "If you don't have any monsters on the field and you can't summon anything anymore, you automatically lose."

"Battle Warrior in attack-mode!" Joey said as a blue-colored warrior with 700 attack-points and 1000 defense-points appeared on the field.

Weiss was apparently not done asking questions yet. "Why's Joey summoning such a weak monster in attack-mode? There's no way that guy can take down any of the monsters on Bonz field."

As if saying, challenge accepted, Joey played his next card. "And then I add, this magic-card called Shield And Sword!"

Bandit Keith could not believe this. "What?!"

"Go offensive, defensive-flip!" Joey said as the attack- and defense-points of every monster on the field got switched, leaving the zombie-monsters with no attack-points at all while Battle Warrior's attack-points raised to a thousand.

Weiss blinked at this. "Wait, that card switched the attack- and defense-points of every monster on the field?"

"And since the zombies had zero defense-points, they now have zero attack-points." Ren summarized.

"Alright Joey! Finish off those zombie-rejects!" Ruby cheered.

"Smash those zombie-freaks, Ultimate Battle-Fist!" Joey commanded before Battle Warrior punched Dragon Zombie straight in the face, causing the zombie to crumble and Bonz life-points to drop to zero.

"Oh yeah!" Yang cheered at seeing the Dragon Zombie crumble. "Best way to deal with zombies, just punch them."

Jaune looked at the blonde deadpanned. "Yang, punching zombies is like, the easiest way to get infected!"

"Yeah, sorry sis, but on my list of people who are most likely to get infected with a zombie-virus, you're somewhere at the top." Ruby informed her sister who looked betrayed at Ruby's statement. "It's not that I don't love you, but punching zombies head on is a very bad idea."

---

Episode 19 – 21 : The Millennium Ring's power - Yami and Joey versus Para and Dox - Kaiba's mission

"Again, that's a lot of info at once." Qrow repeated.

"The Millennium Ring's power..." Ozpin read with interest. "Seems like we'll get to see what kind of abilities Bakura's Ring possesses."

"Also, Yami and Joey against Para and Dox? Are we gonna watch two duels at the same time or are they gonna play together?" Blake inquired.

"The latter." Saixus answered. "There's a special variety of Duel Monsters were players can take each other on in a two on two match."

Yang frowned once she read the last part. "Oh, Kaiba's coming back… wonderful."

"Wonderfully terrible you mean." Weiss said, sharing Yang's emotions on the man. "I do wonder what mission they're talking about."

"Probably something bad like forcing a bunch of kids to give him their lunch money." Yang said completely serious.

The episode starts with Yugi, Tristan and Joey trying to move a huge boulder out of the way, without much success.

"Wait, are they trapped?" Ruby asked.

"Yep." Saixus answered. "See after Joey beat Bonz, Keith had his subordinates roll a giant bolder in front of the exit, sealing them inside."

"Well that's not very nice." Ruby pouted.

"Not nice?" Weiss looked deadpanned at her partner. "Ruby, if they don't find another way out of there, they could die from starvation!"

"Come on, there's got to be another way out of this place." Tristan reasoned.

"But these tunnels run everywhere." Tea pointed out. "We could be lost down here forever!"

Suddenly Bakura moved away from the group as the Millennium Ring was pointing somewhere.

"Wait, where's Bakura going?" Nora asked.

"Bakura?" Tea asked confused.

Joey shared Tea's confusion. "Hey Bakura, what gives?"

Bakura turned towards another tunnel and said "It seems my Millennium Ring is tugging me in this direction."

"Why would it do that?" Ruby asked confused.

Tea shared Ruby's confusion. "Huh, why?"

Bakura proceeded to explain. "Well, Yugi and I think that my Millennium Ring can detect other Millennium Items. And that it's been homing in on Pegasus' Millennium Eye."

"So the Millennium Ring has to power to locate all the other Millennium Items." Ozpin realized. "That could make this Ring the most dangerous Millennium Item of them all."

"Why would you say that?" Jaune wondered. "Between containing a soul from 5000 years ago and being able to read people's minds, the Ring's powers sound like your typical tracker."

Weiss however agreed with Ozpin. "Don't you get it Arc? If that Ring were to fall in the wrong hands, they could use it to get a hold of all the other Millennium Items."

"Guess it's a good thing Bakura doesn't seem to be a bad person." Pyrrha said, while Saixus looked away awkwardly. "And with that Ring in their possession, they might be able to find another way out of those caves."

"About time Snowhead made himself useful." Yang said a little harshly. Then again, their first introduction of the guy was seeing him trigger two traps in a row.

After leading the group through countless tunnels, Bakura and the others arrived in an open room with a strange Duel-Arena with Japanese symbols on it.

"What is this place?" Tea asked.

Suddenly a voice spoke up from out of nowhere. "You have entered-"

"-sacred ground." Another voice finished.

"Where only duelists-" The first voice said.

"-can be found!" The second voice finished again.

"…Are they finishing each other sentences and rhyming?" Ren asked the obvious question.

Weiss was already getting a headache.

"Well… we're duelists." Joey stated.

"Before you pass-"

"-across this chamber."

Suddenly two bald-men, one wearing orange and the other wearing green, appeared out of nowhere and performed acrobatic-and combat feats all over the room.

While everyone was more than a little… weirded out by the duo on screen, they couldn't help but note that these two were quite the martial-artists.

"You must agree-"

"-to face the danger."

"So let the contest-"

"-now begin!"

"Notify-"

"-your next of kin!"

Weiss deadpanned at the screen. "Please tell me they're not gonna talk like that the entire time."

"I'm willing to bet a 100 lien they do." Qrow said.

"Now who's the one making sucker-bets?" Yang asked while smirking at her uncle. "No deal."

"You're trapped,"

"and the doors are all locked."

The both of them did a Ginyu-pose and at the same time said "You face the brothers Paradox!"

Everyone just stared at the duo in silence.

"Oh I get it!" Ruby was the first to break the awkward silence. "They're names are Para and Dox, Paradox!"

"…Okay that has to be a stage-name!" Weiss said with a hint of disbelief. "There's no way they're actually called that!"

"Ice Princess, there's a guy in that universe called Weevil Underwood." Qrow reminded her. "I wouldn't be surprised if those were their actual names."

"Besides, you're not exactly the best person to call someone out for having an unusual name, Snow White." Saixus said, which caused the heiress to shoot him a questioning gaze.

"All right yus brothers Paradox, me and Yugi are gonna clean your clocks!"

Yang laughed at Joey's line, hard.

"Oh no, it's spreading!" Ruby yelled, hoping she wouldn't start rhyming anytime soon.

It was revealed that the match would be a Tag-Duel so both Yugi and Joey would have to fight the Paradox-brothers at the same time. They also revealed that at the end of the duel they'd have to choose a door. But only one of the doors leads out of the place while the other leads to an endless maze.

"So even if they win, they can still end up trapped?" Nora asked with a frown. "That doesn't sound fair at all!"

Joey demanded a hint for the door-problem.

"We'll give you a clue." Para told them. "While everything one of us says shall be true,"

"the other will speak nothing but lies to you!" Dox finished.

"Yep, these two are gonna rhyme the entire time." Qrow confirmed to Weiss, who was not paying attention to him.

That's because she was going over the riddle and it immediately clicked in the Schnee's mind. "Aha, I know this riddle!"

"You do?" Jaune asked the heiress.

"Yeah, it's a riddle I came across while reading some literature from nearly a century ago." Weiss said proudly before going into teacher-mode. "It's quite simple really, Para and Dox are gonna allow them to ask one question that relates to the doors. They have to ask the right question to figure out which exit leads out of there and which one doesn't."

Pyrrha followed along. "Right, but the problem is figuring out what question to ask. Since they don't know which one of those two is the liar, they must formulate their question in such a way that they will still get the right answer, even if one of them is lying."

"Correct." Weiss nodded at the Mistral-champion. "In this case, the best question they could ask is 'If you were your brother, which door would you say is the one that leads out of here?'"

Ruby was lost. "Huh? How would that question get them out of there?"

"It's quite simple really." Weiss assured her. "If you ask that question to the truth-teller then what he says will be a lie because he will answer truthfully what the lying brother will say, therefor you can safely say that the answer will be the opposite of what he says. On the other hand if you ask that question to the liar then he will tell you what the truth-teller would say but it will be a lie, therefor the answer will also be the opposite of what he says. Understand?"

Nora blinked at the heiress hasty explanation. "Erm…"

Jaune was lost too. "I uh…"

Ruby and Yang shared the same look of confusion. "We uhm…"

"Of course." Pyrrha answered for the group, causing Weiss to smirk triumphantly while the others were now comparing the Schnee to a certain teacher.

Ozpin meanwhile was happy to know a riddle he wrote in one of his past-lives was still remembered to this day, but now that he thought about it, wasn't there a big problem with that riddle that caused him to rewrite it entirely?

Joey followed the same logic Weiss was following. He remembered an old story were a kid was trying to get to a village of truth-sayers, but a village of liars was located right next to it. The kid, who looked like a chibi-version of Joey, came across a chibi-Para but he doesn't know which village the chibi-Para's from. The villager says he'll answer one question and that's the riddle, what should the kid ask to get to truth-vile?

Joey's answer? Ask the guy to bring him to his own village, cuz the truthful-guy will bring him to the village of truth, while the liar would lie and bring to the village that's not his own. Either way, he'll end up in the village of truth-sayers.

Weiss nodded at Joey's tale. "His story is different from the one I got the answer from, but the solution is more or less the same."

Para says that both Yugi and Joey can ask them one question. Joey's question is "Show me the door that you're guarding!"

"Wait, but that's not the question either you or Joey told us to ask?" Ruby asked befuddled.

"Well… no but it still works." Weiss assured Ruby. "After all, they both get to ask one question, so using their first question to figure out which one of those brothers is the truth-teller is actually a good strategy."

"Wow, Joey's smarter than I thought he was!" Nora said, not meaning for it to sound like an insult.

Both Para and Dox point towards Dox's door. Joey concludes that this means Para must be the liar, while Dox tells the truths. He then says all Yugi has to do is ask Dox which door leads out of here, and they're all set.

"Looks like this riddle is already solved." Jaune observed.

"Yeah," Yang nodded in agreement. "That was a lot easier than I thought it would be."

'A little too easy.' Ran through the minds of Ren, Blake, Qrow and Ozpin.

'Hmm, I don't know.' Yugi thought to himself. 'That seemed a little too easy.'

The four of them were glad Yugi was thinking the same thing.

Yami tells Joey that he doesn't believe they're going about this the right way. "You're riddle has some things in common with our present predicament, but there are some key differences. And trust me Joey, those key differences change the entire nature of the problem. For instance, in your riddle there was only one person to question at the crossroads, but in our situations we have two. Now both Para and Dox have told us the exact same thing, one of them will speak nothing but the truth and the other will speak nothing but lies."

'Ah now I remember the problem with that riddle.' Ozpin recalled. 'It doesn't work if the two people involved explain the riddle themselves.'

"But there's a problem with that already." The Pharaoh confirmed. "Because if they were, as they said, one truth-teller and one liar, the liar could never admit to it. That would be telling the truth."

"…Wait what?" Weiss asked, as she suddenly found herself in the confused-group.

"The only way they could both make that statement is if they were both lying, and that means we can't trust either Para, Dox or their riddle." Yami finished, showing that both paths to the villages lead to a pool of lava.

"Wow, my brain hurts." Joey admitted.

"Took the words right out of my mouth!" Yang said, happy to agree with her fellow blond.

Ruby was also feeling lightheaded. "Could someone explain it to me again? I thought we had this riddle figured out already!"

Blake, who did follow Yami's logic, decided to take a crack at explaining. "Yami has uncovered that the riddle those two told them simply doesn't work because, like Yami said, the liar could never say that there's only one liar or one truth-teller among them because in either case that would be telling the truth. If the liar can only tell lies, then there's no way he can make that statement."

Ren continued. "We know Para and Dox are not both truth-sayers because else they would have said that at the beginning of the riddle. That leaves only Yami's option, the only way they can both make that statement-"

"-is if they're both liars." Weiss realized before looking angry at the screen. "B-But that basically ruins the entire riddle!"

"If I recall that riddle correctly, there was a narrator who informed us that one person tells only truths and the other only lies." Ozpin said, not mention his involvement in creating that riddle on Remnant. "It doesn't work if the two people in it explain the riddle themselves. If they do, the only logical conclusion is like Yami said, both of them are lying."

Weiss felt stupid for not figuring that out herself, while Jaune turned to the headmaster. "But how are they supposed to find the exit if both of them are liars?"

"Ask which tunnel leads out of there and then pick the opposite one?" Nora proposed.

"It can't be that easy… can it?" Yang asked.

Saixus sighed and said "Just forget about that entire riddle and remember that these two don't want the group to leave."

Deciding not to focus on the riddle for now, the duel starts. We then skip to when Para and Dox were about to summon their most powerful monster.

The entire arena shook and Joey asked "Yugi, what's happening?"

Yami answered by saying "Oh no the trinity! It's in the class of Exodia!"

The Remnantians were shocked to hear that a monster like that was gonna appear while Saixus was laughing his butt off.

Same class as Exodia? That's a good one!

Three boxes on the field opened up, releasing yellow, red and blue-colored energy all over the place. The colors combined to form a new shape.

"Here it comes!" Yami warned.

"He is pain beyond description-" Para began.

"-he'll mark the grave with your inscription." Dox finished.

"Never thought I'd say this, but that's actually a pretty intimidating rhyme." Blake admitted.

Together: "Gate Guardian!"

A massive monster appeared that looked like three monsters topped together. Each monster had their own Japanese symbol standing for water, wind and lighting.

"That thing's huge!" Ruby stated.

"It's not that intimidating." Weiss said, not feeling very impressed. "I mean, this thing basically looks like three monsters standing on top of one another."

"I call upon the Summoned Skull!" Yami stated as he played the fiend.

"Yay!" Nora said happily. "Skull-boy's back!"

"Try this on for size, the Red-Eyes Black Dragon!" Joey declared as his mighty dragon appeared on the field.

"Looks like they both brought out pretty powerful monsters." Blake stated.

"And now, with the magic of my Polymerization-card, I'll combine Joey's Red-Eyes with my Summoned Skull!" Yami said as the two-monsters started to combine. In their place appeared a dragon with a gray skelety-appearance. This horned monstrosity had 3200 attack-points and 2500 defense-points.

This new monster send shivers down everyone's spines. "W-What is that thing?"

As if to answer Ruby, Yami said "You now face-"

"The supreme Black Skull Dragon!" Joey finished as their new monster let out a terrifying roar that sounded like both those of Red-Eyes Black Dragon and Summoned Skull combined.

"…Okay, I think we just found a monster more intimidating then most Grimm put together!" Yang stated. She would rather face the entire population of the Emerald Forest then battle this thing!

Ozpin was secretly happy that a certain witch wasn't watching these episodes. She's already pretty creative when it comes to making Grimm, he did not want her getting any more ideas.

"Black Skull Dragon, Molten Fire Ball Attack!" Yami declared before Black Skull Dragon launched multiple small meteors at the Gate Guardian, destroying both it and the rest of the Paradox' brothers life-points in one massive explosion.

"Boom baby!" Nora cheered.

"I'm really glad that dragon is on their side." Jaune exclaimed.

After the duel was over, the group still had to answer their riddle.

"You mean their botched-up riddle." Weiss muttered to herself.

Yami pulled two coins out of his pocket, each marked with the same Japanese-symbol that was on the brothers doors. "We'll decide with these."

Yami's friends looked at the Pharaoh like he had lost his head while the two brothers laughed in amusement. "Okay, heads or tails?"

The people in the room mirrored the expressions of Yami's friends.

"Is he seriously gonna bet their freedom on a couple of coins?" Weiss asked in disbelief.

Qrow felt the need to defend this decision. "Well we already know these two aren't gonna give them a straight-answer, so making a gamble might not be such a bad idea. Especially if their odds of getting the right answer are 50-50."

Yang meanwhile was berating herself for not making the bet with Qrow since Dox definitely didn't rhyme back there.

"Neither." Yami answered Dox. "The coin that I keep clenched in my fist will be the door that I have chosen."

Qrow stroke his chin. He got the impression that the Pharaoh was about to hassle the hasslers.

Some seconds pass before Yami opened his left-hand and showed a coin with Dox' symbol on it.

"That's Dox's symbol." Jaune pointed out.

"Which means he's chosen Para's door." Ren said.

"Please be the right door, please be the right door…" Ruby constantly muttered to herself.

Para turned to his brother and said "What say you Dox, shall we tell which was right?"

"In due time Para, I'm enjoying their plight!" Dox answered.

"Just tell us which is the right door already, cheez!" Yang complained.

"Come on, was it Para?" Joey asked.

"Or was it Dox?" Tea added.

The two brother snickered before Para said "I say-"

"-you chose wrong!" Dox continued. "It was my doorway-"

"-all along!" Para finished.

"They got it wrong?!" Ruby yelled in distress. "Does that mean they're now stuck there forever?!"

"I knew relying on chance was a bad idea!" Weiss shouted.

The two brothers laughed hard. "So Dox's door was the right one?"

"Not quite." Yami told Tea.

"Huh? What's Yami talking about?" Jaune asked confused.

"Huh? Oh yes it was!" Para assured him.

Yami saw through their lies. "Except if we had picked it, Para's door would be the right one. You can change which door leads to which path, can't you? Ensuring that we'd chose wrong!"

"WHAT?!" Ruby yelled out while mustering an angry look at the screen. "Those two can change which pathway leads out of there!"

"Those two really are a couple of con-artist." Qrow begrudgedly stated. "They were never planning to let those guys out of there. All this time, they've been playing them like fiddles!"

"That's no fair!" Joey stated loudly. "You guys cheated!"

Yang agreed full-heartedly. "Tell it how it is Joey!"

While Para and Dox were first sweating at Yami's correct accusation, they quickly smiled again. "Too bad, too late, you chose a way. And that means-"

"-in this mace you will stay!" Para finished for his brother.

Weiss was getting fed up at this point. "If I have to hear one more of their annoying rhymes!"

Yami suddenly had a mischievous smile on his face. "Actually, you never saw our choice." He then revealed that the coin in his right-hand also had the symbol of Dox' door on it.

"The Dox coin?!" Joey said in shock, which was shared by the rest of their friends and the Paradox brothers.

The watchers were shocked as well. "What the-, where did that second Dox coin come from?!"

"Nowhere." Qrow realized with a proud smile on his face. "Yami must have marked both sides of one coin with a different door-symbol."

"I figured the two of you would pull a stunt like this, so I pulled a stunt of my own with these coins." Yami explained as he flipped the coin into the air, revealing that both sides were marked. "Instead of marking them both with just one door-insignia I marked the second coin with two, one insignia on each side. That way, we couldn't lose."

"Holy, he just conned the conners!" Yang stated proudly.

Qrow was proud of the Pharaoh too. "And they say coin-tricks are for losers."

"The question now is if those brothers are really just gonna let them go-"

Para and Dox couldn't believe they'd been had. Despite their disbelief however, Dox's door opened up and the group was free to leave.

"…Nevermind." Weiss sighed.

The next scene showed a dark dungeon where two individuals were standing guard.

Nora was getting dizzy from all the scenery changes. "Now where are we?"

"Some sort of dungeon from the looks of things." Qrow noted.

Suddenly Kaiba appeared out of nowhere and knocked out the two guards without any difficulty.

"Holy cow!" Ruby said quickly, surprised how fast Seto took care of those guards.

Qrow let out a whistle at the guy's efficiency. Taking down two guards like that so quickly was no easy feat. Then again, neither guard had an Aura to protect themselves with.

"Seems Kaiba is not just good at card-games." Blake stated, less than thrilled to see Kaiba again. Something that she shared with her partner.

"But what's Kaiba doing in a dungeon and taking down guards?" Jaune asked. "The title-card said that Kaiba would be on a mission, but what kind?"

Yang could only think it was something bad. "Probably something evil like stealing money from a vault-"

"The guy is already rich Xiao Long." Weiss reminded her. "He'd have no reason to steal money."

"Then maybe he's trying to steal something like an art-piece its owners didn't wanna sell." Yang theorized further, convinced Kaiba was there to commit some sort of crime. "Or maybe-"

Kaiba then ran towards a cell with inside a small kid with long blue-hair, wearing a card-like pendant around his neck. Said kid had his legs chained against the wall.

Yang's rant came to a grinding hold once she saw the kid in a cell.

"W-Why is that kid chained-up in a cell?!" Weiss asked for the group.

"Look how roughed up he is!" Pyrrha cried out.

"Is he being held prisoner?" Ren asked next. "Has he perhaps been kidnapped?"

"I suppose we're about to find out." Ozpin said with a grim-look.

"Mokuba."

Blake raised an eyebrow at hearing the tone in Kaiba's voice as he called out the kid's name. "Is this Mokuba perhaps a relative of Kaiba's?"

"He is." Saixus confirmed. "In fact, Mokuba there happens to be Seto's little brother."

"You did mention Seto had a younger brother when we watched the first episode of the future." Weiss recalled.

"That explains why he was beating up those guards!" Ruby realized. "He must have somehow tracked down the kidnappers and came to rescue him!"

"Huh, maybe he's not such a bad guy after all." Jaune stated. If somebody had captured one of his sisters, he would also do everything he could to free them.

Yang meanwhile decided to lower Kaiba on her list of people from that dimension she disliked. She was still pissed about what Seto did to Yugi's grandfather, but at least he was a good brother.

Mokuba lifted up his head and saw that the person calling him was none other than his older brother. "Seto? Seto, it's you!"

"Yeah, it's me." Kaiba said as he smiled at his little brother.

Suddenly Zwei started moving erratically as if he had a heart attack.

"Zwei?" Ruby asked in worry before the corgi stopped moving altogether with his tongue sticking out. "ZWEI!"

"ZWEI?!" Yang immediately stood up and picked the dog from Ruby's lap, putting her ear on the corgi's stomach to check for a heartbeat. When she didn't hear anything, she immediately put the dog on the floor and started giving CPR, which her father had taught her a while back.

"What's wrong with him?!" Weiss asked frantically as everyone got up from their seats.

"I-I don't know!" Ruby said as tears were leaving her eyes. "O-One mi-minute he was f-fine! And then he-he-!" The pressure was too much and Ruby cried full force, causing her uncle to try and comfort her.

"Hey, hey It's alright Squirt, this isn't your fault." Qrow said as Ruby cried on his chest while Yang continued the heart-massage despite all the tears that were coming out of her eyes as well. "Zwei's a though little pup, I'm sure he'll make it."

As everyone was worrying about Zwei, Saixus looked at the frozen screen of Kaiba smiling and whispered to himself in disbelief "Oh my god, it's true…" He quickly changed to scene to Mokuba again and snapped his fingers behind his back. No abridged-reference was gonna be killing Zwei anytime soon!

Just as Yang was starting to think there was nothing more she could do, Zwei's eyes slowly started to open before he looked around confused. Why was everyone watching him?

Yang let out a huge sigh of relief and Ruby wasted no time picking the corgi up and hugging him in absolute relief. "ZWEEEEIII! I THOUGHT I HAD LOST YOOOOUUU!"

Yang waved away some of her own tears before joining Ruby in hugging the dog too. "Don't scare us like that little guy!" She smiled as tears kept leaking out. "It wasn't funny!"

Qrow sighed in relief, thankful the little guy made it. Her nieces would have been devastated had the little guy perished.

Team JNPR was also glad to see the dog was alright while Pyrrha and Nora were both crying in relief.

Weiss was doing the same thing and wanted to hug and comfort Zwei too, but decided that the sisters had first claim. She'll just let him know how relieved she was when the dog sat next to her again.

Blake was glad to see everything turned out alright too. Just because she wasn't a fan of the corgi didn't mean that she wanted him to die.

Ozpin was quiet for the most part but was happy to see everything turned out alright. He was curious why the little dog was suddenly having a heart-attack though.

Saixus stood up and walked up to the sisters with a bottle of water and a pill. "Here, this is dog-medicine. Just let him swallow this and he won't be having heart-attacks again any time soon."

Mokuba held on to his pendant and said "Seto, I always knew you would come and rescue me! Always!"

As everyone got back in their seats, Yang took Zwei with her to try and give him the pill. Ruby wanted to keep the dog at first but remembered that the corgi was extremely stubborn when it came to taking medicine. "Zwei I know you don't like pills but we don't want you having another heart-attack out of nowhere!"

"Probably best you girls take Zwei to the vet tomorrow just to be safe." Qrow advised which the girls nodded to... before letting out heavy sighs. They loved Zwei and were glad he was alright, but they were not looking forward to bringing the dog to the vet. He is surprisingly fast!

Meanwhile, Weiss was a little peeved that Yang now had Zwei because with Blake in between them she could no longer comfort the dog herself and she really, really wanted to.

Blake meanwhile was leaning away from the cuddly beast but not as far as you would think. She still felt bad for the dog which was lessening her fears a bit.

"So what now." Mokuba asked as he started walking to his brother. "I bet you have some high-tech plan to get me out of- Arg!" He cut himself off as his chains would not allow him to get closer to the bars.

Getting their attention back on the show, the watchers couldn't help but wince at Mokuba's predicament.

"Don't worry everyone!" Ruby addressed the group. "I'm sure Seto will have Mokuba free in just a few seconds."

"Stay still kiddo!" Kaiba told him, not wanting to see his brother in more pain. "Just give me one second to pick this lock."

"How the hell does rich-boy know how to pick a lock?" Qrow asked in bewilderment. "That's not exactly a skill you'd expect a wealthy person to have."

"Well you also wouldn't think Ice Queen's much of a fighter but that's certainly wrong." Yang replied to which Weiss narrowed her eyes at the blonde. "Hey I'm just saying, if I never saw you apply to Beacon Academy, the thought of a Schnee wanting to become a huntress would never have crossed my mind."

Weiss sighed deeply at Yang's comment but couldn't exactly refute it while Qrow was laughing internally at her niece using the same nickname for the Schnee that he had for her sister.

Weiss attention back on screen, she couldn't help but smile at Seto's rescue. She was a 100% sure if she were ever imprisoned, her sister would rush to free her in an instant.

Before Kaiba could open the lock, Pegasus suddenly appeared. "Well well, the brothers Kaiba, reunited at last. Bravo Kaiba, bravo." He said as he clapped sarcastically at Seto. "I knew nothing would stop you from getting here."

Seto narrowed his eyes at his brother's kidnapper. "Pegasus."

"Pegasus was the one who kidnapped Mokuba?!" Jaune asked in shock.

"He really is the bad guy of the season." Nora said while frowning at the man.

"B-But that doesn't make any sense! Seto provides to holographic-technology for Pegasus' card-game." Weiss pointed out. "They're business partners! What possible reason could he have for kidnapping Mokuba?"

"Business-agreements are not a sign of loyalty." Saixus told the heiress. "Let me put this situation into perspective. If your father and mother were to die, who would inherit the Schnee-corporation?"

Weiss was not a big fan of Saixus' example but answered none the last. "I would of course."

Saixus nodded and said "So who do you think would take over KaibaCorp if Seto were to meet an unfortunate end?"

Weiss was silent for a bit before answering. "Mokuba?"

Saixus nodded again. "Now your company has board-members that have their own share of the company, correct?" Weiss nodded. "Well so does KaibaCorp and they're called the Big Five. They're the reason Seto's in charge because they supported him when he took over the company from his father."

"He took over his father's company WITH support from the board?!" Weiss was surprised by this as she could never see herself pulling off the same stunt. "But he's so young! He can barely be older than me! I thought he got to be CEO because his father passed away or something, how did he convince the board to support him?!"

"Gozaburo Kaiba wasn't exactly the easiest of bosses." Saixus told her. "So when Seto went to the Big Five and proposed his plan to them, they immediately jumped on board on the pretense that Seto would basically become a puppet CEO who would allow them to do whatever they pleased."

"That's… a very naïve and dangerous line of thought." Weiss said, not believing for a second that strategy would work at her family's company.

"However, pretty much the exact opposite happened." Saixus continued. "Seto's anything but a puppet. He denies practically all the Five's major requests and severely limits their influence on the company. They got so fed up with it that they turned to Maximillian Pegasus and proposed a violent company takeover to him."

"A WHAT?!" Weiss screamed out loud.

Yang put her hand up and asked "Uhm, what makes this takeover violent?"

"The Big Five and Pegasus tried to have Seto assassinated shortly after he lost to Yami." Saixus answered.

"Holy shit!" Nora said for the group.

"That's why he's holding Mokuba prisoner." Ozpin realized. "If Seto's dead, Mokuba will gain control of the company and then they'll be able to force him to hand over his ownership of KaibaCorp to Pegasus."

"Forcing the two companies to fuse and Pegasus to have access to all of KaibaCorp's resources!" Weiss finished, making a mental-note to keep her eye on members of the board when she takes over her family-company.

"I knew you'd come for Mokuba eventually." Pegasus claimed.

"Oh you did?" Kaiba asked, having no patience for Pegasus whatsoever. "Well tell me something Pegasus, did you also foresee what I'm about to do to you for harming my little brother!"

"Yeah show that creep how tough us older siblings can be!" Yang said, feeling a bit weird cheering for the guy who hospitalized an old man.

Jaune silently agreed with Yang, being an older sibling himself. Heck, even Weiss was fairly sure she'd do the same thing if someone kidnapped her younger brother. He was a brat at times but they were still siblings.

Pegasus smiled smugly and said "Actually Kaiba, I predict that you won't lay a finger on me."

"And why is that?" Seto asked, not taking the silver-haired man seriously. "You conniving snake, I should take you down right now for what you've done to Mokuba."

Pegasus laughed and said "Don't be ridiculous Kaiba-boy."

Yang didn't want to laugh at that nickname but she quietly did.

"In my dungeon, in my castle, in my realm the only one who makes threats," Pegasus' Millennium Eye started glowing. "is me!"

The Eye shone brightly upon Seto and Mokuba, causing the former to wince while the latter screamed in pain.

"What's he doing to Mokuba?!" Pyrrha asked in distress.

Ozpin had a pretty good guess. "I think we already know the answer to that."

Once the light had settled, Seto immediately saw his little brother laying on the floor. "Mokuba?"

Pegasus smiled triumphantly as the image of a terrified Mokuba appeared on a card in his hand.

"OH NO! HE STOLE MOKUBA'S SOUL TOO!" Ruby screamed.

"THAT BASTARD!" Yang yelled loudly. "HE'S JUST A LITTLE KID!"

Seto Kaiba turned to Maximillion Pegasus and said "You monster! What have you done to him?!"

"It's just a little magic-trick." Pegasus told him.

Kaiba was not happy with that answer. "Tell me, what have you done?!"

"I have ensured your cooperation." Pegasus revealed. "For you see, Mokuba's soul is now imprisoned in a place where the locks can't be picked."

"This is far from good." Ozpin commented. "Before, mister Kaiba could have tried to knockout Pegasus the same way he did with the guards. Now he cannot without risking his brother's soul."

"You're mad!" Seto declared, not willing to believe such a thing.

"I'd find it pretty difficult to believe someone can steal souls too before learning magic's real in that world." Ren admitted.

Pegasus continued "And there he will remain Kaiba-boy until you beat me in a duel."

"Bu-But you already have him in the palm of your hands!" Weiss stated, not understanding why Pegasus would give Seto the chance to save his brother. "Why would he-"

"He's toying with him." Qrow answered, having seen that overconfident look before. "He wants Kaiba to think he can free his brother, but knows Kaiba can never beat him in a duel."

"Why not?" Ruby asked her uncle.

"Because not only did Pegasus invent this game, he can also read your mind Squirt." Qrow reminded her. "Sure Yami was close to beating him but it felt like Pegasus was playing around in that duel. He'll no doubt be more serious in a duel with high stakes."

Kaiba couldn't jump on board fast enough. "Duel, with you? Now? Fine, I'll do anything!"

"I… don't know how I feel about Seto jumping on board so fast." Yang admitted, even though she would likely have done the same thing if someone held Ruby's soul hostage. "I mean… can't he just call the police or something?"

"Do you really think the cops will believe that a millionaire can steal souls?" Qrow asked deadpanned.

"Well he can at least tell them that his brother was kidnapped!" Yang retorted.

"Something tells me that Pegasus has his own connections with the police." Ozpin said begrudgedly. After all, all Pegasus has to do is read their minds and he can get all the blackmail material he'll ever need.

Pegasus shook his head at the enraged Kaiba. "Not just yet Kaiba, you must first earn the privilege to challenge me. And you can only do that by defeating Yugi in a duel. And if you can't win against him, Mokuba's soul will stay mine forever, hahahaha!"

"Now he wants Seto to duel Yami again?" Nora asked confused. "Why?"

"Like I said, he's toying with them." Qrow repeated.

"But shouldn't Seto and the others try to work together?" Ruby asked. "They're both fighting to save a loved one from Pegasus after all."

Qrow shook his head. "Pegasus made his conditions clear to Seto. Rich-kid's not gonna risk disobeying Pegasus, not with his brother as a hostage."

"And remember that Kaiba did hospitalize Yugi's grandfather." Blake pointed out. "They would be very hesitant to trust anything Kaiba says after that, much less help him"

---

Episode 22 – 24 : Yami versus Seto Kaiba (second duel)

Yami and Kaiba were facing off on the castle-wall, both were surrounded by massive holographic-cards and Yami had Giant Soldier Of Stone on the field while Kaiba had a Blue-Eyes out.

Ozpin couldn't say that he was surprised. "Seems Qrow was correct."

Jaune couldn't believe he was about to ask this but… "Uhm, who are cheering for exactly? I mean, I know Kaiba's a jerk but he's fighting to try and save his little brother!"

"Well, Yami defeated Seto before so he has the better chance right?" Ruby put in.

"That was when he still had Exodia though." Weiss recalled. "He might not be able to beat Seto without it."

"On another note, has anyone else noticed that they're not dueling on a Duel-Arena?" Pyrrha observed.

"Hey, you're right!" Jaune realized. "But how can they be dueling without one? I thought Duel-Disks hadn't been invented yet."

"Those two are dueling using the very first prototype Duel-Disks." Saixus told them. "Kaiba was working on those before Pegasus tried to have him killed."

"But why would he bring those things with him?" Weiss asked.

"To eliminate the risk of Pegasus cheating if they dueled on one of his Duel-Arena's." Saixus answered. "Not that it would help much."

"Now I create a Duel Monster without pier, with attack force so great that no monster can stand against him!" Kaiba declared as he fused his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons into one. This new dragon had the body of a normal Blue-Eyes, but three heads instead of one. "I create, the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"

"Holy Oum!" Nora yelled upon seeing the massive beast come into being. "That is one dragon you don't wanna run into!"

Jaune couldn't believe that Kaiba had an even stronger dragon. His Blue-Eyes were already tough enough when they were separated, but fused together?!

Weiss decided that she liked the separated Blue-Eyes better than the fused-together one. It was still a magnificent dragon, but the three-heads took away some of its charm.

"Nothing can save you now!" Kaiba said as it was revealed that his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon had 4500 attack-points.

"4500?!" Ruby shouted in surprise. "That's the strongest monster we've seen so far!"

"You'd think he'd have 9000 attack-points though." Nora said which caused the group to turn to her. "I mean, 3 times 3000 is 9000, right? Not half that total!"

"What, you want that thing to have 9000 attack-points?!" Weiss berated. "4500 is plenty enough! I mean, does Yami even have anything with more attack-strength?"

"No and it wouldn't have mattered if he did." Saixus answered, causing the others to look at him. "See, a few turns ago, Kaiba used a card known as Crush Card Virus. Once activated, it infected Yami's cards with a virus. Now he can only play monsters whose attack-points are lower than 1500."

"How's Yami supposed to win if he can only use weak monsters?!" Nora frantically asked.

Jaune agreed with her. "Okay this Crush Card Virus sounds way to OP! A card like that would cripple any opponent!"

"Well the card has gone through some massive reworks over the years so it's nowhere near as powerful as it once was." Saixus told him. "But yeah, Crush Card Virus in this universe was broken as hell."

"Now Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, Neutron Blast Attack!" Kaiba ordered and the Ultimate Dragon obeyed, unleashing a lightning-stream so intense, Yami's Stone Soldier stood no chance.

The watchers went wide-eyed at the massive attack, their lightning-expert especially. "I-I've never seen so much lightning in a single attack before!"

"Yami's monster stood no chance." Ren pointed out. "I don't wanna start rooting against Yami, but I don't see how he can best such a mighty monster using only his weakest ones."

Yang became silent at that statement. She would much rather cheer for Yami then that jerk Kaiba but… Seto was fighting to save his little sibling! Being an older sibling herself, she couldn't find it in her heart to cheer against Kaiba.

Yami drew his next card and was surprised to see what it was. He couldn't help but laugh when he saw it. "Hehehe, Kaiba I just drew the card that will defend me against your Ultimate Dragon!"

"Impossible!" Kaiba objected.

"Sounds like Yami hasn't given up yet." Pyrrha said with a smile.

"But how can he possibly defend himself against something that powerful?" Yang asked, not letting her bias show.

"From what I understand of this game, power isn't always everything." Ozpin said with a bit of a smirk. "Underestimating the power of the weak can be major mistake."

"Watch and learn!" Yami replied as he withdrew the Duel-Disk spinner and put a new card on it.

"I can see why that thing's still a prototype." Weiss said, her business sense taking over. "Having to pull back that projector every time you want to play new cards would get tedious fast. And are the giant holographic cards really necessary?"

"This is it, the beginning of your defeat!" Yami declared as threw the spinner back on the ground.

Everyone got a bit closer to the screen, wondering what monster could possibly defend Yami from the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

"Kuriboh in attack-mode!" Yami's monster was revealed to be big ball of brown-fluff with big purple eyes and small green-feet and arms. He let out a cute-cry as his attack-strength was shown to be 300.

…

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Ruby yelled as her eyes had turned into pink-hearts. "HE'S SOOO CUUUUTEEE!"

Nora agreed full-heartedly. "IT'S THE MOST ADORABLE LITTLE THING I'VE EVER SEEN! I WANNA TAKE HIM HOME AND SHARE MY PANCAKES WITH HIM!"

That actually took Ren by surprise. Nora doesn't share her pancakes like… ever.

"I… can't handle… THE CUTENESS!" Now Weiss her eyes had turned into pink-hearts. "HE LOOKS SO FLUFFY AND HAPPY AND- AND- KYAAAAAH! I WANNA TAKE HIM HOME AND HUG HIM, TAKE CARE OF HIM, GOBBLE HIM UP AND, AND EEEEEEEEEEEEEK-!"

Pyrrha, Yang and Blake were completely quiet but their cheeks were pink as roses. 'S-So cute…'

The guys looked at the girls with sweat-drops.

"Okay yeah, that guy is pretty cute looking." Jaune admitted. "But I don't see how that can stop a giant three-headed dragon."

"That's ridiculous!" Kaiba yelled, feeling insulted at Yami's move. "In the entire game, Kuriboh's the weakest monster!"

"Is it?" Qrow asked, having no confidence in the fluff-ball whatsoever.

"No." Was Saixus' straight answer. "Kuriboh is certainly not the strongest card out there, but he's useful to the point that he's still used in the future."

Suddenly Kaiba smirked and said "Yugi, you're free to concede and forfeit the match, but come on. Don't embarrass yourself by playing that runt of a monster."

Kuriboh did not take kindly to that statement as he glared hard at Kaiba.

"Hey! Don't insult little Kuri like that!" Nora yelled at the screen.

"Oh my Oum, she's already nicknamed him..." Ren said, figuring Nora wasn't gonna stop gushing about Kuriboh anytime soon.

"Kaiba, you're mistaking." Yami told him with a smirk. "This card will defend everything, and before this duel's over your dragon will fall!"

Blake took note of Yami's tone. " I think Yami's already certain of his victory."

"His confidence has sure skyrocketed since he played Kuriboh." Pyrrha agreed, still a little pink in the face.

"But how can one little puffball stand up to that massive dragon?" Jaune asked.

Saixus snickered and said "Who said anything about one?"

"My last card will be the magic-card Multiply!" Yami declared as the massive hologram of Multiply turned around. "Multiply works with monsters with attack-power below 500 and multiplies them endlessly!"

Suddenly another Kuriboh appeared on the field, followed by four more, then eight, then sixteen. There was simply no end to them.

All the girls couldn't help but gush over the additional Kuriboh's.

"IT'S AN ENTIRE KURIBOH LEGION!" Ruby cheered.

"THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM!" Weiss gushed, really whishing she could grab one out of the screen.

"CUTENESS OVERLOAD!" Nora yelled before fainting on the coach.

Ren sighed before turning to Saixus. "I'm already on it." He said before making pancakes appear in front of Nora, causing her to wake up again.

Blake's pink cheeks did not go away as her instincts were telling her to pounce at one of those Kuriboh's as if they were a ball of yarn.

"Holy crap, they're everywhere!" Qrow said in disbelief. "I thought you were only allowed to have 5 monsters on the field at once!"

"Early Duel Monster's Multiply was an exception to that rule." Saixus stated. "That card will also be greatly altered and good thing too, because just like Crush Card Virus, Multiply was broken as hell in this universe."

Kaiba was not worried about Yami's wall of Kuriboh's and ordered his Ultimate Dragon to attack. "Neutron Blast!"

The dragon fired a stream of lightning at the floating hairballs, blowing several up in the process.

"HOW COULD YOU?!" Ruby was crying at seeing the adorable balls of fluff blow up. "THEY WERE TOO CUTE TO DIE!"

"You heartless MONSTER!" Weiss shouted too.

"I'LL BREAK HIS LEGS!" Nora shouted. "THEN FIX THEM SO I CAN BREAK THEM AGAIN!"

The other girls were also less than pleased by Kaiba's move, causing Qrow to sweat drop. "…I wanna remind them that those things are just holograms, but I don't want them to direct their rage at me."

Ozpin nodded at his friend's words of wisdom.

However despite Ultimate Dragon's attack, there were still plenty of Kuriboh's on the field. In fact, more started to appear to replace the ones that were lost.

"YAY! They're coming back!" Ruby cheered with her hands in the air.

"And now there's even more of them than before!" Nora cheered as well.

"Damn, those things are multiplying like crazy!" Qrow said with raised eyebrows. "I've already lost count of how many there are."

Kaiba was enraged by this as Yami explained that if he wants to get to his life-points he needs to destroy all the Kuriboh, but every time they get destroyed, they multiple right back.

"They're like an endless army…" Ozpin realized.

"The most adorable army ever!" Weiss added in a fangirlish tone.

"Hairballs!" Kaiba insulted. "For each one I destroy, two more take its place!"

"Stop insulting Kuriboh!" Ruby said angrily.

"Yeah they're doing nothing wrong!" Weiss said which the other girls nodded to.

Jaune and Ren (and Saixus) may or may not be jealous at the Kuriboh's for getting so much attention from the girls.

"You may have created the ultimate attack-monster but I've created the ultimate defense." Yami stated proudly. "An ever-growing army of furry protectors. They may not look like much but they stopped your dragon in its tracks."

"The power of the many is never to be underestimated." Ozpin said proudly, before grimacing a little. "But Yami won't be able to win unless he figures out a way to take that dragon down permanently."

"Something tells me he already has a plan in mind." Blake replied.

Next Yami was shown with three cards in front of him. "I'm gonna show you the combo that will bring your dragon down. Mammoth Graveyard, Polymerization and the Living Arrow-card!"

That last card was not one Seto was familiar with. "What's a Living Arrow-card?"

Yami then explained that with the Living Arrow-card he can fuse his Mammoth Graveyard with Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

Jaune did not understand what Yami was trying to accomplish. "But… won't fusion another monster with Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon just make it stronger?"

"Something tells me this isn't gonna be a normal fusion." Pyrrha figured.

Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon let out a roar of pain as the Living Arrow penetrated the dragon's skin. Then suddenly, the Mammoth Grave came out of the Blue-Eyes' chest.

Ruby shivered again. "Oh no… it's like that movie about the Grimm from outer space!"

Weiss decided not to repeat herself again and simply sighed.

Kaiba became concerned by this move. "My dragon! What have you done?!"

Yami proceeded to explain. "Since my Mammoth Graveyard is an undead-type monster, he can't properly fuse with your living Ultimate Dragon. Instead it causes your monster to rot and decay from the inside-out. Each turn your Ultimate Dragon will lose attack-points, until your creature is no more!"

Again, Weiss had learned from the previous videos that she wasn't gonna get the question 'How does that work?' answered so she remained quiet.

Ultimate Dragon was already starting to melt as his attack-strength lowered by 1200 points. Kaiba looked at his deck, trying to think of something he could do to save his dragon. But he soon realized that he had no cards in his deck that could possibly undo Yami's fusion.

"He can't undo it?" Yang asked, a little thicker then she wanted. "But the battle's not over yet. Surely he has something to make a comeback."

"Kaiba strikes me as an individual who's well aware of what cards he has in his deck." Ozpin responded. "If he says that he doesn't have any cards that can save his dragon then I'm inclined to believe him."

Yang started shaking at this which caused Ruby to look at her older sibling confused. Why was she worrying about Kaiba? They wanted Yami to win… didn't they?"

With little to no other options, Kaiba decided to attack with his Ultimate Dragon again, causing Yami to smirk triumphantly. "When will you learn. The Kuriboh multiply faster than you can eliminate them with your Neutron Blasts."

As if to prove his point, double the amount of Kuriboh's Kaiba had just destroyed appeared back on the field.

"You know, I almost don't want Kaiba to stop attacking those sweet little Kuris if more are gonna keep showing up." Nora stated, still gushing over the adorable fiends.

"I think this means the battle's over." Qrow stated with his arms crossed. "If he can't get rid of those little guys and his own monster keeps getting weaker with every turn then it's only a matter of time before Yami draws a monster strong enough to destroy Ultimate Dragon, even if it has less than 1500 attack-points."

Yang didn't reply to her uncle's statement as she started to clench both her fists.

Kaiba attacked again, but once again the Kuriboh's reappeared while Yami smirked triumphantly.

Ren did not understand what Kaiba was trying to accomplish. "Why does he keep attacking? He knows he's not gonna get rid of the Kuriboh this way."

"Because he's getting desperate." Weiss answered, grapping the attention of the rest of the group. "Have you all forgotten what's at stake here? If Seto doesn't win then he can't save his little brother. It makes sense that he's desperate for a way out."

Yang agreed with the Schnee one-hundred percent.

Kaiba was shaking as he starting to realize there was nothing he could do to eliminate Yami's Kuriboh's or save his dragon.

"You should never have challenged me Kaiba." Yami declared with a grin. "My Mammoth takes another 1200 points from your dragon."

At this point Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon was practically nothing more but a bunch of slime trying desperately to stick together, even as it's attack-strength dropped to 900.

"Even my weakest monsters can destroy it now!" Yami said as a matter of fact.

Yang was getting fed up with Yami's taunting. She liked it when Yami talked smack to his opponents but this was neither the time nor the place.

"Am I the only one whose starting to feel sorry for that dragon?" Pyrrha asked, referring to the near melted Ultimate Dragon. "He looks like he's gonna be nothing but pudding by the end of this."

"And not the delicious looking kind." Nora said, feeling a bit green at the sight of the molten dragon.

Now fully aware that he was going to lose this duel, Kaiba's face turned into one of despair. 'I can't believe it. I've failed… I have failed my brother! I have failed Mokuba!'

Kaiba was imagining his little brother, a younger version of him, trapped within the slimy remains of his Ultimate Dragon. Mokuba begged his brother to help him but Kaiba was unmoving as a younger version of himself appeared, desperately trying to grab Mokuba's hand, but he wasn't fast enough. Mokuba became completely absorbed in the slimy mess, letting out a desperate cry for help. The dragon eventually melted completely and fell on the ground, taking Mokuba along with him. The younger Seto turned around and berated Kaiba for being unable to save his brother and keep his promise, as Kaiba himself was now melting away, letting out one final cry. "MOOOKKUUUBBBBAAAA!"

Nobody. Said. A. Word. Kaiba's hopeless face as reality struck him. Him imaging how Mokuba would disappear along with his dragon. His younger self insulting him for being unable to protect his brother like he promised. Nobody knew how to respond to Kaiba's despair.

But while the others had faces of sadness, shock and compassion, Yang's face revealed nothing but rage. The situation Kaiba found himself in was nothing short of the girls worst nightmares. Being unable to protect your little sibling, knowing that there's nothing you can do to save them. Yang already got her sister in that situation once when they were kids. It was only thanks to Qrow that they survived that but Yang never felt more helpless, more hopeless then at that very moment. Seeing Kaiba have a similar experience was nothing but torture to the young woman.

Qrow and Ruby looked worried at Yang while the others were starting to feel more and more sympathetic to Kaiba's situation.

Kaiba could only stare at the mess that was once his mighty beast as Yami played his next monster. "This is it Kaiba, prepare to meet your demise!"

The Kuriboh made way for an elf-swordsmen with green-armor. "Celtic Guardian, attack Ultimate Dragon!"

Celtic Guardian speeded toward the molten beast and with one slash from his mighty sword cut off the dragon's middle-head, but the rest of the dragon remained. Bakura explained that Ultimate Dragon would remain on the field since each individual head was its own Blue-Eyes. Kaiba still lost 500 life-points, lowering his total to 400. If Yami attacks Ultimate Dragon again next turn, he would win.

"He can't do that." Yang suddenly spoke up with venom in every word, catching everyone's attention. "He… he can't continue. Yami needs to surrender, right now!"

"Yang! He can't do that!" Ruby tried to reason with her. "Yami's also dueling to try and save someone he loves. If he surrenders, then he can't save his grandfather."

"SO KAIBA JUST SUPPOSE TO ACCEPT THAT HE CAN'T SAVE HIS LITTLE BROTHER JUST BECAUSE HE CAN'T WIN ONE STUPID GAME?! WHAT'S FAIR ABOUT THAT?!"

"Miss Xiao Long, calm yourself!" Ozpin spoke up, looking sternly at the brawler as Ruby winced at her sister's outburst. "I understand your opinion on this matter but please remember that we cannot change anything that's happening on screen. Kaiba's quest is a just one but you can't blame Yami for continuing to fight for someone he loves either. For all we know, Solomon might very well be the only family-member Yugi and Yami have. Can you really ask them to give up on him just like that?"

Yang looked angrily at Ozpin before seeing Zwei look sadly at the blonde brawler. She then saw Ruby looking at her with a face that said 'Are you okay?'. Seeing this caused her to calm down considerably. "Sorry about that… this just… hits a little closer to home then I'd like..."

"Yugi, it can't end this way." Kaiba suddenly spoke up. "If I don't defeat you in this duel, Pegasus will keep Mokuba prisoner… forever. I can't let that happen, and even though I don't have a card that can keep you from attacking, I think I still have a strategy that will stop you in your tracks."

"What do you mean?" Yami asked.

"Yeah, what does he mean?" Nora asked confused.

"I'm going to force your hand, and win this battle Yugi." Kaiba answered as he started stepping backwards. At first everyone was confused as to what Kaiba was doing, but then stared shocked as Kaiba was now standing at the edge of the castle.

The others were also confused about what Kaiba was doing at first, but they quickly realized what was happening.

"Wait… he's not going to…" Weiss said in disbelief.

"I think he is…" Jaune replied with widened eyes.

"You move Yugi. You can attack my Blue-Eyes again and wipe out my remaining life-points, but if you do the resulting shock-waves might cause me to lose my balance."

"He's threatening to kill himself?!" Pyrrha asked in shock.

"He can't be serious… can he?" Nora asked.

"…He is." Qrow answered, seeing the serious look in Kaiba's eyes. "He knows he can no longer win the game no matter what he does, so he's giving Yami an ultimatum."

"Don't tempt me!" Yami angrily replied.

The others were surprised by Yami's harsh reply.

Kaiba was not deterred. "My fate is completely in your hands Yugi. You'll decide this duel one way or another. Of course if you don't surrender, I might be hurt. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Blake could hardly believe this. "He's seriously threatening to kill himself if Yami doesn't surrender? That sounds like something an 8-year old would do!"

"He has basically thrown away what little honor he still had!" Pyrrha stated harshly.

"It's not as simple as that and you all know it!" Yang jumped to Kaiba's defense. "Again, he can only save Mokuba by winning this game. If he can't win normally anymore then this is the only option he has left."

Pyrrha turned at the blond and said. "It's not that I don't understand why he's doing it but…"

"But he's desperate." Qrow cut in, also jumping to Kaiba's defense. "If someone you love is in danger and you can't save them by normal-means, would you really not be willing to cross a line or two?"

Pyrrha didn't reply to that question while the others didn't know what to think of this situation. They understood perfectly why Kaiba was doing this of course, but was it really the only option he had left?

"Stop it Kaiba, you know this is dangerous!" Tea tried talking sense into him.

"Neh, Kaiba's bluffing." Joey figured before shouting at rich-boy. "Now drop this cheap-ploy! Get down from that ledge and play fair. You know that Yugi doesn't want to hurt you!"

Kaiba smirked at this and Bakura realized what Kaiba's plan was. "He knows, he's counting on Yugi to surrender."

Joey blinked at this before turning to Bakura. "But he can't do that. If he loses to Kaiba, he won't get into the castle."

"Which means he can't save his grandfather." Blake recalled with crossed arms. "Kaiba's basically forcing Yami to choose between saving someone he loves or his principals."

"I'm warning you Kaiba, don't push me too far!" Yami threatened. "I must win to rescue my grandfather!"

"He's… not going to do it, is he?" Jaune asked, a bit worried Yami hadn't backed down already.

"Nah, Yami is just trying to psych Kaiba out." Ruby said fairly certain.

"I don't think his plan's working then." Ren said as he pointed at the screen.

"And I must win this duel to rescue Mokuba, the difference is I'm willing to risk anything to do it." Kaiba replied with his serious-face. "You know I can stand up here all day, and I'm certain that you won't declare any attack for fear that you might knock me off. Even though you know by not attacking, you give up the only chance you have to save your grandpa."

"Yeah, he's definitely made up his mind already." Qrow stated with a bit of a frown. He understood why Kaiba was doing this, but that didn't mean he was okay with it either.

"But aren't those things just holograms?" Weiss pointed out. "There wasn't any shockwave the first time Celtic Guardian attacked, so why would there be one now?

"There probably isn't going to be one but you're overlooking one thing." Ozpin said with a serious look in his eyes. "Seto can always jump of his own accord."

That… didn't sit well with anyone.

Kaiba drew his next card, which was a Monster Reborn magic-card. He used said card to revive the dragon's head that was just slain, returning him back with 3000 ATK-points. He then says that he'll attack Celtic Guardian on his next turn and since he's in attack-mode, his life-points are no longer save.

Weiss had several questions about this move but knew she wouldn't get any answers.

"Surrender Yugi!" Kaiba all but demanded as he went over his throat with his thumb. "That is unless you have the courage to unleash your attack!"

"Okay, do you actually want Yami to attack you?!" Jaune asked in fury. "I get why you're doing this but why are you trying to bate Yami into attacking?!"

"He's trying to make it clear that if he attacks, Rich-boy dies." Qrow stated. "The reality of that would be enough to prevent most people from attacking."

'I must.' Yami thought.

"…But that apparently doesn't apply to this guy!" Qrow said in shock.

Ruby was shocked as well. "He's actually gonna attack?!"

'We can't!' Yugi thought back.

"Oh… I actually forgot Yugi was in there as well for a second…" Ruby said sheepishly. "But it's good to see he wants to do the right thing!"

"So one guy wants to attack while the other doesn't?" Jaune summarized.

"It seems that way." Blake said paying very close attention to the screen. This situation was pretty much identical to one she had read about before in her book.

'We must!' Yami told Yugi.

'No! It's not right!' Yugi told him. 'There must be another way!'

Qrow looked at Ozpin, whispered to him. "Quick question, is this what happens when you and your host disagree on something?"

"… It's not completely dissimilar." Ozpin admitted.

'There isn't.' Yami replied before making his move. "Kaiba I have never backed away, and I'm not starting now! Celtic Guardian, attack!"

"Don't!" Ruby shouted. "You can't risk Kaiba getting hurt!"

Weiss deadpanned at Ruby and said "Falling off a building without Aura is gonna do a lot more then hurt Ruby!"

"Yugi, you can't!" Tea yelled at him as she ran towards her friend while Celtic Guardian was rushing toward one of the melting Blue-Eyes heads. "You can't take this risk! Call him back! Yuuuuggiiiii!"

'She's right, we can't do this!' Yugi screamed in his mind as he took control back over his body. "STOP!"

Celtic Guardian heard his master and stopped just short of Ultimate Dragon. He put his sword down and looked at the ground in shame.

The watchers let out sighs of relief at seeing the warrior stop his attack, especially Yang, who was afraid Kaiba had just thrown away his pride for nothing.

"That was way to close!" Ruby said relieved.

"I can't believe Yami was fine with nearly killing Kaiba!" Jaune said.

Ozpin felt the need to defend his fellow spirit. "To be fair, Yami's amnesia combined with the fact that his previous interactions with mister Kaiba have been anything but positive makes it pretty believable he'd chose his grandfather over Kaiba's wellbeing."

Yugi was doing the same thing as he was on his knees sweating bullets while staring wide-eyed in disbelief. He couldn't belief what he had almost done.

"It's a good thing Yugi took over when he did." Ren said, feeling nothing but sympathy for Yugi. "If Yami's attack did cost Kaiba to fall off the castle, he would never have been able to forgive himself."

As quickly as Kaiba's turn began, he ordered his Blue-Eyes to obliterated Celtic Guardian, wiping out the remainder of Yugi's life-points.

Pyrrha frowned at Kaiba's quick move. "Not even a second of hesitation…"

"Again, brother's life on the line here!" Yang repeated.

"He could have at least thanked Yugi for not killing him!" Pyrrha pointed out.

"…Okay, I can agree with you on that." Yang admitted. If she was there and Yugi had thrown the match so that she could save her sister, she would have at least apologized for forcing Yugi's hand like that. Not to mention promise to try and save Yugi's grandpa too.

"Okay, a quick info-dump before we go to the next moment." Saixus called out. "After losing to Kaiba, Yugi becomes pretty depressed for a while and even promises never to duel again. Tea manages to convince him otherwise by defeating Mai in a duel and taking the five extra Starchips she had managed to get. She then gave those to Yugi so he can enter the castle as well."

"…That sounds like an episode we needed to watch to understand what happened." Weiss said deadpanned.

"Don't care, next moment." Saixus replied a little harshly. Can you blame him though, we're already over 30 000 words into this story!

---

Episode 26 - 27 : Seto Kaiba versus Maximillion Pegasus

"This is it." Yang said sternly. "Payback time!"

Jaune wasn't so sure about that. From what they had seen, Yami was the one who was being set up to be the main-character, so it seemed unlikely that anyone other than him would defeat the main-villain.

He knows that he was told this was another world and not just a show, but Jaune couldn't help but think Kaiba's odds of winning were not looking too great.

The scene starts with Seto facing Pegasus on a Duel-Arena in the middle of the castle.

"Hold on, I thought Kaiba wanted to duel Pegasus using those Duel-Disk prototypes." Weiss recalled.

"He did and Pegasus was willing to agree to it." Saixus told them before grimacing. "But Pegasus had one condition to such a match and that was that Mokuba would be the one operating the Duel-Disk. Unsurprisingly, Seto refused to battle his own brother so instead they're dueling on an arena."

Yang narrowed her eyes at that information while Ruby had another inquiry. "But… how can Mokuba even do anything if he doesn't have a soul anymore?"

"Because Pegasus can apparently control the bodies of soulless people like they're marionettes."

"Great." Qrow deadpanned. "Because just taking their souls away wasn't bad enough."

'I'll just play something I know he can't defend against, my Blue-Eyes!' Kaiba thought as he was about to play the mighty dragon on the field.

Before he could however Pegasus cut in. "Stop right there! I'd like to play a little guessing-game with that card you're about to throw out on the field."

"A game?!" Kaiba asked in disbelief. "We're in the middle of a duel here!"

"…So what's the difference?" Nora asked with a tilted head.

"What? I'm allowed to play a game, my trap said so." Pegasus objected.

"A trap?!" Kaiba asked surprised.

"I played a card face-down, remember?" Pegasus reminded him before showing the card in question. "It's called Prophecy, and it gives me the right to guess rather the card you're about to play has an attack-power higher or lower then 2000, and if I manage to guess correctly Kaiba-boy, then the card in question becomes mine!"

Pegasus then said that the card indeed had over 2000 attack-points, and even went a step further by saying that it was none other than the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

"But that's not fair!" Ruby protested. "He saw which card Kaiba had by reading his mind!"

"And again, that was a spell, not a trap!" Weiss nitpicked.

Kaiba looked frustrated at Pegasus who decided to mock him further. "Was I right? Tell me I was right. I was right, right? I so hope I was right!"

"He's acting precisely how Ruby would act if she used that card." Weiss stated which Ruby pouted at cuz she knew she couldn't deny that.

"Enough!" Kaiba yelled before putting Blue-Eyes White Dragon on the field. "Here, take it!"

The board-part that the card ended up on flipped over. Not long after, the card reappeared on Pegasus' board who then put the card in his hand. "Now the most valuable card in your deck is mine."

"Keep up that attitude." Yang hissed at Pegasus. "It will only make it so much better when Kaiba finally beats you!"

"It is a little ironic though." Pyrrha cut in. "Kaiba stole a Blue-Eyes from Solomon and now it's his Blue-Eyes that's been stolen."

Qrow sighed and said "I usually don't complain about karma doing its thing, but its timing couldn't have been worse."

Pegasus drew a card before smiling at Kaiba and asked "Tell me something my old friend. Did you like watching cartoons in your youth?"

Whatever Weiss was thinking Pegasus was gonna ask, it certainly wasn't this. "Wha-? What kind of random question is that?!"

Kaiba didn't respond to Pegasus' question.

"Is that a no?" Pegasus asked deadpanned. "Kaiba, you're even more coldhearted then I thought."

"Says the guy who kidnaps children!" Yang growled.

"Did Kaiba really not watch any cartoons when he was little though?" Ruby asked. "That's… kind of sad."

Pegasus then got a look of nostalgia as he clenched his hands together. "For me, they were the absolute best. And none was closer to my heart then the misadventures of one tricky hare. I am speaking of course of Funny Bunny."

The cartoon in question appeared on screen in which a pink rabbit wearing a red-overall ran away from a bulldog wearing a police-uniform who constantly shot at the bunny.

This Funny Bunny was reminding Jaune of Pumkin Pete's mascot while Saixus was surprised to see there was apparently a gun in the Yu-Gi-Oh dub that didn't get censored.

"Just make your move!" Kaiba asked impatient.

Pegasus laughed and said "But Kaiba, that is my move."

"Your move is a cartoon?" Kaiba asked as if Pegasus had lost it.

Weiss was not far behind. "Why is he suddenly talking about cartoons?!"

"Maybe he's building up to something?" Pyrrha guessed.

"Not just a cartoon you simpleton." Pegasus informed before posing dramatically. "An entire magical cartoon world! Welcome Kaiba, to Toon World!"

A giant green book appeared on the field, accompanied by some very wacky music. It opened up to show a pop-up town with graves. "Let the fun begin!"

"What the heck kind of card is that?" Qrow asked. "A pop-up book for children?"

"At least it's not one of Blake's books." Yang stated which caused the mentioned girl to glare at her.

"Toon World is a continuous-spell that in this universe has the power to turn every single monster you control into a toon-version of itself."

Weiss was flabbergasted by Saixus' explanation. "I'm sorry, it does what?"

"Just keep watching and you'll see."

Pegasus was next shown to take the Blue-Eyes he stole from Kaiba earlier and put it on the field. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon, awaken."

The furious dragon appeared on Pegasus' side, letting out a mighty roar.

Yang was not too worried. Sure losing Blue-Eyes was a big blow but Kaiba still had two more in his deck.

"And cross the threshold into Toon World!" Pegasus ordered before Toon World opened up and pulled Blue-Eyes White Dragon in with a cloud of pink smoke. "Meet the new and improved Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon!"

The book opened up again, letting out a bunch of pink smoke. Once it cleared, a child-like Blue-Eyes White Dragon appeared with big eyes and sharp teeth, laughing menacingly.

"WHAT THE HECK AM I EVEN LOOKING AT?!" Yang asked, completely taken back by the cartoon-dragon.

"The worse design for a cartoon-character I have ever seen." Ruby said, completely seriously.

Weiss was not a fan of the dragon's new design either. The OG Blue-Eyes looked fierce yet magnificent. This new dragon looked scrawny and childish. "He can't seriously expect to beat Kaiba with a wacky version of his own monster."

"Don't underestimate the power of toons." Saixus replied to the heiress inquiry. "Something I'm sure you'll all understand in a minute."

"No." Kaiba stared at his former monster in disbelief. "You've stripped him of his pride!"

Pegasus did not agree. "Please. I've transformed this legendary beast into his most supreme form. Also, I've made him look much more cuddly."

"Cuddly?" Ruby disagreed. "No, Kuriboh was cuddly. This thing's downright creepy!"

"Also the dragon's most supreme form?" Weiss scoffed at the thought. "Did he not watch when Kaiba played Ultimate Dragon or can't he see out of his good-eye either?"

"Of all the things that Blue-Eyes is, cuddly sure ain't one of them." Joey commented on the side-lines with Mai next to him and Bandit Keith standing by himself.

"Hey look, Mai's there too!" Ruby pointed out before narrowing her eyes. "And so is Bandit Keith!"

"Great." Yang rolled her eyes. "Cuz you can't have only one cheater on the screen."

"Actually, Mai's gotten better since her duel with Joey." Saixus informed them. "She got some much needed character-development in some of the skipped episodes."

Ruby reminded herself again to watch those episodes as fast as possible.

After Toon Dragon destroyed Kaiba's only remaining monster, he decided to abandon his hand since he knew Pegasus was cheating somehow, even if he didn't know how.

"Brilliant plan!" Nora complemented. "Now Pegasus won't know what cards he has!"

"But neither will he." Ren pointed out. "This strategy can easily backfire on him."

Kaiba picked up his next card and immediately played it on the field. "I put all my faith in this next card, so now let it be revealed!"

Fate was kind to Seto that time as his next card was revealed to be nothing less than his second Blue-Eyes White Dragon, catching everyone, even Pegasus, off guard.

Yang grinned. "Doesn't seem like it backfired to me! Now get rid of that Saturday-morning cartoon reject!"

Kaiba proceeded to attack with his dragon, only for Toon Dragon to dodge the attack using its very stretchy body.

And there went Yang's joy. "What the- that wimpy dragon dodged that?!"

"It's body's definitely not supposed to bend that way." Blake said with narrowed eyes. "Guess there are some advantages to being a toon-monster."

"If that dragon is like a real kids-cartoon, then it can do all kinds of nonsensical things!" Ruby realized.

'Great, because these duels were making so much sense already.' Weiss thought bitterly.

"You should have watched more cartoons Kaiba." Pegasus berated him. "In 3013 episodes of Funny Bunny, Ruff Gruff MackDog never laid a paw on our cuddly hero. No, he would try and try but never would he succeed. Such a clever little rabbit."

Jaune gasped in surprise. "3013 episodes?!" Even the Pumkin Pete show didn't have that many episodes, how popular is this cartoon?!

Next, Pegasus played a card called Shine Palace which added a shiny palace onto Toon World, causing Toon Dragon to get 500 extra attack-points as his muscles turned into literal volcanoes.

"Okay, that just looks wrong." Qrow commented and everyone agreed.

"I'm no cartoon expert, but exploding volcano biceps… that's bad right?" Mai asked.

"No shit lady!" Yang replied. She didn't care what Saixus claimed, until she saw her change herself, Mai's still on the fence.

Toon Dragon tried to destroy the original Blue-Eyes but Kaiba stopped him using Negate Attack.

"Phew. He saved his dragon." Ruby said in relief.

"What does Negate Attack do exactly?" Nora said with a serious face.

Weiss turned to the hammer-wielder with a bewildered look and said "Are you… seriously asking what a card called 'Negate Attack' does?"

"Nah I'm just kidding!" Nora quickly said with smile.

Next, it was Kaiba's turn and he drew precisely what he needed. "Go, Shadow Spell!"

Shadow Spell, which was actually a spell in this duel, launched multiple chains around Blue-Eyes Toon Dragon, not only immobilizing him, but taking away 700 of his attack-points as well.

"Ha!" Yang cheered. "Let's see the little guy dodge Kaiba's attack this time around!"

"Blue-Eyes, White Lightning attack!" Kaiba declared before his Blue-Eyes eliminated the panicking toon.

"Kaiba seems to have taken the lead." Ren said.

"Something tells me he's not gonna keep it." Qrow added, feeling Pegasus wasn't done yet.

Next, Pegasus made a comeback by playing Dragon Capture Jar and locking Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon inside of it. Next he played Dragon Piper in defense-mode and ended his turn.

Having seen this strategy before, Jaune thought he had Pegasus' plan figured out. "Is he gonna try and steal another one of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes?"

"Maybe but…" Weiss didn't get it. "Why isn't he using Dragon Piper's ability right away? He didn't have to wait a single turn when he used it against Yami's dragon, so why does he have to wait now?"

"…Because Pegasus is gonna use his Dragon Piper as bait." Ozpin realized.

Realizing Pegasus was about to steal another Blue-Eyes from him, Kaiba played Swordstalker and had him attack the Dragon Piper.

In response, Pegasus played a magic-card called Doubleganger which copied Kaiba's Crush-Card Virus and then used it on his Dragon Piper, causing a deadly virus to be unleashed in Kaiba's deck as soon as his attack was finished.

Ruby gasped. "He stole Seto's strategy!"

"And used it against him perfectly." Ozpin observed. "Mister Pegasus appears to be a perfect strategic player. Turning nearly every move Kaiba makes against him."

"Well it's easy to make countermoves like that when you can read your opponent's mind." Pyrrha put in.

Yang was frowning at Pegasus' move but figured Kaiba still had some sort of back-up plan.

"My cards are becoming infected!" Kaiba shouted in terror.

Pegasus smirked. "That's what you get Kaiba-boy when you stack your deck with monster-cards that all have more than 1500 offense-points."

"Seto doesn't have any monster with less attack-points than that?" Jaune questioned. "But then Crush-Card will get rid of all the monsters in his deck!"

"And wasn't there a rule that says that if you can't play any monsters, you automatically lose?" Blake recalled while Yang could only stare in shock.

Kaiba revived Saggi The Dark Clown, which was the only move he could make.

"It's your last move and you're going to spend it reviving a clown?" Pegasus said mockingly. "Oh yes that's right Kaiba, he's the best you can do with my virus still about. Shame when you consider all that's on the line."

Yang grinded her fists and teeth. Kaiba was about to lose again and she doubted the same trick he used on Yugi and Yami would work on Pegasus. The guy didn't have enough of a soul to care.

In response, Pegasus played a monster known as Bickuribox, which was a spring-jack clown in a box that pulled a massive scythe out of his mouth.

"He complains about Kaiba's last monster being a clown while he brings out a jack-in-a-box?" Jaune questioned. "Talk about double standards."

Ruby crossed her arms angrily. Seeing the demented clown use her favorite kind of weapon did not sit well with her.

Qrow didn't show it, but he was pretty mad about that too.

The fiend rushed towards Saggi and slashed him into multiple pieces. And with Kaiba being unable to play anymore cards, he automatically lost the duel.

Yang was fuming! Kaiba did everything he could to beat Pegasus and save his brother. Willing to throw away his pride, destroying his own monster. All that effort… for nothing?!

As if defeating him wasn't good enough, Pegasus decided to use the power of his Millennium Eye to steal Seto's soul as well, locking it up in a card like he did with Solomon and Mokuba.

"THAT ONE-EYED BASTARD OF A DICK!" Yang loudly swore.

"He never stood a chance." Qrow muttered. "Playing a game against someone who can read your mind is beyond unfair. One-eye took full advantage of his powers in this duel."

"And now he has mister Kaiba's soul in his collection as well." Ozpin grimaced. "He now has no more need for Mokuba as a hostage. He can just force mister Kaiba's body to sign the company over to him."

"It's not over yet!" Ruby said hopefully. "Yami still has a chance of taking on Pegasus again, or maybe Joey or Mai. They still have a chance to save them!"

"That is if Pegasus is willing to give all their souls back instead of just Solomon's." Weiss reminded her. "Why would he ever put Seto's soul on the line?"

"Cuz he's overconfident." Qrow predicted. "Folks with powers like this tend to let that power get to their heads. Makes them overconfident in their abilities. If he's going to agree to let more than one soul go, it will be purely because he can't see himself lose. And honestly, between him being the creator of the game AND being a mind-reader… he has a right to be overconfident."

"Well I know Yami and his friends will find a way to beat Pegasus!" Ruby stated confidently. "The game's not over till the last card is played!"

Saixus quickly wondered if Ruby heard that line before… he didn't think she did.

---

Episode 29 – 30 : Yami versus Mai Valentine

The episode, surprisingly, started with Bandit Keith berating Joey.

"Hey there dweeb." Was Bandit Keith's idea of a greeting. "So you ready to get your butt kicked across the arena and back?"

Jaune looked at the scene confused. "Wait, I thought this episode was Yami versus Mai?"

"It is." Saixus said. "But I had to include this clip for story-reasons."

Joey wasn't the least bit intimidated. "Dream on, at least I didn't have to go and steal the Starchips to make it to the final round of this here tournament. And I won't have to cheat to beat you Keith!"

Saixus could see the questioning looks on the others faces and decided to explain before they could ask. "Bandit Keith managed to qualify by stealing the Starchips his subordinates had gathered. Don't ask me when or how Joey learned about that though."

Pyrrha sighed at this news. "No honor among thieves."

Keith laughed internally. 'Hehehe. You're such a sad-case. You don't even realized I've swiped your card. The one you need to qualify for the finals. You've already lost, and you're too dumb to know it.'

"He stole one of Joey's cards?" Yang asked angrily. "Can we please be done with all the cheating going on around here!"

"It sounds like he didn't steal any ordinary card though." Pyrrha picked up.

"It wasn't." Saixus cut in again. "In order for any duelist to participate in the final rounds, they need one of two cards that were giving to them in their invitation-packages. Since Joey never got such an invitation, he never received either card. But Yugi, being the good friend he is, gave the card needed to claim the prize-money to Joey while he kept the card needed to challenge Pegasus. Unfortunately, Keith sneaked into Joey's room last night and stole the card from him, both so that Joey would get disqualified and so that he would get to stay since he doesn't have those cards either."

"This guy's really living up to his nickname." Weiss said with a glare.

"Wait, so Keith was never invited to this tournament either?" Ruby asked to which Saixus shook his head. "Then how on Remnant did he manage to get here?"

"Likely sneaked onboard the ferry like Yugi's friends did." Ren assumed.

Yami's shown to be struggling greatly against Mai as it is clear there is still some discord between Yugi and Yami.

'Yugi please, let me help you.' Yami thought mentally.

'No!' Yugi replied back. 'I can't take that risk.'

Ozpin looked at the struggling pair in sympathy. "It would seem there's still some distrust between Yugi and Yami."

Blake was not surprised at all. "It's not like there's no reason for Yugi to distrust Yami."

"True, but something tells me they're not gonna beat Mai unless they talk it out." Qrow exclaimed.

Mai had no trouble noticing that Yami was struggling. "What is with you? I expected a real battle and all I get from you is this lame frontal-assault."

"Lady, those two have enough shit do deal with without you adding more fuel to the fire." Yang said angrily.

Yami narrowed his eyes at Mai but she continued anyway. "The only reason I duel Yugi, aside from the island-trips, the clothes, the cars, the prize-money-"

Nora couldn't help but snicker when Mai explained why she dueled. It was reminding her of a certain second-year student with sunglasses. "At least she's honest about it!"

"I still find it difficult to believe she can acquire all of that simply by being good at card-games." Weiss said with her arms crossed.

Qrow look at the Schnee and said "What, never heard of poker before?"

"-is the thrill of taking down a worthy opponent." Mai finished.

Pyrrha could agree with this.

Ren however picked up something else. "Wait… is she saying Yami's not worthy?"

That certainly hurt Yami's pride. "Are you saying I'm not worthy?"

"He's worthier then you!" Yang shot back and Zwei was wondering if he should sneak back to Ruby since Yang's been nothing but angry for a while now.

"Not today kiddo. Your body may be in this arena but your head and your heart has flipped for parts unknown. It's really a letdown."

Yami was starting to feel like Kaiba whenever someone questioned his pride. "You're questioning my fighting spirit as well?"

"Bingo!" Mai confirmed. "It seems like you're still shell-shocked about the trouncing you got from Kaiba in your last duel. Well get over it, I'm your opponent now and I want to beat someone battling at his best. Not some duelist who acts like he's afraid of his own shadow."

"Hey that's not fair! You weren't even there when he dueled Kaiba. It was way more intense than a simple loss!" Ruby defended.

Most of the watchers shared Ruby's anger but others…

'The way Mai's talking… it's like she's trying to encourage Yugi and Yami in her own way…' Pyrrha thought.

'Pointing out your opponents flaws in the middle of a fight is only ever done by two kinds of individuals.' Ozpin thought. 'The first are those who are so confident in their own abilities they believe they can't be beat even if they give pointers to their opponents, and the second are those who want their opponents to improve… which category to you fit into miss Valentine?'

"I can't let you win Mai." Yami hastily stated.

"Let me win?" Mai repeated in a disappointed tone. "Hun, the way you've been playing today I don't think there's a single thing you can do to stop me. I promised you an honorable duel Yugi and I thought you'd give me the same. You ready to duel for real now? Are you gonna put your heart in it or are you going to punk out?"

Yang's anger was soothing a bit as she started to realize what Mai was doing. She wasn't just talking trash to Yugi and Yami. She was trying to encourage them in a way she could see herself doing. How the heck did Mai go from a creative cheater to this?

"Allow me to introduce the ever fateful servant of my Harpy Lady." Mai said before a giant red dragon appeared before her in a torrent of flames.

"Seems Mai has more monsters then just Harpies after all." Ren observed.

"And an awesome looking one too!" Nora commented.

"What is that?" Yami questioned, taking back by Mai's new monster.

"Harpy's oh so cuddly Pet Dragon." Mai introduced. "Sweet as a kitten, isn't he? Well as sweet as a fire-breathing kitty can be."

"Her Harpies… have a Pet Dragon?" Qrow said deadpanned.

Nora felt super jealous at the Harpies as she hugged her Red Dragon Archfiend plushy. "I still want a Pet Dragon of my own you know!"

"I am not a pet-seller!" Saixus replied back.

Joey couldn't believe how much Mai was putting his best friend into a corner. "Could it be that it was just sheer dumb luck that I beat her before?"

Mai apparently heard him. "It wasn't luck Joey. I lost that duel to you because you knew something I didn't. I learned more from that duel than any other duel I've ever played. It's true Joey. I learned a lesson from you that day that I never really wanted to learn. I didn't know it then, but it would change me, and the way I looked at dueling. I had to take a hard look at myself and admit that the reason I relied on tricks was because I was afraid. Afraid to trust in my own abilities, afraid to trust in myself."

Seeing Mai talk this way to Joey, thanking him for teaching her such a valuable lesson, made certain watchers lose their original perception of her.

Especially Yang. "Wow… that got… way deeper than I thought it would..."

"Sometimes we can only face our own problems if someone's there to show us the way." Jaune stated, being reminded of how Pyrrha helped him become a better warrior.

Weiss could also understand were the word-traveling duelist was coming from. She didn't want to admit it, but her teammates helped her become a better person too.

"You defeated me Joey because you looked your demons in the eyes and dealt with them. And that's a lesson everyone should learn." Mai told Joey and both Yugi and Yami seemed to take that lesson the heart. "So Yugi? Have you faced up to your fears?"

'How can I?' Yugi asked in his thoughts. 'Kaiba was willing to risk everything in our duel, and the spirit from my Millennium Puzzle was willing to do anything to stop him. But if I had attacked, Kaiba might have been seriously hurt.'

Weiss face-palmed. "Again, falling from a building without Aura would have done more than simply hurt!"

'And I couldn't let that happen. Even if It cost me the duel. No matter how badly I need to rescue grandpa, hurting someone else is something I will not do.' Yugi finished.

"Looks like Yugi's made his point clear in his mind." Blake commented, understanding to a degree what Yugi meant. She wants the world to threat Faunus as equals, but she won't hurt innocent people to achieve that goal.

Ozpin was feeling very sympathetic with Yami. He has experienced this level of distrust plenty of times with his previous hosts.

'I meant no harm.' Yami assured him. 'I only wanted to help.'

"How, by killing Kaiba?" Yang deadpanned.

"But the way he says it, it sounds like he only ever thought of helping Yugi save his grandfather." Pyrrha noted. "That thought-progress might be the reason he was fine with risking Kaiba's safety."

"Like, he wanted to help Yugi so badly he made a bad decision?" Ruby tried to put into words.

"Acts of evil are sometimes born from good intentions." Ozpin quoted, to which Blake nodded in agreement.

Yami turned to Yugi and said 'And I vow never to go against your wishes again.'

"Now there's a bold statement." Qrow said, unsure Yami was gonna be able to keep that promise. "This likely won't be the last time those two disagree on something. Even the best of buddies argue from time to time."

"Except us!" Nora said with a laugh which Ren simply smiled to.

'Just wait till season 7.' Saixus thought to himself.

Later on, Yami drew the final card of the duel. "Well Mai. You've put up a good fight, but now the duel ends. Starting with this card, Black Luster Ritual!"

"What?!" Mai said in shock as a ritual set appeared on the field.

"Watch, the Black Luster Ritual works by sacrificing all the monsters I have placed on the field." Yami explained as his Gaia The Fierce Knight and Kuriboh turned into green energy and entered the ritual-vases. "Combining the energies of my two separate monsters. And the forces of light and darkness intertwine, opening the gates of chaos!"

"The forces of light and darkness intertwine?" Blake repeated. "Reminds of how the two brothers supposedly created men."

Ozpin agreed with that statement.

Ruby looked sad. "Did he really have to sacrifice Kuriboh though? Couldn't he have summoned something else to sacrifice?"

"Sacrificing Kuriboh should be a war-crime!" Weiss growled.

The image of two sword shot up and a new being jumped out. This being was a warrior with long red-hair, wearing blue-green armor and wielding a mighty sword and shield. "The Black Luster Soldier!"

"Holy brothers, he looks amazing!" Nora stated with a glee.

"He's as powerful as a Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" Weiss felt the need to point out.

Jaune and Pyrrha didn't say anything, but they had already decided that this was their new favorite monster.

Well, second favorite for Pyrrha.

"Is that really the legendary Black Luster Soldier?" Mai asked in disbelief.

"I'm guessing Black Luster Soldier is another rare card." Blake inquired.

"He is and he's also the first ritual-summon in the series." Saixus proceeded to explain. "A ritual-monster is a special kind of monster that can only be summoned by meeting the requirements of their ritual-card. In this case, to summon Black Luster Soldier, Yami needed to sacrifice monsters whose total level equaled or surpassed eight."

"Okay, so first we had synchro-summons, then fusion-summons, and now ritual-summons." Ruby counted up. "How many different kinds of summons are in this game?!"

"Now Black Luster Soldier, Chaos Blade Attack!" Yami declared as Black Luster Soldier swung his blade against the ground, creating a blade-wave that rushed towards Mai's monsters. Her Harpies were fast enough to get out of the way, but Harpies Pet Dragon was completely obliterated by the attack. "Harpies Pet Dragon is vanquished."

Jaune was fanboying like crazy. "Did you see that slash! He took that dragon down with one hit!"

"Guess he's not a legendary monster for nothing." Pyrrha said, also impressed with the warrior's might.

The only one who wasn't thrilled was Blake. That blade-wave attack reminded her way too much of a certain bull-Faunus' Semblance.

Mai still couldn't believe it. "Just like that… my most powerful monster… its gone!"

"Think Mai regrets giving Yugi and Yami her advice?" Nora asked.

"I think she's sad she lost… but I don't think she regrets doing it." Yang answered, smiling a little at the blond-woman on screen. "I think she would have been more disappointed if she won without them putting up some kind of fight."

"I still wanna know what happened to make Mai's character change to such a degree." Weiss commented. "Going from cheater to honorable fighter is certainly a big change."

Ruby was happy to hear Weiss say this. "We can watch those episodes together another night!"

Weiss suddenly had the feeling that her sleep-schedule was never gonna turn back to normal.

---

Episode 30 – 31 : Mai's goodbye - Joey Wheeler versus Bandit Keith

"Finally!" Yang exclaimed as she punched her fist into her open-hand. "About time Keith got a good trashing!"

"And it seems we get to see Mai one more time." Pyrrha pointed out.

Joey was shown to have turned his room upside down, but still couldn't find his card.

"Oh that's right!" Ruby had nearly forgotten. "Keith stole Joey's entry-card!"

"And he only now notices it's missing?" Weiss shook her head at this. "If he had done a quick check in the morning, he would have had more time to search!"

"Well it doesn't really matter how much time he spends looking around." Qrow told her. "Bandit has his card after all." He then thought the thief might be a good fit for Raven's crew… nah, she would probably get annoyed by him very quickly and throw him out.

Joey was walking back to the arena dejectedly. 'Still no card…' He got on his knees and started breathing exhaustedly. 'I can't believe it… after lasting on this island all this time… after beating duelists with twice my experience, after getting past all of Pegasus' traps, I'm gonna get disqualified from this tournament cuz of this! For losing one lousy card?! …Sorry sis… I came close… I came real close…' He apologized as some tears started to come out of his eyes.

Ruby was also leaking some tears for Joey. "This can't be how it ends for him!"

"But wouldn't Pegasus know that Bandit Keith stole his card?" Jaune pointed out. "Why is he letting Keith get away with this?"

"Honor between fellow-cheaters I guess?" Yang begrudgedly stated with raised shoulders.

"Get off the floor Joey."

Joey turned his head around and saw Mai standing in front of him.

"Hey, it's Mai!" Ruby said with a surprised-tone.

"We already knew from the title-card that we would see her again, you dolt." Weiss deadpanned.

"But why would she be leaving already?" Pyrrha wondered. "Doesn't she want to see this tournament through to the end?"

"I'm more curious to know why she went to see Joey." Blake stated.

"She probably wants to give Joey some moral-support before she leaves!" Ruby figured.

"And quit all your crying already." Mai told him sternly. "You look like a big baby."

Yang couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, real supportive."

Joey quickly wiped away his tears and said "W-Who's crying! I-I got s-something in my eye! S-Stupid thing won't come out!"

"There's nothing wrong with being upon about your feelings." Pyrrha advised, causing both Nora and Ren to look at the giant hypocrite.

Takes one to know one.

"Here." Mai smiled at the tear-written Joey as she gave him a handkerchief. "Just don't go blowing your nose in it."

"What else is he supposed to do with a handkerchief?" Nora questioned.

Weiss gasped at Nora's lack of hygiene. "Wipe his tears away, not put his snot in it!"

Mai turned around and said "You know, everytime I think I've got you figured, you surprise me Joey. Tea told me about your little sister, how you're dueling to win the tournament's prize-money for her so she can have that operation. Sounded like a bad soap-opera to be honest. But then who doesn't love a bad soap-opera."

Even though it was a pretty emotional moment, some of the watchers couldn't help but laugh Mai's statement.

Weiss however wasn't. "There's nothing wrong with watching a soap-opera from time to time."

Blake and Pyrrha both nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, see you around hun." Mai said as she started walking away from Joey.

Joey got off the floor and opened up Mai's handkerchief, revealing the Glory Of The King's Hand-card inside of it. "Mai's card."

"She gave Joey her entry-card!" Ruby gasped. "Now Joey can compete after all!"

Weiss wasn't so sure. "But… is she even allowed to just… give her competition card away like that?"

"Well nobody made a fess of things when Yugi gave his card to Joey so I don't think Pegasus cares very much about how his competitors get said cards." Saixus informed.

"Wait, Mai!" Wheeler got up and ran up to Mai who didn't turn around.

"Take it." She told him. "I don't need it anymore."

"That is certainly true." Ren said. "Mai's already been eliminated from the tournament, so it's not like that card is of any use to her anymore."

"So… does this mean that we're finally friends Mai?" Joey asked the blonde.

"I thought they were friends already?" Ruby asked confused.

"They didn't start out that way though." Blake reminded her as her shipping senses started to tingle.

"Don't you have a duel to run off to?" Mai dodged the question with another question.

Blake was really disappointed by that answer.

Which seemed to have worked. "Oh yeah, you're right!"

Joey was just about to leave when Mai stopped him. "One thing though. Take him down."

Joey smirked at Mai confidently and said "Right!"

As Joey ran off to duel Keith, Mai said to herself. "Dork, of course we're friends."

And just like that, her smile returned.

Yang got a mischievous look in her eyes. "Just friends hey? Sounds like she wants to be a little bit more than just that."

"Not that I'm opposed to seeing a hint of romance but how old is Mai again?" Weiss couldn't help but ask. "Because Mai seems a lot older then Joey."

Saixus did a quick search on his phone. "Okay according to what's online, Mai's 24 years old at this point while Joey's… 16."

"…Okay that's… that's just weird." Weiss commented.

Blake rolled her eyes. "An 8 year difference in age isn't that much."

"That's almost an entire decade!" Weiss stated loudly. "Not to mention that Joey's still underage!"

Blake did not let go of her ship. "So he has to wait two years before he can enter a serious relationship with her. That will give them plenty of time to get to know one another."

Weiss and Blake continued arguing back and forth, much to the youngest girl's confusion. "Uhm, what's happening right now?"

"Nothing we need to worry about sis." Yang advised while petting Zwei. "Just let them get it out of their system."

Joey opened the doors leading to the arena, much to the relief of his friends.

"He made it!" Tristan, Yugi, Tea and Bakura said at the same time.

"So, the punk's come back to give us the bad news huh?" Bandit Keith stated confidently. "Let me guess, you couldn't find that card anywhere, hehehe."

"And he's gonna be eating those words in three, two, one…" Yang counted down.

Joey showed the card Mai had given him to everyone in the room. "Whatya talking about? I got it right here."

Bandit Keith was shocked by this development. 'Impossible! I'm using his card!'

Yang was glad to see that Bandit Keith was so shocked, she could see his eyes through his sunglasses.

Pegasus' subordinate, Croquet, confirmed that it was indeed the right card. "Very well, the duel will proceed as scheduled."

Joey's friends let out sighs of relieve, especially Tristan. "I'm already beat!"

"You can say that again." Nora agreed.

"Speaking of beat, is there anyone here who actually feels tired?" Jaune asked the group. "Cuz we've been watching for a while now and it's way past mid-night. Yet I'm not feeling sleepy one bit."

Weiss blinked at this. She had been complaining about her sleep being interrupted, yet she too didn't feel the slightest bit tired. "Now that you mention it…"

"Oh that's because I used my powers to erase any tiredness you guys might be feeling." Saixus revealed. "I mean, if I hadn't some of you would be falling asleep every 5 minutes. Can't have that now, can we?"

While some were surprised that Saixus could apparently make their sleep go away, Weiss simply let out a long sigh and asked. "…Is there anything else you've been doing with your powers without us knowing?"

"I'm also slowing down time to the point where an hour in this room is equal to 1 second." Saixus revealed, shocking everyone further. He decided against revealing that he had also manipulated his own time so he could finish watching volume 8 in just a few minutes. "If I wasn't doing that, we'd never be able to finish this marathon in just one night."

Qrow blinked at Saixus before turning to Ozpin and asked "Maybe we should ask the guy if he can't get rid of 'You know who' for us?"

Ozpin was already seriously considering that. A being capable of slowing down time itself? If Saixus couldn't kill Salem at least he should be able to imprison her in a time-loop or something.

We skip ahead to where Joey has a small lead of 1150 life-points over Keith's 1100.

'This duel has turned into quite the nail-biter.' Pegasus thought to himself, observing the duel from his comfortable chair. 'I wonder what it is that fuels these splendid performances. Perhaps my Millennium Eye will show me the answer.'

He first looked into Bandit Keith's mind which showed that he was pretty miserable after having lost to Pegasus. Going as far as to drink himself unconscious in some random bar.

Qrow grimaced at this. "Geez, I've seen people drink themselves silly after losing major gambling-bets but this is ridiculous."

Ozpin looked deadpanned at the man beside him. "Qrow, I've seen you drink much more than that on a daily basis."

He then looked through Joey's mind and saw that he dueled for his friends and sister. 'My, my. So were one is driven by bitter vengeance, the other is motivated by love and trust. Why it's practically a battle of good versus evil. Hehe, how amusing.'

While the others were glaring at Pegasus thinking the situation was amusing, Ruby couldn't help but shiver. "It's really freaky how Pegasus can just read people's pasts like that. So far we've only seen him read minds to cheat in card-games, but he can also figure out a person's motivations with just a glance?"

"What's worse is that we have yet to see any of that Eye's weaknesses." Weiss commented. "Aside from not looking at their cards, which is far from an effective tactic, that Eye seems almost invincible."

"Everything has its limits miss Schnee." Ozpin commented. Even the relics he and his followers were guarding weren't without limitations. The Lamp for instance can answer any question, but is limited to only three every century. The Staff can create anything imaginable but only if you can provide the necessary knowledge to Ambrosius, and even then he can only create one thing at a time. "I'm sure Pegasus' Millennium Eye is no different."

"One card face-down." Keith declared. "And I'll attack with this!"

A massive dragon-like machine with three laser-cannons attached to his head and arms appeared with 2600 attack-points. "My Barrel Dragon!"

Ruby's eyes had immediately turned into stars. "A dragon with laser-cannons! That's beyond awesome!"

"It's actually a machine-type monster." Saixus triviad. "Bandit Keith's deck is full of them."

"A machine-type deck?!" Ruby repeated excitingly. "Guys, I think I just discovered my favorite types of monsters!"

"Of course you did." Yang rolled her eyes. She should have seen that one coming. "Though it's a shame a monster that cool-looking is being used by Keith of all people."

"It looks impressive, but does anyone else feel like the laser-cannons look a little… out of place?" Pyrrha didn't know how else to describe it. "They just look so different compared to the rest of that monster."

'Blame FourKids.' Saixus thought to himself.

Ruby understood were Pyrrha was coming from. "Yeah, maybe giving him ordinary-guns for weapons would have looked better."

To get rid of the metal-monstrosity, Joey used his Time Wizard to rust the Barrel Dragon while his Baby Dragon grew up into Thousand Dragon. With one wind-blast from his nostrils, he blew Barrel Dragon away.

"That is still the most disgusting attack we've seen so far." Weiss commented while looking a bit green.

In response, Bandit Keith flipped over his face-down. "Say hello to my time-travelling Time Machine!"

A giant metal-box appeared and out of it stepped the Barrel Dragon, looking good as new.

"His monster came back?!" Jaune said in surprise.

"And he looks brand new!" Yang added. "Like he never got rusted in the first place!"

"Go Proton Blast!" Keith declared as all three lasers hit the Thousand Dragon in his chest, causing him to explode into triangles.

"He's gone…" Joey said in disbelief. "My dragon's gone."

"This isn't good." Blake spoke up. "That Thousand Dragon was one of Joey's strongest monsters. And even it was no match for that Barrel Dragon."

"And he's gonna stay gone too." Bandit Keith said before a funny thought crossed his mind. "That is unless you have a Time Machine-trap set up to bring him back. But then he'd be coming back a Baby Dragon, wouldn't he?"

"Huh? Why would it come back as a baby?" Nora asked confused.

Joey shared Nora's confusion. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Tea understood however. "Oh right, because the Time Machine brings back your monster the way it was one turn before."

"And since Keith's monster didn't rust-over until this turn, it came back the way it was last turn. Unfazed by Joey's Time Wizard." Yugi added.

"Okay, thank you!" Nora thanked them for explaining.

"Go Slot Machine!" Keith stated as he played a giant yellow slot-machine monster on the field with 2000 attack-points and 2300 defense-points.

"A giant… robot… slot machine…" Qrow said slowly. "…How much did I drink last night?"

Next Joey played Red-Eyes Black Dragon on the field in attack-mode.

"Wait no! Don't just place him on the field like that! Red-Eyes doesn't have enough attack-points to take out that thing!" Jaune stated.

"Say bye bye to your prized possession." Keith taunted. "Proton Blast attack!"

"Not so fast." Joey said before revealing his Copycat-card. "It lets me copy one card that you used. And I'm choosing to copy Magic Metal-Force!"

"A card that can copy any other card that the opponent used before?" Weiss said with a raised eyebrow. "That sounds beyond broken."

"Now my Red-Eyes Black Dragon is a Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon!" Joey said as his dragon transformed into a mecha dragon with 2800 attack-points.

Stars returned to Ruby's eyes bigger than before. "OH MY OUM, HE LOOKS SO METALY!"

"I can't handle the edge!" Yang joked but did think this new monster looked like an absolute badass.

"And that makes him strong enough to withstand your attack!" Joey stated as Metal Dragon tanked Barrel Dragon's attack. "Red-Eyes, counter-attack, Flash Flare Blast!"

Joey's dragon shot a flashing orb of purple-energy towards Barrel Dragon, who was immediately destroyed by the attack.

Ruby continued to fangirl. "Did you see that blast!"

"We did Ruby." Yang confirmed, also smiling at seeing Keith's monster bite the bucket.

Weiss was also rather impressed by Joey's new monster. "Maybe I should bring this concept to my sister and General Ironwood. Sure we have flying androids, bullheads and an entire fleet, but a sleek-build dragon android like that might not be a bad design to try out. Not only would it have the advantage against land-based Grimm, but those sharp-teeth and claws would come in handy if it has to fend-off any sky-based Grimm."

Ozpin went over this idea. "Not a bad thought, but I'm not sure if even Atlas is capable of creating a machine like that."

"I'm laying this card face-down." Keith said before putting his hand on Slot Machine. "And I'm switching my Slot Machine monster to defensive-mode."

"Bad move chief." Joey stated before putting a face-down on the board. "First I'll lay this face-down, and now my Red-Eyes will attack. Flash Flare Blast!"

The Metal Dragon shot the energy-orb at the kneeling Slot Machine but Keith had other plans. "Man, you are as predictable as you are brainless. I'm playing the card I had face-down, go 7 Completed!"

The middle-slot on Slot Machine turned into a 7, causing his attack-points to increase to 3000, enough to survive Metal Dragon's attack.

"Damn it!" Yang swore. "That casino-pin machine should have been turned to scrap-metal!"

Bandit Keith then explains that he has two more 7 Completed cards in his deck, once that he could use to increase his monster offensive-power as well, and that he will use them next to finish Joey off once and for all.

Weiss rose an eyebrow at Keith's strategy. "Really? He's gonna make the game depend on two-cards that could easily be at the bottom of his deck? I highly doubt he's gonna draw those cards that easily."

As if he could hear her, Bandit Keith thought 'Oh I ain't too worried about that.' He then drew a card from underneath his metal wristband, something Pegasus took notice off. "Well what do you know, check out what card I just drew." He showed the second 7 completed card off to Joey. "I think I'll take it for a spin, this time for my attack-power."

The left-slot on Slot Machine turned into a 7 as its attack-power increased to 2700.

Upon seeing Keith's blatant cheating, Yang was the first to react. "WHAT?! He had that card underneath his wristband the entire time?!"

"That means Keith can power-up his Slot Machine whenever he wants." Ren stated before narrowing his eyes at Pegasus. "Pegasus has most certainly noticed Keith's cheating however."

"Then why isn't he stopping the match right here and now?" Nora asked angrily.

"I think we know by now that Pegasus has little problem with competitors breaking the rules." Qrow stated. "If he did, he would have stepped into those other duels ages ago."

Next Joey was shown to play a spell-card called Dragon Nails, increasing Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon's attack-power by 600 points. Now it had 3400 attack-points and 2400 defense-points.

"Well played." Pyrrha commented. "Now even if Keith uses his third 7 Completed-card, his monster will only be able to equal Red-Eyes attack-power."

Once again, Bandit Keith drew a card from underneath his wristband. "Well, looky what I got here. I think I'll power-up my Slot Machine's attack again." Bandit Keith said as the last slot on Slot Machine turned into a 7, completing the set and giving his monster 3400 attack-points.

This was probably the first time in his life Qrow was mad to see a jackpot on a slot machine.

Joey went over his hand and his eyes landed on a certain magic-card. 'Hmm, The Shield And Sword-card. Playing this would swap all monsters defense-points with their attack-points, but that would only help Keith out.'

"That's true." Ren commented. "Using that card now would weaken Slot Machine's attack-power, but Red-Eyes would lose a lot more."

Joey ended his turn to which Bandit Keith said "Thanks, now I think I'll go ahead and end this duel."

"Huh?" Joey asked confused.

"It's all over for you." Keith said as he revealed a spell-card with a criminal-looking guy on it holding a large bag. "The Pillager. This card allows me to look at your dueling-hand and steal one card from it, so lay em down."

"Dammit!" Yang yelled out. "He just had to use that card now!"

Joey did so begrudgedly. "Oh man."

Joey's hand was shown to Keith and he immediately knew which card he wanted. "Hey, The Shield And Sword-card. Perfect! I think I'll take this one."

The card in question got transported to Keith's platform were it came out of a small slip in the stand.

Weiss was confused by this. "Wait… but when Pegasus took that Blue-Eyes from Seto one of the field-tiers flipped up to give him that card, why would it come out of a slot this time?"

Saixus simply shrugged at the question.

"Hehehe, I told you you were trough." Keith grinned as he played the card he just stole. "Go Shield And Sword! Swap attack-points with defense-points."

Both monsters on the field had their attack- and defense-points switched, leaving Slot Machine with 3000 attack-points and Joey's dragon with 2400.

"That not good." Jaune stated the obvious.

Keith didn't waste any time attacking. "Go Slot Machine! Plasma Laser Cannon!"

Ruby couldn't help but stare at the plasma cannon in fascination, even if it belonged to Bandit Keith.

Qrow meanwhile was a little disappointed that this monster didn't shoot a literal jackpot at its opponent.

Slot Machine powered-up his cannon just as Joey declared. "Activate Trap!"

"Attack!" Keith ordered, so cut up that he didn't even hear Joey's declaration. Slot Machine fired the plasma laser at Metal Dragon, destroying him in one shot. "Hahaha! I wi- what… NO WAY!"

A purple gremlin wearing green-clothes carrying a tombstone, shuffle and pick-axe on his back was holding a giant-version of Keith's Time Machine trap-card.

The creepy gremlin caused Weiss to shiver. "What kind of trap is that?"

"One that can steal any card in Keith's graveyard." Saixus answered.

"He has both that and that Copycat card?" She asked before deadpanning. "How many broken cards does he have?!"

"He, you should have paid more attention during my last turn Keith." Joey said cocky as the Time Machine appeared on his side of the field. "Then you would have seen the trap I set for ya."

"Remember students, always check your surrounding before charging in." Ozpin advised.

"Especially you Yang." Saixus stated which caused the others to nod in agreement while Yang wondered why Saixus was singling her out.

Keith went over what this meant for him. "And since the Time Machine can bring back a monster from the previous-turn then… that means!"

"Bingo!" Joey confirmed. "My dragon's back. And now his attack is higher than your defense!"

Blake certainly saw the irony in that move. "It would seem Bandit Keith's earlier statement has come back to bite him."

"Alright Joey, finish that cheater off once and for all!" Yang cheered for her fellow blonde while Zwei was happy the blond wasn't as angry as earlier.

"Red-Eyes, welcome back." Joey greeted as his dragon stepped out of the Time Machine. "And since he's back to how he was one turn ago, his attack is higher than your defense, so good luck blocking this. Go, Flash Flare Blast!"

The Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon shot his final energy-orb at the depowered Slot Machine, destroying both it and the remainder of Keith's life-points.

"No way…" Keith said as his eyes were trembling underneath his sunglasses. "He beat me… He actually won!"

"There's something satisfying about seeing a cheater get beaten by an honest player." Pyrrha said with a smirk while Yang cheered.

Joey looked down at Mai's handkerchief and thought 'Thanks Mai, I won't forget how you helped me.'

Blake smiled as her ship continued sailing while Weiss frowned.

Keith slammed both his hands on his platform in anger. "This duel doesn't count! The entry card that Joey showed to play in this match wasn't even his! Therefor the duel shouldn't count and he ought to be disqualified right here!"

Nora rolled her eyes at Bandit Keith's desperate attempt at disqualifying Joey. "Oh sure, because when Joey breaks the rules it's all bad, but when you do it it's perfectly fine!"

Joey didn't deny it. "He's right. My card was missing so Mai gave me hers."

"Don't tell them that!" Weiss practically yelled. "Pegasus can use that as an excuse to disqualify you!"

"Again, if he was really against people giving those cards away, he would have said something when Yugi gave his card to Joey." Saixus reminded her.

Joey then turned the tables on Keith. "But tell me Keith, how could you have known that this wasn't my card?"

That shut Keith up. "…Uuuuhm."

Yang enjoyed watching Keith squirm. "Oooh, shouldn't have said anything Flaghead."

"I'm all ears." Joey told him as he already guessed how Keith could have known that. "So why don't you explain yourself."

Keith grinded his teeth in anger but before he could even mutter a word, Pegasus jumped in. "He doesn't need to. It's clear that Keith stole Joey's card. That's why he was so certain that you would never be able to find it."

"You knew that the entire time, and still let the match continue?" Weiss asked before shaking her head in frustration. "I really need to stop being surprised by these sorts of things."

"You snake!" Joey yelled at his opponent. "I knew it!"

"That big cheat!" Tea yelled.

"Then Keith odd to be disqualified, not Joey!" Tristan objected.

Pegasus agreed. "Oh Keith odd to be disqualified alright, but not simply for misdeeds outside of the dueling-ring. There was quite a bit of improper conduct taking place during the match that I observed too." His Millennium Eye glowed to make his point. "Keith kept his set of 7 Completed-cards beneath his wristband. That way, he could power-up his Slot Machine-monster whenever he chose."

Keith was shaking in rage while Joey simply said "Man Keith, that's low."

Nora laughed at the tone Joey was using. "He sounds like a disappointed parent!"

"Take the scoundrel away, far away." Pegasus ordered as a set of bodyguards appeared out of nowhere and dragged the struggling Bandit Keith away.

"And good riddance." Yang commented happily.

Qrow however didn't think that was the end of it. "I don't think Keith's gonna go along quietly."

It didn't take long however for Bandit Keith to knock the two guards out before running back to the dueling-platform. He jumped on the arena's reeling towards Pegasus' seat. "PEGASUS!"

"How'd he take those guards down so quickly?!" Jaune asked surprised. "First Kaiba knocks them out and now Keith?"

Pyrrha shook her head in disappointment. "Those guards need to work out more."

"Either that or Pegasus needs to start hiring better ones." Qrow voiced out.

"You truly are a stubborn one, aren't you?" Pegasus asked calmly as Bandit-Keith pointed his finger at Pegasus' forehead.

"Can it! You ain't talking your way out of this one! Now hand over that prize-money or else!" The cheater threatened.

"Does he honestly think he can get Pegasus to do what he wants just by pointing at him?" Weiss shook her head.

"Oh certainly Keith, I'll do whatever you say." Pegasus said with a sarcastic-tone. "Just give my body a moment to recover from the complete paralysis that your terrifying demands have shocked me into."

"Yeah, he's not in the least bit intimidated." Blake said. "If he had a knife or some other weapon with him, then he would have come off much more threatening."

Saixus decided against mentioning the missing gun that was supposed to be in Keith's hand.

"Okay wise-guy." Bandit Keith mocked, thinking he had Pegasus cornered. "I'll give you till three."

Pegasus smirked before quickly saying "Fine, one two three." He then pressed a small bottom on the floor with his feet, causing most of the floor-panels to open-up, dropping Keith down into a dark pit.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAHHHAAAAAAAAA!" Keith screamed during his entire ride from the castle to the outside cliff of the island, where he was then dropped into the ocean. There was a massive splash as he said "Ouch!"

While the watchers were first shocked by the trap Pegasus had just activated, they couldn't help but laugh at Keith getting thrown into the ocean like that.

Saixus sighed and thought 'It just doesn't feel the same without the 'In America' part.'

---

Episode 33 – 34 : Yami versus Joey Wheeler – Song : No Matter What – Pegasus' flashback

Going over the title, they watchers were immediately surprised. "Wait? Yami's dueling against Joey? Why?"

"Cuz it's still a tournament." Saixus told Jaune. "A tournament with brackets. Since Yami and Joey both won their duels, they now have to duel each other and however wins gets to face Pegasus."

Nora was surprised by the second-part of the title. "Song? There's gonna be a song in this one?"

"Added by the editors to make the show more exciting." Saixus answered. "And it's honestly a pretty good one."

Yang didn't have a problem with the song but frowned at the last part of the title. 'Pegasus' flashback? Great, what else did that bastard do?'

How did it come to this
After all we been through
Two of a pair now on opposite sides
From the very start with honor we dueled
We watched each other's back
And we battled with pride

Yang was already digging the song. "You know, this song isn't half-bad. I mean, it sucks that they're gonna battle each other but at least the music's great."

While Weiss found the presence of the song weird, she too admitted that it sounded kinda catchy.

We're closer than brothers
Now we have to fight each other

"The editors must have really liked this duel if they made a song specifically for it." Blake said.

"It is a pretty good episode." Saixus admitted.

"Which we still only get to see part of." Ruby muttered.

Weiss sighed at Ruby's childish behavior. "Ruby, Saixus' already said he's gonna upload the full episodes to our scrolls. You can watch the full episode whenever you want."

And we trust our fate
To the heart of the cards

No matter what
Let the game begin
No matter what
May the best man win
No matter what
We're in this together
No matter what
We'll be friends forever
No matter what

"Wait, did Joey and Yugi jump off a ship?!" Jaune asked in bewilderment. There were multiple scenes being shown during the song, including Joey jumping off a ferry.

"Yeah, remember when I said Weevil threw away Yugi's Exodia-cards?" Saixus made them recall. "Joey tried to save those cards by jumping into the raging sea. Yugi jumped in afterword and managed to save him from drowning."

"Wow, little Yugi's stronger then he seems." Nora said impressed. Joey was easily twice his size and Yugi managed to swim him to the surface?

"Joey risked his life… to try and save some cards…" Weiss slowly stated before shaking her head. "That guy needs to work on his priorities. Not drowning beats saving cards!"

It's been you and me
Hanging out playing games
Didn't ever think it would get this hard
Times running out
And so much at stake
Everything riding on the turn of a card
We'll show them what we're made of
As we fight for the ones we love
And we'll be friends to the very end

No matter what

"Let's duel!" Both Joey and Yami declared at the same time.

Nora was a little disappointed the song ended already. "Aw, it was just getting good. Why is this song so small?"

Yang agreed with her. "Yeah, couldn't they have made it a little bit longer?"

"There's a longer version actually." Saixus informed her. "I'll upload that version to your scrolls later as well."

Later on in the duel, Tea took notice of something. "You know, it's as if Yugi and Joey are pushing each other to duel their very best."

Bakura nodded. "I think you're right. They're pushing each other as hard as they can now so that no matter which one of them wins this duel, he'll be at his best when he faces Pegasus."

"So they're going all out to help each other?" Ruby questioned.

"It makes sense if you think about it." Pyrrha spoke up. "Pegasus is a terrifying opponent. It's best that the better duelist goes up against him. And going all out against one another is the best way to figure that out."

Pegasus was watching these two friends go at each other with everything they've got. 'The world is a very arbitrary-place, isn't it? It's a place where you can be locked in battle with your dearest friend for stakes neither can afford to lose.'

"You're the one who put them in that situation in the first place!" Yang yelled at the screen.

'Oh I know you like to think that your friendship would be enough to sustain you through any mishap or misfortune.' Pegasus thought as dozens of cards, picturing a blonde-haired woman sitting in a chair holding a bouquet of roses while wearing a regal-dress, flooded through his mind. 'But that's not the way the world works.'

"What the-" Weiss was utterly confused. "Why is he thinking about cards all of a sudden?"

"Better question, who's the lady on them?" Qrow asked before smirking. "Cuz she's quite the looker~."

'No, the world is a place where fate intervenes when you least expect it. With consequences that can turn your world upside-down.' A younger looking two-eyed Pegasus was revealed to be seated in an open field next to the woman in the cards, smiling at each other passionately. 'Just when you think you've edged the perfect portrait of your future, and your life couldn't get any better.'

"This woman appears to be romantically involved with Pegasus." Ren assumed.

"Dammit!" Qrow cursed silently.

"Hold on." Yang was trying to process this. "Pegasus… has a girlfriend?! Who in their right mind would wanna date that sicko?!"

"He still has both his eyes here." Pyrrha pointed out. "Perhaps he was a better person before he got his Millennium Eye?"

"Also, based on the tone he's using…" Blake pointed out before sighing. "I think it's safe to say their relationship didn't end well."

"What like she dumped him?" Yang figured. "I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case."

'Just when you let down your guard at last and open your heart, when against all odds you've found that one special-person in all the world that fills your heart with joy.' Pegasus was then revealed to put a ring on the woman's finger as they both stood before the wedding-altar.

"THEY'RE MARRIED?!" Yang yelled, as she was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with that chick.

"DAMMIT!" Qrow whispered louder this time, drawing some attention to himself. "Uh, hrmm, sorry, got something stuck in my throat for a second."

Ruby couldn't help but smile a little. The entire scene looked like something straight out of a fairytale. "They look so happy together though. I hope if I ever get married, it's in such a beautiful building!"

'As do I.' Both Pyrrha and Nora thought at the same time as they glanced at their crushes.

'The person you know you're destined to spend the rest of your life with.' The younger Pegasus and the woman in a blue-dress were about to exchange a passionate kiss.

Ruby, Pyrrha and Nora couldn't help but get a little closer to the screen. The scene looked so wholesome and heartwarming that they forgot that this was Pegasus standing before the altar. Weiss was as well though a bit less and Blake safely betted it was best not to get too invested in the scene.

When suddenly the woman disappears into a giant rose that explodes into a dozen rose-pedals. 'That's when tragedy strikes.'

The sudden act caught everyone off guard.

"What the heck?!" Nora yelled in surprise. "Did she just explode?!"

"People don't just turn into roses and explode out of nowhere!" Weiss shouted, sharing everyone's bewilderment.

"I doubt this is what actually happened." Blake said, believing this memory was more figurative then literal. "Maybe this is how Pegasus views whatever tragedy happened."

The memories then changed to an undermaintained graveyard and a tombstone was revealed with the name Cecelia Pegasus. 'When fate hits you with a cold slap of reality, and shows you who's boss. Yes, the world has taught me that only the strong and the ruthless survive. In memory of all I've lost, I fight on with all I possess and I intend to win!'

"So… it was the loss of his loved one that turned Pegasus into the man he is today." Pyrrha said somberly.

"That's… really sad." Ruby said with tears in her eyes. This was reminding her of how devastated her father was when mom passed away. The fact that he imagined his loved one being scattered away into a bunch of rose-pedals did not help cuz that's exactly how she imagined her mother's dead too.

Weiss frowned however. "If he loved this Cecelia so much, why would he burry her at such a desolate looking graveyard?"

"This is likely how Pegasus views Cecelia's grave instead of how it actually is." Blake put in. "As a place of despair were a future is buried that he will never have."

Yang was also feeling sorry for Pegasus but… "It's not that I don't feel sorry for him, but everyone has people they love that are gone. That doesn't give him the right to ruin the lives of others."

"It's a… bit more complicated than that." Saixus said, choosing to reveal more of Pegasus backstory himself. "See, Pegasus and Cecelia had known one another ever since they were kids. It was practically love at first sight. Cecelia even inspired Pegasus to become a painter so to say they were made for eachother would be an understatement. Unfortunately, soon after they got married, Cecelia got struck by an incurable illness and died soon after."

"Okay yeah, I can see how that would mess a guy up." Qrow admitted as Pegasus' backstory was also reminding him of what happened with Summer and Tai. At least Tai was married to Summer for a few years and they even got a kid together. Honestly, it's probably thanks to Ruby and Yang's presence that Tai managed to pick himself back together. Pegasus on the other hand seemed to have no one to fall back on.

Saixus continued. "Pegasus couldn't accept that the love of his life was gone forever, so he scoured the world to try and find a way to bring his loved one back to live."

"…I'm sorry, what?" Ozpin asked in genuine shock. He had been quietly listening to Pegasus' backstory and what unnerved him was how similar it sounded to his own. Two people falling in love at first sight, planning an entire future together only to be struck down by illness. This was basically his former relationship with Salem but in reverse! The fact that Cecelia shared Salem's former blond-hair and deep blue-eyes did not help.

"He… scoured the world to try and bring his wife back to life?" Weiss repeated. "I don't know if I should feel sorry for him or call him insane. You can't bring the dead back to life, that's impossible!"

"Yami's alive and he's over 5000 years old." Jaune reminded.

"He's also a spirit trapped in an ancient magical artifact." Weiss pointed out. "That does not count as coming back from the death."

Saixus continued as if he didn't hear her. "His travels eventually brought him to Egypt, were he encountered a man called Shadi. Shadi led him to an ancient shrine were multiple Millennium Items were preserved. He decided to test Pegasus and see if he was worthy of such an Item."

"By shoving the Millennium Eye in his eye-socket?" Yang asked and Ruby and Weiss turned green again at that reminder.

"Again, less gross then it sounds." Saixus repeated. "Anyway, he was found worthy of the Eye's power and the first thing it did was show him his beloved Cecelia. The two lovers were reunited at last."

Ruby squealed at the apparent happy ending.

"But then she exploded again." Saixus anti-climatically stated. "Yeah, she really needs to stop doing that."

Ruby looked sadly at the ground while Yang was furies at the intruder. "Don't go making fun of someone's death like that!"

"Sorry, couldn't resist." Saixus apologized. "Anyway, after that vision Pegasus got the strength to continue his life and went on to invent Duel Monsters shortly after. However, Pegasus believes that he can bring Cecelia back to live permanently by using more Millennium Items, as well as KaibaCorps holographic technology."

"Wait… so he's been doing all of this… to try and bring his wife back to life?" Qrow asked as both him and the others were quite surprised by such a motive.

Pyrrha couldn't help but feel sorry for Pegasus. "Sounds like he's more of a tragic-villain then anything."

"I mean… I get why he's doing this but resorting to a corporal-takeover, kidnapping a child and attempting an assassination goes a little far." Jaune said. Sure he understood Pegasus motives, but he was still committing some pretty serious crimes here!

"Love and desperation can often make people blind to the evil they commit." Ozpin sighed. Forget basically, this is exactly like his former relationship with Salem. He was however still rooting for Pegasus' defeat. Messing with the dead is never a good idea. Just look at what happened to Salem.

Up next, Time Wizard was shown to use his Time Warp powers to turn Baby Dragon into Thousand Dragon, while turning Dark Magician into a sickly old man with only a 100 attack-points.

"Oh right, those two are still dueling." Ruby remembered. She had gotten a bit too enthralled by Pegasus' backstory.

Joey couldn't believe that he was about to win as he ordered his dragon to attack. "Attack! Noxious Nostril Gust!"

"Please tell me this is the last time we have to watch this gross attack!" Weiss complained.

The old Dark Magician's eyes lighted up. "I counter with Makiu, The Magical Mist!"

Suddenly a damp mist appeared in front of the Dark Magician, preventing Joey's attack from reaching him.

While Weiss was more than happy to see the attack disappear, she had to question what just happened. "Wait, how did Yami play a card while it was Joey's turn? He didn't have any face-downs!"

Joey shared Weiss confusion. "How did you play Makiu while it was still my turn?!"

"With magic." Yami answered. "A magic so powerful that it took my Dark Magician a thousand years to learn it. That Time Warp did age my magician, but it made him stronger, not weaker. And with age comes great wisdom. A thousand years of wisdom transformed him into the Dark Sage!" Yami's monster got a make-over, now wearing a dark-rope while holding a much bigger scepter. "An ultimate magician who's new powers let me play one magic-card during every one of your turns, and everyone of mine."

"Seems like Baby Dragon is not the only monster who benefits from Time Wizard's effect." Ren stated.

"With great age, comes great wisdom indeed." Ozpin repeated, pretending not to be petting himself on the back.

"Now I invoke his powers for my turn. And draw this magic-card." Yami said as he picked the card up while tears were starting to come out of his eyes. "You fought a valiant duel my friend and this is the hardest move I've ever had to make. But this ends now. I play Monster Reborn and call the Black Skull Dragon back from the graveyard." He declared as the mighty fusion-monster appeared on his side of the field.

"When the heck did that thing go to the graveyard?" Qrow asked bewildered.

"Joey summoned him earlier by using his Graverobber and Copycat to copy the necessary cards from Yami." Saixus revealed.

"Then it's over…" Joey realized as he let out some tears. "Yugi… go for it! It's cool!"

Pyrrha was touched by how maturely Joey was handling his inevitable defeat. "It's good to see this battle won't affect their friendship."

Yami nodded at his friend's statement. "Alright. Black Skull Dragon, Molten Fireball Attack!"

The dragon launched the molten fireballs at Joey's Thousand Dragon, causing a massive explosion that engulfed the old beast while also wiping out the rest of Joey's life-points.

"Poor Joey…" Ruby said sadly. "I hope he can still help his sister after this."

"Don't worry. Joey will receive the tournaments prize-money when everything's over." Saixus assured her.

The girl was happy to hear this while Yang got a serious look in her eyes. "Guess all that's left is for Yami to finally take down Pegasus."

---

Episode 35 – 40 : Yami versus Maximillion Pegasus (Final Duel)

"Wait… this duel is five episodes long?!" Jaune said agasp.

Saixus turned to him and said "Don't worry, we're gonna be skipping quite a few parts of it."

(I considered putting in Tristan's-subplot but considering how long this interlude is already… yeah, I'm pressing skip on that plot, sorry.)

"Pegasus!" Yami pointed angrily at the card-game designer. "Before we begin this duel I want you to agree to keep your promise. That if I defeat you, you will release my grandfather's soul."

"But of course." Pegasus promised. "I'm a man of my word."

"Pull the other one!" Nora yelled.

Yami didn't stop there. "And that's not all. You must also free the souls of Seto and Mokuba Kaiba!"

"Good to see he hasn't forgotten about those two." Jaune said.

"What a strange demand." Pegasus voiced out. "I thought you hated Kaiba as much as you hate me Yugi."

Yang rolled her eyes before sarcastically saying "Sure, because the guy who rips cards apart is every bit as bad as the guy who steals souls!"

"Well, Kaiba did hospitalize Yugi's grandpa." Pyrrha reminded.

"Not on purpose!" Yang defended.

"Okay Yugi-boy, if it will put your mind at ease I agree to your terms." Pegasus said as he pulled out to soul-cards of Mokuba, Seto and Solomon. "If you win your battle with me, I shall free these three from their lonesome prison of souls."

"He's actually willing to let Mokuba and Seto go too?" Jaune asked confused. "Why would he-"

"Like I said earlier, too overconfident." Qrow repeated.

'By defeating you I secure my control of KaibaCorporation and all its inventions.' Pegasus thought to himself.

Weiss could not make head or tails from Pegasus' thought. "…Huh? How does beating Yami in a card-game secure his control over KaibaCorp?"

"Seto's reputation as a duelist plummeted quite a bit after he lost to Yugi." Saixus explained. "If Pegasus can defeat the duelist who defeated Kaiba in an official match, then that would boost his rep enough to make his takeover of KaibaCorp seem legit."

"…THAT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!" Was all Weiss could say to that.

Qrow actually agreed with the Schnee. "This world takes its card-games far too seriously."

"Just wait till you see the future." Nora commented. She couldn't wait to see how Ozpin and Qrow would react to police-officers using Duel Monsters to capture criminals.

Later on in the duel, it was shown that Yami wasn't doing too great. 'Hmm, if I'm going to win, I have to find a way to keep his Millennium Eye from reading my thoughts.'

"A little late to start coming up with a plan against that now!" Weiss yelled.

"Phat chance." Pegasus said with caused Yami's eyes to widen. "Nothing you do can stop it. Face it Yugi, you're at the mercy of my Millennium Eye."

"He's answering Yami's thoughts?" Ruby whole body shook in fright. "That's just creepy!"

Pegasus smirked at Yami's struggling. "Now, perhaps you'll remember this card." Yami grunted as Pegasus read his mind. "That's right Yugi, it's the magical Toon World."

The green book called Toon World appeared on the field, transforming his Red Archery Girl and Ryu-Ran into Toon Mermaid and Manga Ryu-Ran, both monsters laughing like someone had just told them a funny joke.

"Not that card again." Weiss complained as she watched the toon-monsters.

"Stop using our childhoods as weapons!" Ruby shouted.

Pegasus was next shown to use his Doppelganger card and transformed it into Yami's fallen Summoned Skull, which he then put into Toon World. "It's really something isn't it Yugi-boy, I can copy one of your monsters, recruit him to my team and turn him into a toon all in one move."

Jaune tried to imagine how Pegasus' new monster would appear but was drawing a complete blank. "What… would a Toon Summoned Skull even look like?"

Ren also couldn't imagine what that would look like. "Guess, we're about to find out."

Toon World shook like crazy as it opened up on a new page. "And with that, a dark new chapter in Toon World has been ridden. The chapter of fiends! And here's our story's protagonist, or antagonist depending upon your point of view. The Toon Skull"

A giant blue fiend jumped out of the page with his tongue out, shaking his head back and forth in a child-like manner.

"That's a Toon Summoned Skull?!" Nora yelled in rage. "I barely recognize him! How dare he make lightning boy look so ridiculous!"

"Now you know how Kaiba felt." Saixus quipped.

Yami didn't have any idea what do to next. 'It all just seems so hopeless.'

"It certainly does." Pegasus agreed and Yami grunted at him. "Oh sorry, were you having a private conversation with yourself?"

"Stop doing that!" Yang all but demanded.

"Guess the term privacy doesn't exist in his vocabulary." Blake exclaimed, slightly thankful there wasn't a Millennium Eye in her world. If someone could read her most inner-thoughts, she'd die from embarrassment.

"I'll play the Dark Magician in attack-mode." Yami declared as his favorite monster appeared on the field. He then played another card. "And I'll also protect him with the Magical Hats."

A giant black-hat with a question mark on it appeared and covered the Dark Magician. Then, said hat multiplied into four.

"Guess he wouldn't be a magician if he didn't have a trick or two." Qrow said, slightly curious if the magician knew any card-tricks as well.

"Oh I see." Pegasus said mockingly. "With your feeble attempt to hide your Dark Magician you're hoping to stall until you can find a way to overcome my Toon World. But it won't work. All I need to do is probe your feeble mind to learn which hat hides your mage. Or have you forgotten the power of my Millennium Eye?"

"Oh come on!" Ruby complained. "Pegasus is taking all the fun out of the game!"

"Toon Summoned Skull! Emerge from the safety of Toon World and attack the Magical Hat on the far left!" Pegasus ordered as the toonish fiend spinned himself out of the book. He let out a menacing laugh before launching a strike of lighting at the hat Pegasus selected. The hat exploded and Pegasus smiled triumphantly. "The Dark Magician has performed his last trick."

'This is not looking good for Yami.' Ozpin thought to himself as the students were disheartened by Pegasus destroying Yami's ace-monster. 'Pegasus is in complete control of the duel and now that he's lost his best card-'

"Maybe Pegasus." Not Yami, but Yugi responded back. "Or maybe you're losing your touch!"

Yugi suddenly responding instead of Yami caught the group by surprise.

"Wait, what? Why is Yugi suddenly there instead of Yami?" Jaune asked confused. "I thought Yugi left the dueling over to Yami all the time."

"Yeah, what's the little twerp up to." Qrow asked confused as well.

'They switched minds? Why would they-' Ozpin thought before it clicked. 'That… that might actually work!'

Pegasus looked down at his screen and became confused. "What? Yugi-boy's life-points are unaffected? And the Dark Magician-card is still on the field? Impossible, I just read his mind! His magician had to be hidden under that hat!"

"He attacked the wrong hat?" Ruby asked, just as surprised as the others that Pegasus hit the wrong one. "But I thought he stole that info straight from Yami's mind!"

"Except that's not Yami he's currently facing, is it?" Ozpin said with a smirk as the others started to understand what just happened.

'I felt him resisting my probe.' Pegasus thought angrily. 'But there's no way he could have deceived me.'

As if he read his mind this time, the duelist facing Pegasus replied "Maybe you probed the wrong mind Pegasus! One that doesn't know where the Dark Magician hides!"

"Huh?" Pegasus asked confused as he saw Yugi standing before him.

"Oh I get it!" Yang spoke up. "Pegasus can't read Yami's mind if he's not in control of Yugi's body!"

"And since Yugi doesn't know which hat hides the Dark Magician, Pegasus got the wrong information from him." Pyrrha continued. "He must have attacked the hat Yugi thought the Dark Magician was hidden under, when in reality it was empty."

"Awesome!" Nora cheered. "They managed to protect the Dark Magician."

"It's better than that miss Valkyrie." Ozpin assured her, making a mental-note to remember this trick if he ever comes across someone with a mind-reading Semblance. "If they continue to switch control with one another constantly, they could put a permanent stop to Pegasus' mind-reading."

"Or maybe your mind-probing powers aren't as all-seeing as you think!" Yugi taunted.

"You tell him little Yugi!" Nora cheered.

Yugi drew a card from his deck before placing it face-down immediately. "I lay this card face-down on the field and end my turn. Pegasus, do you know what card is that I just pulled and laid on the field? Just use your Millennium Eye to read my mind. That is, if you think you can."

"Damn, Yugi's every bit as brave as the other guy." Yang complemented.

Pegasus grunted at Yugi's boldness but smirked before saying "No problem." He then activated his Millennium Eye as it shone a bright-blue light at Yugi. "You can hide nothing from me."

'We'll see about that.' Yugi thought back before his Millennium Puzzle lighted up and he switched places with the spirit of the Puzzle.

The image of a card was coming to Pegasus before suddenly disappearing, shocking Pegasus to his core. "WHAT?! I can't tell what that hidden card is that you just played!"

Yami smirked at this. "Sorry Pegasus, but I don't know what this face-down card is either. Reading my mind will tell you absolutely nothing."

"They've really figured out a way to beat Pegasus' mind-reading." Ren said, more than a little impressed by Yugi and Yami's creativity.

"But… now that Yami's in control again, wouldn't Pegasus be able to learn which hat the Dark Magician is hiding under?" Weiss asked.

"My guess is he has to tell the Millennium Eye what information it's supposed to steal from its victim's mind." Blake assumed. "If he's using it to figure out what that face-down is, he can't use it to uncover the Dark Magician's hiding place."

"So all they have to do is constantly shuffle minds and Pegasus will be left completely in the dark." Qrow summarized with a smirk.

Pegasus decided against using his Millennium Eye again and stated that even without his Millennium Eye he would win. After all, he's still the creator of this game!

"Then pick a hat." Yami taunted. "And we'll see just how impressive your mastery of Duel Monsters really is. But I suspect that you've relied on the magic of your Millennium Eye for so long your dueling-skills have diminished."

"Is that possible?" Ruby questioned.

Qrow agreed with Yami. "I think it is. It's kind of like playing a video-game with cheat-codes all the time. Turn the cheats off and you'll have a much harder time winning since you're not used to playing without them."

"…Is that how you constantly beat me and Ruby in video-games?" Yang asked accusingly while Ruby gasped.

Qrow avoided the two girls their gazes and grinned the other way, which was all the confirmation the two sisters needed as they together yelled "You are the worst!"

To challenge that theory, Pegasus ordered his Toon Summoned Skull to attack the middle-hat. "Hm, did I get him? I think I got him. I must have gotten him!"

Pegasus his childish behavior was really starting to remind Weiss of Ruby.

The smoke disappeared revealing that Dark Magician was in fact, not under that hat, much to Pegasus his frustration. "No! I missed again!"

"Ha! Guess he's not so great at Duel Monsters when he can't cheat anymore." Yang cheered.

Yugi decided to come out again and drew another card that he too placed face-down immediately. Yami returned and looked mockingly at Pegasus. "You're looking frustrated."

"You've essentially robbed Pegasus of his greatest weapon." Blake pointed out. "It's no wonder he's losing his composure."

"Hrnng, I'm becoming annoyed." Pegasus admitted before drawing his next card, which he was quite pleased to see. "Eureka! The card that will devastate your Dark Magician! Magical Neutralizing force, activate!"

A giant tornado appeared on the field that evaporated the remaining two hats and revealed the Dark Magician.

Ruby gasped in fear. "Oh no! Dark Magician isn't hidden anymore!"

"He really felt the need to waste a cancelation-spell on those hats?" Weiss questioned if that was a strategically sound move. "He had a 50-50 chance of hitting the right one!"

"He either figured that it was worth using that spell on, or he's so frustrated he's not thinking clearly." Ren theorized. "Anger can cause people to make hasty and poor out-thought decisions."

"Well hopefully those face-downs the little brat threw on the field are some good ones, cuz else it's bye bye Dark Magician." Qrow stated.

"Toon Summoned Skull, attack the Dark Magician, Lightning Strike Attack!" Pegasus ordered before the toon shot multiple strikes of lightning toward the Dark Magician.

"I still hate that monster." Nora grunted.

Pyrrha was a bit surprised by that. "I thought you liked silly things?"

"Not if that silliness comes at the cost of all its badassery!" Nora answered loudly.

'I don't have a move.' Yami realized. 'But Yugi might!'

The Millennium Puzzle glowed and Yugi took over for Yami. "Pegasus, I defend my magician with the card I played face-down. The magic-card, Living Arrow!"

"That's the card he nearly defeated Kaiba's Ultimate Dragon with." Jaune recalled and Yang grimaced at the memory of that particular duel.

Yami took over again and saw what Yugi had played. "We've thwarted your mind-reading magic. And now we're going to use your very own magic-card against you. I use the Living Arrow-card to fuse with your Magical Neutralizing-card and fire it right back at Toon World!"

The arrow struck the flying book and obliterated it, much to Pegasus his shock which soon turned to glee. "It doesn't matter, cuz it's already too late for you to stop my Summoned Skull attack. Your Dark Magician is vanquished."

"Sorry Pegasus." Yugi said as he took over once more. "You've forgotten my other down-card, it's a trap-card and it's one of my favorites. Mirror Force!"

"What does that card do?" Ruby asked innocently.

"It's arguably the best trap-card in all of Duel Monsters." Saixus answered. "It activates when your opponent launches an attack. Not only does it destroy the attacking monster, but it also destroys any other monster your opponent has in attack-mode."

"Wow, it must suck running into a trap like that while you have a bunch of monsters on the field." Qrow noted.

"Like Pegasus is now." Ren reminded.

'A trap!' Pegasus thought in shock as his lightning got reflected back to Pegasus' field. And since Toon World was no longer around, Pegasus his monsters returned to their original forms, just in time for all of them to get vanquished by the reflected lightning.

"He did it!" Ruby cheered and the rest of her classmates weren't far behind.

"Goodbye Summoned Skull-reject!" Nora happily stated.

"Sorry Pegasus, looks like your toons just got cancelled." Yang grinned in joy.

Weiss was also happy to see Pegasus suffer such a devastating blow. "It's a good thing Pegasus can't read their minds anymore. If he had, he would never have used that Neutralizing-card and then they wouldn't have been able to destroy Toon World."

"Now Pegasus has lost one of his most powerful cards as well as all his monsters." Jaune summarized.

Pegasus couldn't believe that he'd been outplayed. "DAAAAARGH! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'VE DESTROYED ALL MY BELOVED TOONS! NO NO NO NO, THIS IS A NIGHTMARE! A BAD DREAM! THIS CAN'T TRULY BE HAPPENING! D'OOOOOOOOOH!"

The others laughed at Pegasus his over the top reaction while Weiss thought 'He really is every bit as childish as Ruby.'

Croquet did a quick update on the scores. "Scores stand at Yugi 900, Pegasus 600. Uhm, sorry sir."

"Kissass!" Yang insulted with a smile.

"Alright! You're in the lead Yug!" Joey cheered as Tea stood beside him.

Jaune stopped cheering and took notice of the stands. "Wait a sec, where are Tristan and Bakura? Shouldn't they be there cheering Yugi and Yami on too?

Pyrrha also took notice of the two missing support-characters. "That's strange. Where could those two have run off too?"

Yang didn't seem too worried. "They likely just went to the bathroom or something."

"Or they simply got lost." Weiss stated, knowing full well that it was very easy to get lost in such a big building.

"Or they're having an awesome side-adventure which Saixus isn't showing us!" Nora said accusingly while Saixus decided not to respond to the hammer-wielder.

Pegasus, realizing he needed a new strategy, activated the power of his Millennium Eye to make several shadows appear around this arena. "I'm taking this duel to the next level!"

"Next level?" Yugi asked worryingly as Yami realized what Pegasus was doing.

Seeing the rising shadows unnerved the watchers greatly. "W-What's he doing now?"

"It's safe to assume nothing good." Blake responded to Jaune's question.

"Yes, you and I will finish this contest in the Shadow-Realm Yugi. And this time, it's winner take all!"

"The Shadow-Realm?!" Ruby practically screamed. "They're going back to that horrible place?!"

"Why would One-eye suddenly bring them back to that place?" Qrow wondered. "If he really needed the Shadow-Realm, he would have used it in the beginning of the duel. Why's he only now using it?"

"I don't know Qrow." Ozpin answered, not liking the dark-magic that was surrounding the arena one bit. "But one thing's for certain, Pegasus has far from thrown in the towel."

"This is really spooky." Joey commented on seeing the entire arena be engulfed in darkness.

"You can say that again." Ruby agreed.

The screen became a bit static again as Tristan showed up carrying Bakura and Mokuba. "Hey guys! You'll never guys what I've been doing!"

"We don't care." Joey deadpanned.

"What the- yes we do!" Yang exclaimed. "Where the heck have you been?"

Pyrrha continued. "And why is Bakura unconscious, and- is that Mokuba? Where did he come from?"

Saixus laughed awkwardly and said "I may have skipped a little side-adventure that Tristan was having."

Nora grinned and said "Someone better pick up that phone, cuz I called it!"

Weiss was less than pleased by Joey's attitude. "It was rather rude of Joey to say that he doesn't care! I mean, Tristan walks in with two unconscious people and he doesn't want to know what happened?"

"That was actually another moment from the abridged-universe." Saixus said.

"Could you please tell us what the abridged-universe is already?!" Jaune asked. "You've mention it multiple times by now but never explained it."

Saixus thought it over and decided now was as good a time as any. "The abridged-universe is basically a carbon-copy of the universe we're currently watching, except everyone in that world is more… self-aware. They basically joke around about everything, say things that only make sense from our point of view, have different voices and are funny as heck to watch."

Weiss tried to wrap her head around that. "… And why's that… weird universe cutting in every now and then?"

Saixus simply raised his shoulders, which was not the answer Weiss was hoping for.

The show continued, with Yugi looking less than healthy.

That made the watchers forget about the abridged-universe for now.

"W-What's wrong with Yugi? Why is he breathing so heavily?" Ruby asked in worry.

"Pegasus has made this shadow game particularly deadly." Saixus said gravely. "The atmosphere is too potent for any weak-minded individuals to survive for long. Yami can handle the strain, but Yugi-"

"Cannot." Ozpin finished as he figured out Pegasus' plan. "That's why Pegasus brought them to this realm. It's too dangerous for Yugi to stay, making their mind-shuffle strategy useless."

"Which means Pegasus can safely read Yami's mind again." Pyrrha said worryingly while Yang let out a curse-word.

Next Pegasus was shown to use the Black Illusion Ritual-card to summon a spellcaster-monster that could very easily pass itself off as a fiend. It was mostly dark-blue with gray-outlines, has a giant hole in its stomach and a tentacle with a Millennium Eye for a face. Its attack- and defense-points however were shown to be zero. "Behold, the incredible, extraordinary, unforgettable creature known only as, Relinquished! Quite a looker huh?"

Weiss actually spit-barfed at the sight of this disgusting looking creature. "First a giant insect, then zombies, now THIS THING?! This is the grossest creature I've seen all evening!"

"But it doesn't have a single attack- or defense-point." Nora pointed out.

"Which means it must have a powerful special-ability." Pyrrha guessed, remembering that Rally's Turbo Booster also had zero points but made up for it with its effect.

The stomach… thing on Relinquished opened wide as a dark hole seemed to form inside of it. Yami's Curse Of Dragon-card couldn't resist the monster's pull and became completely absorbed. The stomach closed up before opening again, leaving no sign of Yami's dragon.

Weiss turned green again. "Someone give me a bag before I really throw up."

"Dark Magician go now! Attack Relinquished!" Yami ordered as Dark Magician launched a beam of energy at his fellow spellcaster.

"Relinquished, activate defense-shield!" Pegasus said, causing Relinquished to close its wings around itself when suddenly Curse Of Dragon showed up, trapped within Relinquished very flesh.

"Oh no, it's using my captured Curse of Dragon as a shield against the attack!" Yami realized as his Curse Of Dragon was destroyed.

"The Dark Magician's attack eliminates Curse Of Dragon from the game." Pegasus told him as Relinquished opened up its wings again and Yami's life-points dropped to 400. "But since he was your creature, you lose the life-points."

"W-What the heck just happened?!" Yang asked confused. "First it swallowed up Yami's dragon, then it used it as some sort of meat-shield!"

"And Yami took the damage from the attack." Blake added. "This monster is a lot more dangerous then it first appears."

Pegasus explained for her. "By absorbing its opponent's monsters, Relinquished can use them and their attack- and defense-points to protect against any attacking monster. Relinquished remains unharmed, while the opponent suffers the damage. Your own attack reduced your life-points. As long as I have Relinquished in play, you're your own worst enemy."

"So any monster Yami uses is gonna be turned into a living shield by that thing?" Ruby asked.

"That sounds horrible." Pyrrha grimaced. "Imagine being stuck in such a vile looking creature!"

"Thank Oum there aren't any Grimm that can use people as living shields." Jaune said as Saixus looked away awkwardly.

"My monster is unstoppable." Pegasus claimed as he stretched his right-hand out. "Watch, I activate Relinquished's Hypnotic Attraction!"

Relinquished shot a purple-beam at the Dark Magician, causing a purple Millennium Eye to appear on his chest. Pegasus' monster opened its mouth-stomach thing again and started absorbing Yami's only monster.

"No, my Dark Magician!" Yami cried out but it was too late. Dark Magician became attached to Relinquished's flesh, as all his attack- and defense power went to it.

"Now his Dark Magician has been taken!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Yeah and I should probably clarify that Relinquished gains the attack- and defense-points of whatever monster is attached to him." Saixus revealed.

"So it's now as powerful as Yami Dark Magician…" Blake summarized, realizing this wasn't good at all. "That magician is one of the strongest cards Yami has. If he can't figure out a way to free it, he's done for."

"And the only monster we've ever seen Yami use with more attack-strength then his Dark Magician was his Black Luster Soldier." Pyrrha recalled. "But even if he manages to summon it, Relinquished will simply absorb him the second Dark Magician is destroyed."

"He'd lose all his remaining life-points first." Qrow pointed out.

'How can I possibly win?' Yami thought to himself. 'Any monster I use will be turned against me. And even if I come up with another strategy, Pegasus will know it instantly.'

"Oh right, Pegasus can read Yami's mind again." Jaune remembered.

'We can't give up!' Yugi told him. 'We have to mind-shuffle again long enough for me to draw a card and retreat before Pegasus can read my mind. It worked before, it will work again!'

"That is far too risky!" Weiss berated as the others weren't so sure about this plan either.

Yami wasn't sure about this. 'We don't know how long you can last in the Shadow-Realm.'

'I don't have to last long.' Yugi replied. 'Just long enough to pull one last card. Whatever the risk, I have to take it.'

"Kid, I appreciate your confidence. But nobody wants to see you risking your life like this!" Qrow argued.

"But if he manages to hide a card from Pegasus, that could be super helpful." Ruby brought up.

"And what if the card he draws is useless anyway?" Blake pointed out. "He'd be endangering his life for nothing!"

Yugi took over and immediately started to struggle. "I've… I've got to play fast."

Weiss wanted to yell at Yami for allowing Yugi to go through with this. "Don't waste energy talking! Just draw a card and leave!"

'Please… make this last card one that can defeat Pegasus' Yugi begged as his hand landed on his deck. 'Please!'

'Please let it be something useful.' Ruby prayed.

Yugi drew the card from his deck, took a quick look at it, and immediately placed it face-down on the field. "Pegasus, I play one card face-down. And for my last move, I play Feral Imp in defense-mode."

A green-colored fiend appeared on the field with 1300 attack-points and 1400 defense-points.

'Hmm, If I try to read his mind they'll just switch again.' Pegasus realized. 'So instead I'll overtax it, like this!'

"Relinquished, prepare to attack." Pegasus ordered as Relinquished started draining energy from the Dark Magician. "Use the Dark Magician's power. Destroy the Feral Imp!"

"Quick! Switch back already!" Nora shouted.

The Millennium Eye of Relinquished shot a purple laser at Feral Imp, destroying him into multiple triangles.

Yugi covered himself from the attack as Yami appeared besides him. 'Yugi, switch now, quickly!'

But it was too late. Yugi's eyes closed as he started to fall forward. "Spirit, you've got… to beat Pegasus…"

Pyrrha gasped as she and the others watched Yugi fall. "No… don't tell me..."

'Hmhm, one down.' Pegasus thought a Yugi fainted on the dueling-table.

"Yugi no!" Ruby yelled.

"Please tell me he's only lost consciousness." Pyrrha begged.

"Yugi, Yugi!" Yami tried to wake Yugi up within their minds. "I can't sense his spirit. I can… no longer feel the presence of his young mind." He desperately tried to shake Yugi awake, but to no avail. "No he… he can't be gone!"

Yugi's apparent death made all of the girls get tears in their eyes. Ren and Jaune were trying to remain strong as their respective not-but-actually-yes-love interests hugged them in tears.

"Dammit!" Qrow muttered angrily. "Why the hell did he take so long to switch back?!"

Ozpin could only imagine how Yami must feel. In a way, he never loses anyone who he reincarnates into. Losing a part of yourself like that… it must have been pure agony for the ancient spirit.

"Forget him, the boy was too weak." Pegasus said harshly. "It takes a person of true fortitude to coup with the harsh on realities of the Shadow-Realm. Face it, Yugi is gone and it's just you and me now."

"WEAK?!" Yang yelled furiously at the screen. "HE WAS STRONG ENOUGH TO FACE YOU DESPITE THE DEATH-THREAT YOU HAD LOOMING OVER HIM! IF ANYONE IS WEAK HERE, IT'S YOU!" She wiped away some tears but continued to shout. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO CAN'T ACCEPT HIS WIFE IS DEAD! NEWFLASH PAL, EVERYONE HAS PEOPLE THAT THEY LOST!"

Yami woke up and shot the angriest glare he had ever managed to make at Pegasus. "You used your underhanded tactics to overwhelm Yugi's mind. You will pay for what you did!"

Nora agreed with Yami's lust for vengeance. "Avenge little Yugi!"

Pegasus destroyed Yami's defensive monster before playing one more card from his hand. "Now the card of your final defeat. Your time has run out!"

Out of a shadowy portal appeared a small clock-like monster whose penal pointed at a 2. It seemed like a harmless monster considering it only had 200 attack-points and 1000 defense-points.

Yami however knew that this card was no joke. "Jigen Bakudan, the infamous time-bomb."

"Yes." Pegasus confirmed. "Jigen Bakudan is a self-destructing monster that's immune to attacks. In just two turns it will explode and destroy my beloved Relinquished."

"Why would he wanna destroy his own monster?" Jaune tilted his head at Pegasus his play as Pyrrha quickly let go of him while her cheeks were pink.

Nora did the same with Ren.

Pegasus proceeded to answer. "But more importantly, it will also destroy the ones Relinquished has absorbed, namely yours. Oh and Relinquished, his attack-power is zero."

Yami knew what that meant. "Meaning your life-points won't be effected at all."

Pegasus nodded. "That's right. While my score is unaffected, the explosion will wipe out the Dark Magician. And his attack-points will be deducted directly from your life-points, ending the game!"

"So if he doesn't figure out a way to free the Dark Magician, he'll lose in just two turns." Blake summarized.

"Then he had better come up with something quick before that Jiren Bakugan explodes."

"Jigen Bakudan, Nora." Ren corrected.

"Here's my move." Yami said as he drew a new card from his deck.

"Then let's take a look!" Pegasus declared as he used his Millennium Eye on Yami. 'Hmhm, trying to conceal your card hé. Fool, there's nothing you can hide from me since you lost your mind shuffling partner.'

The watchers narrowed their eyes at Pegasus for that reminder.

Pegasus was about to see which card Yami had drawn when suddenly the silhouettes of Joey, Tristan, Tea and a unconscious Yugi appeared instead.

"Wait, what's happening now?" Pyrrha asked.

"Why are Yami's friends suddenly here?" Jaune questioned.

Pegasus was shocked. "OH NO! Impossible, inconceivable! My Millennium Eye! It's being blocked!"

"It is?!" Ruby asked hopefully while the others were aghast.

"This can't be! My Millennium-powers are totally unstoppable!" Pegasus stated as he put more and more strain on his Millennium Item. "I should be able to scan your every thought and strategy, I should be able to see each and every card in your deck!"

"Not anymore Pegasus." The silhouette of Joey declared. "Not as long as we're here helping our buddy out. Get out of his mind and stay out!"

Pegasus dramatically gasped at the silhouette's words.

"…Okay what the Remnant is going on here." Qrow voiced out for everyone. "How come Spirit-dude's buddies are suddenly there?"

"And how are they preventing Pegasus' mind-reading?" Blake followed up. She was also wondering what Yugi's spirit was doing there.

Saixus started talking. "Yami's friends are basically focusing all their thoughts and hopes on Yugi and Yami, creating a kind of mental-shield that's blocking off the Millennium Eye's mind-reading powers."

Weiss her face became deadpanned. "…So Pegasus his Eye is being blocked… by the power of friendship…"

Ozpin thought of a better explanation. "I think he means that by focusing their thoughts on Yami, Pegasus his Eye became overwhelmed by their multiple thoughts. We've only ever seen Pegasus use his Millennium Eye to read the mind of one person at a time. If he's forced to read more than one, his Eye won't be able to handle the strain."

"Resulting in Pegasus being unable to read any of their thoughts." Ren finished and Weiss accepted their explanation.

"Thank you." Yami told his friends as he turned his gaze to Pegasus. "Now, prepare yourself Pegasus because with Yugi's friends preventing you from seeing the cards I pull, you'll just have to take them as they come! And for this turn they don't come any better than this! Go Mystic Box!"

Pegasus' bomb-monster, along with Yami's Dark Magician became trapped within two tall black-boxes with yellow question-marks on them, much to Pegasus' annoyance. 'Mystic Box? I could have countered that if I had been able to see it coming!'

"Another weakness of Pegasus." Ozpin spoke up. "He build his deck specifically to counter any strategy his opponents can come up with. If he can't predict their strategies then his own becomes less effective."

"Man, first those hats and now life-sized boxes?" Qrow said amused. "Point-hat would be a killer at birthday parties."

The box which had surrounded Jigen Bakudan opened up but the Dark Magician stepped out instead, freeing him from Relinquished. Bakudan meanwhile, was revealed to have taken the Dark Magician's place.

"No! Now it's blast will only destroy Relinquished!" Pegasus realized as the timer on Bakudan revealed that there was only one turn to go before it detonated. "No fair!"

"Yay! Dark Magician is free again!" Ruby cheered.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Sure, the guy whose been cheating the entire duel complains about his opponent being unfair."

Pegasus decided to skip his turn, which allowed Yami's turn to begin again. He looked at his new card and appeared quite pleased, much to Pegasus' concern. "Go Brain Control!"

A massive brain with hands appeared on the field and grabbed Relinquished before placing him on Yami's side of the field. "How does it feel Pegasus? To have the tables turned, and the magical powers of mind control used against you?"

"Ha, points for irony!" Yang exclaimed.

"There's a pretty big difference between reading one's mind and actually controlling it." Pyrrha pointed out.

Ruby appeared deep in thought. "Which one's worse, reading a person's mind or controlling it?"

"Control, no question." Qrow quickly answered.

"Why?"

"Because Squirt, if someone can brainwash you into doing whatever they want, they can just force you to reveal all your secrets." The huntsman pointed out.

"…That is one annoying loophole." Yang admitted. "Guess we should be happy Pegasus can only read people's minds and not control them. Well… not without removing their souls first."

"Can you imagine if someone had a mind-controlling Semblance?" Jaune put in and Ruby shivered at the thought.

"Let's hope we don't meet someone like that anytime soon." She spoke out, missing the grin Saixus had on his face.

Pegasus was understandably upset about Relinquished not being on his side anymore, but calmed down when he realized Yami had also taken Jigen Bakudan with him. He started to laugh hysterically at Yami's supposed mistake. "Go ahead and take Relinquished you fool! That detonator you attached to him is set to go off this turn! It will blast your magician and deplete your life-points!"

"…Oh shit!" Yang cursed in realization.

"Don't worry miss Xiao Long." Ozpin told her. "I highly doubt Yami would make an oversight like that. He probably has a plan in mind already."

"You're wrong Pegasus." Yami calmly stated, much to Pegasus' bewilderment until Yami picked up the card Yugi had left behind. "Remember, I still have one more card out. The card that took the last bit of Yugi's courage to play. And now it's time to find out what it is!"

Yami slammed Yugi's card down on the table as it was revealed to be a powerful spell.

"It's a ritual-card!" Pegasus realized.

"Wait, he's really gonna summon Black Luster Soldier again?" Jaune asked, secretly hoping the warrior would make another appearance.

Blake shook her head. "I don't think so. That card looks very different from the one he used to play that monster."

"Dark Magic Ritual!" Yami clarified as a ritual-set appeared on the field. "And to invoke its great powers, I must make a double offering. So I offer your Jigen Bakudan and the Dark Magician!"

Pegasus looked in fear at the ritual that was happening before him. 'No! Bakudan's been sacrificed before it could detonate. But what has he created in its place?'

"What do you mean what has he created in its place?!" Weiss asked frantically. "You're the one who made that card! Surely you know what monster can be summoned with it!"

"Maybe there are multiple monsters that can be summoned with that ritual-card and he's just wondering which one Yami's playing?" Ruby theorized.

Weiss sighed as she accepted that answer before Ren spoke up. "I get the feeling Yami knew what card Yugi left behind for him. Had he used it earlier, he wouldn't have had any monsters to sacrifice."

"But why not sacrifice Relinquished as well?" Nora wondered. "He could have gotten rid of that ugly thing too."

"Yugi did say his sacrifice required a double offering." Jaune remembered. "Maybe he was only allowed to sacrifice two monsters and the Dark Magician had to be one of those?"

"Then he really didn't have much choice." Blake backed up. "If he had sacrificed Relinquished, his new monster would have been blown up by that time-bomb and then he would have lost."

A tornado of darkness appeared on the sacrificial-table, which went high into the air and created a dark storm.

"The offering has been accepted." Yami declared. "A new power is brought forth. Now Pegasus, behold, The Magician Of Black Chaos!"

Out of the storm appeared a man wearing dark-colored armor with pink belts around his legs, holding a similar colored staff.

Pegasus never seemed more shocked then he was now. 'No! Not him! NOT HIM!'

"You may have succeeded in putting Yugi out of commission, but not before his final courageous act set the stage for the greatest Magician in all of Duel Monsters." Yami exclaimed as the Magician of Black Chaos was now fully revealed. His face was an ominous shade of blue with black-highlights, and his dark-colored hair was even longer then Yang's. The gem within his scepter was green, and he had two more green gems on his head-gear that sprouted both left and right like a pair of horns. "And with the Magician of Black Chaos, I will avenge my fallen friend." He landed on the ritual-table before finally opening his eyes, revealing a purple-set of them on a dark-yellow surface. His attack-strength was revealed to be 2800, and his defense 2600.

"Whooooaaaahh!" Said Ruby, Jaune and Nora slowly.

Ruby took in a breath and said "Oh my Oum, he looks so cool!"

"That look screams 'I'm gonna kick your ass'!" Nora put in.

"Look at all that hair…" Yang said slowly. Feeling jealous of someone else their hair, a guy no less, was certainly a new feeling for her.

'Cheez, his hair is even longer then Raven's.' Qrow thought in silence.

Pegasus contained his nerves as he thought of a strategy. 'As powerful as that creature may be, it matters not. For in one turn that Brain Control-card will expire, and I will regain command over Relinquished. The power to absorb and assimilate monsters will be mine again. And with it I'll steal that Magician of Black Chaos and his powers. Instead of being this fool's deliverance, he'll be his undoing!'

"Gotta hand it to One-eye, he doesn't know when to quit." Qrow stated. "First he's worried as heck about that new monster and now he's all good."

"Taking time to analyze the situation can help calm down the nerves." Ozpin admitted.

Yami continued his turn. "Now to complete my strategy I play this." He drew a face-down on the field which Pegasus couldn't see thanks to Yami's friends. "And also one monster-card in defensive-mode." He put the monster face-down on the field as well. "That ends my turn."

"Convenient friendship-powers aside, it's good to know Pegasus can't peak at Yami's cards anymore." Yang said with a smile.

"Yes but… didn't Pegasus already have a look at Yami's cards beforehand?" Weiss questioned. "Wouldn't he still know what's in his hand and make a good guess about what those face-downs could be?"

"He probably didn't memorize those cards because he figured he could check them out whenever he wanted." Blake figured. "His short-term memory may not be that great."

Qrow snickered at that. "Guess he should have written it down."

Pegasus was pretty frustrated by the fact he couldn't read which cards Yami had placed on the field. He figured they were part of a strategy to stop Relinquished, so he decided it was time to bring out his true ace. "Now your Brain Control-spell has expired and Relinquished is back where he belongs, with his daddy."

Weiss held back another spit-barf. "Who'd want to associate themselves with that thing?!"

"If you think you have Relinquished all figured out, think again." Pegasus stated as he played Polymerization. "Because I'm using my Polymerization-card to fuse him with Thousand Eyes Idol." He played said monster which was shown to be a creepy green-dude covered in eyes. "Now prepare yourself for the ultimate merged monster!"

Dozens of buds started to form all around Relinquished as his skin turned purple. These buds soon started to open up, revealing that these were actually eyes with yellow-pupils. His mouth-stomach now had a set of pointy-teeth, and its Millennium Eye shot forward menacingly. "With the Thousand Eyes Idol and Relinquished fused together, I've created the one, the only, the Thousand Eyes Restrict!"

"OH MY OUM, HE MADE IT WORSE!" Weiss shouted loudly, absolutely disgusted by the new creature that had officially taken the top spot of 'most disgusting monster' she had seen so far.

The reshaped creature's attack- and defense-power remained zero.

"He's quite the looker hé." Pegasus said, sounding completely serious.

"You and me have two complete different definitions of the word 'looker' sir." Qrow exclaimed as he found himself agreeing with the Schnee again. "I've seen my fair share of ugly looking Grimm, but that… whatever it is puts them all to shame."

While the others were agreeing with that sentiment, Jaune raised an eyebrow at Pegasus' new monster. "He calls that the ultimate fused monster? If anything he just made it more vulnerable. That thing's completely covered in eyes!"

Yang could see were Jaune was coming from. "Yeah, all we need is a small bucket of sand or punch it literally anywhere and he's out."

"Don't let looks deceive you." Ozpin advised. "Relinquished was already very powerful on its own. I doubt Pegasus would have combined it with another monster unless this Thousand Eyes Restrict has powerful abilities as well."

Pegasus laughed. "The end is truly in sight, wouldn't you say?"

Everyone groaned at the pun save for Yang, who gasped in anger. "Oh he did NOT just do my thing!"

Pegasus' monster's eyes started to open wide. "Thousand Eyes Restrict, time to upon your peepers!"

"Please don't." Weiss practically begged as she got greener and greener with each eye that opened.

"Chaos Mage, prepare yourself." Yami ordered. "Try to hold him off."

"Chaos Mage?" Ruby repeated confused. "Wasn't he called the Magician of Black Chaos? Why did he shorten it?"

"Well Magician of Black Chaos is a bit of a mouth-full." Saixus admitted.

Pegasus grinned like a madman. "There's nothing you can do to hold this attack off. For now I unleash, the thousand-eyes-spell!"

Each and every single one of Restrict's eyes opened up and shot a green-energy beam everywhere around the field. Before Yami knew it, his magician became completely stunned. "My Chaos Mage!"

"What happened to him?!" Ruby asked in worry.

"He seems to be completely stunned." Blake observed.

"Can't say I blame him…" Weiss muttered, still disgusted by the fusion.

Pegasus snickered before explaining what he did. "Is trapped by the mystic gaze of my ultimate beast. And don't think you can rescue him. There's no escape from the mesmerizing-eyes whose gaze blankets your field. Even the monsters you've hidden from me have become paralyzed."

"You haven't won yet!" Yami declared.

"Don't be a fool. In just a matter of moments my Thousand Eyes Restrict will assimilate your Chaos Mage, absorb his magical-powers and then finish you off with one thunderous-blast. There's nothing you can do!"

"He's gonna use his face-downs to stop him, isn't he?" Jaune figured.

Ren nodded. "That sounds like a safe bet."

"Chaos Mage, come to me." Pegasus said, certain the duel would end with his victory. "Absorption Force!"

Thousand Eyes Restrict's Millennium Eye started to shine purple as he prepared to absorb Yami's monster.

Pegasus laughed triumphantly. "In mere moments your Magician of Black Chaos will be assimilated and all his powers will be mine!"

"Wrong."

"Huh?" Pegasus asked confused when suddenly a bunch of Kuriboh's appeared in front of Yami's Chaos Mage. "W-What's happening?"

"KURIBOH!" Ruby, Nora and Weiss cheered at the cutest monster ever coming to the rescue while the other three girls smiled with blushes on their faces.

Yami was happy to explain. "You were right about your Thousand Eyes-spell, it did infect all my hidden monsters. Specifically my Kuriboh, and it paralyzed him along with my Chaos Mage."

"No this can't be!"

Yami then showed Pegasus the card he had face-down. "Yes, and I activated my other down-card, Multiply. One Kuriboh is becoming many."

Yami wasn't kidding, as thousands of Kuriboh's kept appearing to cover the Magician of Black Chaos.

"That's right my furry soldiers, keep multiplying like Velvets!" Nora said cheerfully.

"NORA!" Ren yelled, shocked at Nora's statement while Blake stared angrily at the ginger.

Nora immediately covered her mouth with her eyes wide open as she realized what she had just said. She quickly turned to Blake and bowed her head multiple times. "Sorry! I-I went way too far with that one! I-I didn't mean to- Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!"

Blake let out a sigh and said. "It's fine. At least you had the decency to apologize."

Qrow didn't fully get it. "I'm guessing Velvet's a Faunus at this school?"

"Yes, a rabbit-Faunus." Ozpin answered. He was considering giving Nora detention for that remark but decided against it when he saw how regretful miss Valkyrie looked.

Qrow tried his absolute hardest not to laugh.

Pegasus was becoming more and more agitated. 'Those disgusting fussballs. They're spreading like wildfire!'

"Don't talk bad about Kuriboh! He's literally the cutest thing ever!" Ruby yelled at the screen while Weiss nodded in agreement.

Zwei was starting to feel angry again but Yang's constant petting kept him calm.

"And because it's too late to call back the Absorption Force-spell that you just cast, your Thousand Eyes Restrict has no choice but to assimilate them all." Yami exclaimed as Pegasus' monster sucked in Kuriboh after Kuriboh. "If it can."

Ruby and Weiss gasped at seeing all the Kuriboh's get swallowed by Thousand Eyes Restrict. "STOP EATING KURIBOH!"

"WHEN I SAID THEY WERE CUTE ENOUGH TO GOBBLE UP I DIDN'T MEAN IT LITERALLY!" Weiss frantically yelled.

The other girls also looked distressed at seeing the Kuriboh's get eaten while Jaune leaned back and whispered to Ren "This… this is a good thing, right?"

"Good luck telling them that." Ren replied back.

Eventually, Thousand Eyes Restrict managed to absorb every single Kuriboh, but they also covered every single one of its eyes. His attack-strength also only increased to 300.

"He absorbed dozens of those little furballs and it only gives him 300 attack-points?" Qrow questioned.

"I guess all those Kuriboh's share their attack-strength with one another." Ozpin guessed.

"Those furry freaks have covered him from head to toe!" Pegasus exclaimed with his good eye wide upon. "There must be a thousand of them!"

Yami smirked. "Tens of thousands Pegasus. And because of the way the Kuriboh's attack, you're about to see just as many explosions!"

"EXPLOSIONS?!" The girls asked frantically.

"NOOOOO!" Pegasus yelled as the Kuriboh's started exploding one by one. "Kuriboh's self-destruct on contact with the enemy!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The girls yelled at seeing the Kuriboh's explode.

"HOW COULD YOU YAMI!" Ruby asked between tears. "HOW COULD YOU SACRIFICE ALL THOSE KURIBOH'S LIKE THAT?!"

"THERE'S NOT EVEN A SINGLE SURVIVOR!" Weiss cried.

"Those poor Kuriboh's…" Pyrrha wept.

"AND KURIBOH'S EXPLODE ON PHYSICAL CONTACT! THAT MEANS I CAN NEVER HUG ONE WITHOUT IT BLOWING UP!" Nora cried out, feeling as if explosions had betrayed her.

"THAT'S BEYOND WRONG!" Yang shouted.

"CURSE PEGASUS FOR GIVING THEM A SUICIDE-ATTACK!" Blake howled.

Jaune tried to calm the girls down. "Guys, I get watching the Kuriboh's blow up was heartbreaking, but this is supposed to be good thing."

"ON WHAT PLANET IS THIS A GOOD THING?!"

Jaune was so caught off guard by all the girls, including Pyrrha, screaming at him that he backed away and fell off the side of the sofa.

Ren sighed. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Soon Restrict was covered in nothing but explosions, causing Pegasus to look away. "UUUURRRGH! Curse you Yugi Muto! You and your Kuriboh's!"

The girls were too heart-stricken to care about Pegasus' insult.

"Of course Kuriboh was my monster so I do lose 300 life-points." Yami explained as his life-points dropped to 100. "But still, that's a small price to pay for crippling that giant eyesore!"

"Don't think you can make up for this by making a pun!" Yang yelled before smiling a little. "Although eye must admit, that was a good one."

"Yang… please don't." Ruby said in tears. "We're still mourning over here."

"Nooooooo!" Pegasus shouted, face full of sweat. 'My Thousand Eyes Restrict! He's blind!'

The girls started to wipe away their tears.

"At least their sacrifice wasn't in vain." Ruby said with a bittersweet smile.

Nora did a soldier-salute. "To the maddest squad of fussballs I have ever met!"

"Can someone help me up please?" Jaune asked awkwardly as Pyrrha gasped and quickly stood up to help Jaune out and say sorry a few dozen times.

"And now that your monster's transfixing gaze has been broken, my Chaos Mage is free!" Yami stated while his Magician now fixed his gaze at No More Eyes Restrict. "And you Pegasus, are through. Attack magician, with Chaos Scepter Blast!"

The Magician of Black Chaos spun around his scepter multiple times before slamming it into the ground, creating a massive orb of energy that rushed towards Pegasus' monster. The orb hit Restrict right in the stomach, blowing him up in one final explosion.

"Your Thousand Eyes Restrict has been-" Yami paused for dramatic effect. "-DESTROYED!"

"OOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The complete opposite mood from before took over. "HE DID IT!"

"HECK YEAH HE DID!" Yang confirmed Ruby's statement. "Took him out with an amazing hit!"

"Thank Oum that monstrosity is gone." Weiss said relieved.

"Let's hope Pegasus keeps his word and releases his hostages now." Pyrrha exclaimed.

"He better," Yang growled. "Or I'm gonna personally hunt him down and make him do it!"

"I'm pleased to see he won as well." Ozpin spoke up. "Unfortunately, his victory didn't come without a price."

"Yeah… poor Kuri the Kuriboh." Nora said sadly as the other girls started to look down too.

"… I was talking about the young Yugi Muto." Ozpin clarified.

The girls blinked before Ozpin's words registered.

"OH MY OUM, WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?!" Ruby shouted. She couldn't believe that she had completely forgotten about-

"Pegasus…"

Before she could continue her line of thought, Ruby and the others froze.

Pyrrha was the first to break the silence. "Was… was that…"

"…Yugi?" Ruby asked hopefully.

It was indeed revealed to be Yugi on the stand. "You're finished, we've won."

"HE'S OKAY!" Ruby cheered as the others joined her.

"Thank Oum for that." Weiss said in relief.

Qrow grinned. "Guess the little kid's made of tougher stuff then we gave him credit for."

"I had a feeling Yugi was still alive." Blake voiced out. "His unconscious-spirit did appear with Tea and the rest when they were blocking Pegasus his mind reading."

"This is indeed a pleasant development." Ozpin said with a smile, glad Yami didn't lose his partner.

'No… how can this be…' Pegasus thought with a look of absolute despair on his face. 'It's… it's… impossible… my Eye, my magic! … It all failed me… Cecelia… my love… I'm sorry…' He eventually grabbed his head downward. "I've lost! NOOOOOOHOOOhooohoooooooo…"

Despite all the animosity the group was feeling towards Pegasus, they couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for the broken husband.

"He really did all of this just to get the love of his life back." Pyrrha said with a small tear.

"Damn." Qrow grunted, getting reminded of Tai once more.

"I know it's difficult to let go of someone you loved." Ruby admitted with teary eyes. "B-But I don't think Cecelia would have been very happy if she was brought back to life knowing all the things Pegasus had to do to make it happen."

"A very mature response miss Rose." Ozpin agreed with a sad smile. If only he had realized how painful his loss would have effected Salem. Perhaps all of this could have been prevented.

---

Episode 40 : Conclusion

"Well guys, get ready." Saixus spoke up. "This is gonna be the final moment of our first interlude."

"Does that mean we're going back to the future after this?" Jaune asked.

"No, after this we're gonna watch the second interlude covering season two." Saixus revealed. "After that, we're going back to 5d's." (Outdated statement.)

Pegasus was shown to be in his private study. He was looking down at the three cards containing Solomon's, Seto's and Mokuba's souls. "It's all over… everything I've struggled to obtain is now beyond my grasp."

"He sounds so heartbroken…" Pyrrha winced. "Like he has lost Cecilia all over again."

"Keeping their souls will not serve me now." Pegasus said in a defeated tone. "Besides, I'm a man of my word. And because of the defeat I've suffered at the hands of Yugi and the mysterious spirit of his Millennium Puzzle, I am duty-bound to fulfill my pledge."

"Is he really letting mister Muto and the Kaibas go?" Ruby asked hopefully.

"Seems that way." Qrow eyed the screen. "A little surprising to be honest. I was half-expecting him to just keep them prisoner and challenge Yami for the puzzle again."

Pyrrha was glad Pegasus had decided to let go of his hostages. "Guess he has more honor then we first thought."

"I wouldn't say that…" Yang denied. "If he did have any honor, he would never have stolen those souls to begin with."

Pegasus his hair moved aside, revealing his Millennium Eye which shined down on the three cards. "And so, I release these three souls."

After the curse was broken, Mokuba, Seto and Solomon where shown to recover.

"They're free!" Ruby cheered.

"And with that, all loose-ends have been tied up." Jaune said with a smile.

Qrow however didn't agree. "Everything will be tied up when someone rips that golden eyeball out of Pegasus' head."

"What?!" Ruby asked, shocked at her uncle's words.

"Look, it's all well and good that he's cleaned up his mess but do you really trust this guy not to attempt something like this again in the future?" Qrow asked with a frown. "Taking that Eye away from him is the only way to insure that it won't. Letting him keep that thing is nothing short of irresponsible."

"I agree." Ozpin voiced out. "That Millennium Eye is far too dangerous to remain in Pegasus' possession."

"You won't hear me complaining." Yang said. While she felt a little bit sorry for Pegasus, she most certainly didn't wanna risk him hunting souls down again any time soon.

Pegasus moved towards a painting of his departed wife. "Cecilia… I'm sorry but I have failed you. Everything I did I did in the hopes that I could restore you, body and soul."

The watchers continued to feel sorry for the game-designer.

A malevolent voice suddenly spoke up. "How sweet."

Pegasus quickly turned around. "Whose there?!"

This new presence caught everyone by surprise.

"Whose voice was that?" Jaune asked. "It sounded familiar but… also not."

In front of him stood Ryuo Bakura, but something was obviously different about him. He appeared taller, his hair stood on end and he had an evil grin on his face.

"Bakura?" Blake said confused. "What's he doing there? Wasn't he unconscious just a few moments ago?"

"And is it just me or does Snowhead look a little… different." Yang said, feeling a bit unnerved by the normally soft-spoken teen.

"Bakura." Pegasus said in surprise. "You, you're the one who possesses the Millennium Ring!"

"Yes and I intend to have all the Items." Bakura made his intentions clear. "Care to wager yours on a Shadow Game?"

"I'm sorry, WHAT?!" Nora shouted in surprise. "Why does Fluffy-hair wanna duel Pegasus all of a sudden?!"

"And in a Shadow Game no less." Ren said. "Does this mean that Bakura can invoke Shadow Games as well?"

"Every wielder of a Millennium Item can invoke a Shadow Game." Saixus revealed.

"B-But why does he want to?!" Ruby couldn't wrap her head around Bakura's change in personality.

"I'll give you a second change at a Millennium Item. What you couldn't win from Yugi perhaps you can win from me." Bakura proposed as he picked up Pegasus' his dueling-cards and started shuffling them. "Who knows? If you defeat me and claim my Ring, your deepest desires might not be beyond your grasp after all."

Qrow sighed at Bakura's proposal. "With One-eye, such a deal is basically hook, line and sinker."

"Okay Sai-guy, can you explain what the heck is up with Bakura all of a sudden?" Yang asked him. "Cuz its starting to feel like he has become an entirely different person!"

"…Because he is." Ozpin spoke up instead. "His change in mannerisms, his different facial-expressions… I believe Bakura might be possessed by an entity inside the Millennium Ring, one similar to Yami."

"Give the old guy a prize!" Saixus confirmed. "He's correct. Just like with the Millennium Puzzle, there's also an ancient spirit trapped inside the Millennium Ring. One who's… a lot less friendly then the spirit you've come to know."

"WHAT?!" Most of the students shouted while Ozpin, Qrow, Blake and Ren tried to stay calm.

"You're saying that Bakura is possessed by an… by an evil spirit?!" Ruby asked in freight.

"And he's after the Millennium Eye." Blake said gravely. "Whatever he wants it for can't be good."

Bakura drew three cards from his deck and placed them face-down on a table. "Your Millennium Item allows you to look into people's minds Pegasus. Mine allows me to see into their souls. I have but to look at your deck Pegasus and it reveals to me your true nature."

"How's that any different from mind-reading?" Nora asked confused.

"I think he means he can learn how a person is on the inside." Ozpin theorized. "Rather their good people or not or what they desire most."

The first card Bakura revealed was a small smiling angel. "The Happy Lover-card. It shows that you have experienced the joys of love. However, this card is upside-down which means your romance ended in tragedy."

"Now he's acting like some kind of fortune-teller." Jaune observed.

Nora nodded "Yeah, one whose actually good. Not like that woman I visited in Vale a few weeks back."

"Why, what did she say?" Ruby asked curiously.

"That someone I love will eventually admit his true feelings to me." Nora answered quietly while glancing at Ren. Yeah right, like he was ever gonna be open about his feelings.

"What a pity it is." Bakura said condescendingly as he flipped over the next card. "Well the next card should show me more about your present then your past." The next card was revealed to be a yellow mask with a red X on it. "Ah, the Mask of Darkness hé. So your recent actions where all just an effort to mask your true objectives. Objectives that came from deep within your heart. Who would have thought you even had a heart? Let alone one that's so easily broken."

"Okay, that just a low blow!" Yang spoke up with red eyes.

"You were throwing similar insults at him earlier." Weiss reminded her. "Why are you defending him now?"

Yang froze in her tracks as she shut up. Why the hell was she defending Pegasus?!

"Quiet!" Pegasus said. "Let's just play the game."

Bakura smirked. "As you wish, but first there is one more card to be revealed. Don't you wanna know your future?" The last card was revealed to be a combination of a fiend and an angel. "Doma The Angel of Silence. It's an appropriate card for your future, since I will now silence you forever!"

That death-threat did not go unnoticed.

"Is… is he actually gonna kill him?!" Jaune asked shocked.

"Nah, he's gonna be fine." Saixus revealed. "Maybe hospital-written for a few seasons but he'll recover… eventually."

"Prepare yourself mortal, for a Shadow Game the likes of which you've never played." Bakura exclaimed while his Millennium Ring started to shine bright blue. All of its nails aimed at Pegasus' his Eye. "This match will be played on the landscape of our minds!"

Yami Bakura's Millennium Ring shot a blue laser-beam which Pegasus countered with a red-one shot from his Millennium Eye. The ancient Egyptian laser-beams struggled against one another as the space around the impact became distorted.

"…What." Was all Weiss could say to the scene in front of her.

"(Gasp) Those Items can shoot laser-beams!" Ruby said with stars in her eyes.

"Now I'm wishing Pegasus dueled against Yami like this instead." Nora complained.

Weiss shook her head. "This can't be what actually happened. This is probably just another weird moment from that abridged-universe Saixus was talking about."

"Uhm, Ice Queen?" Yang caught her attention as she followed her finger toward the bottom of the screen.

On the bottom of the screen was written 'This isn't a joke – it really happens.'

Weiss deadpanned.

Yami Bakura was not impressed. "Really now Pegasus? Is that all you can muster? Ah but you've been fatigued by your Shadow Duel with Yugi. Your mind is wary while mine is fresh."

"Challenging someone who's already exhausted is pretty cowardly!" Nora exclaimed.

Eventually, Bakura's beam overwhelmed Pegasus' mind and he was slammed against the wall. "You are defeated. A rank amateur to one who has played for centuries."

"You've lived for centuries?" Pegasus asked, both stunned and afraid. "What kind of creature are you?"

Bakura approached Pegasus with an evil grin. "I am the one who will possess all the Millennium Items. And I shall use their combined might to conquer the entire world!"

"Noooooo! Why are you so evil?!" Ruby said dramatically.

"So his evil plan is basically the same as that of nearly every comic-book villain in existence." Weiss said, feeling very disappointed by the spirit's obvious motives.

Pyrrha shared said disappointment. "At least Pegasus had a noble purpose behind his actions. This guys just wants everyone to bow to him!"

"If he's after all the Millennium Items, then that would explain why he joined Yami's group." Blake realized. "He may have already tried to steal Yami's Puzzle in one of the skipped episodes."

Saixus decided to give as spoiler-less a response as he could. "I can neither confirm, nor deny that."

"You have lost the game and that entitles me to take your Millennium Item, the way you meant to take Yugi's." Bakura said as he bend down and stretched his hand out.

"No…" Pegasus begged in absolute terror. "NOOOOOOOOO!"

Everyone grimaced as the scene turned dark.

Weiss sighed. "Great, Yami finally managed to take out Pegasus, but now he has this guy to worry about."

"And this evil spirit has taken possession of the Millennium Eye." Ren spoke up. "At least Yami knows how to protect himself from it should this spirit ever use it against him."

Jaune looked at Saixus and asked "Hey, if the interlude's over can I go to the restroom real quick?"

"Yeah, I have to go number 2 myself." Yang admitted.

"Ew, too much information sis!" Ruby complained.

Saixus laughed. "That reminds me, there's one more bit to show you guys."

"Really?" Jaune asked curiously. "What is-"

*Pop*

"Aah, that's the wrong eyeball you fool!"

"OH MY OUM!" Weiss practically shot out of her seat as the others stared in shock at the black screen.

"Oh…" Bakura said awkwardly. "Sorry."

*Pop*

"That's much better."

Everyone shivered as the screen turned blue and the white-colored words 'End of Interlude 1' appeared.

"Wait… did that spirit just yank the Millennium Eye out or did he put the real eye back into place?" Nora wondered.

Weiss couldn't take it anymore and rushed towards the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

"Hm, good thing I remembered to open that door." Saixus said to himself.

"Okay, that HAD to be from that abridged-universe." Qrow bedded. "No one's stupid enough to mistake a real eye for a golden one!"

"I think that goes without saying." Blake cut in. "Not even Gardin's stupid enough to make a mistake like that."

"Well, while we wait for Weiss to finish puking, what did you guys think of the first interlude?"

Ruby didn't miss a beat. "IT WAS SO AWESOME! There were so many terrific monsters and interesting people! My only complaint is that we didn't get to see all of it!"

"I agree, it was pretty awesome to watch." Yang said before grimacing. "Thought there were also a few moments I don't wanna see again."

"It was certainly quite a trip." Qrow commented. "If the past if this universe is this crazy, I can't wait to see how insane the future is."

"Though with the exception of Trudge, we didn't really see anything that seemed too related to the future." Jaune pointed out.

Pyrrha agreed but… "While that's true, it did explain where Duel Monsters came from and I for one would never had predicted that it's based on a magic-game from thousands of years ago."

"Not to mention that Shadow-Realm place." Nora shivered. "Never thought shadows could be so scary!"

"It was indeed a very interesting watch." Ozpin admitted. He was especially interested in Yugi and Yami, seeing as how those two were in a very similar situation as himself. "But there's still a lot we don't know yet. Like how Yami got trapped in the Puzzle in the first place, or what purpose those Millennium Items have."

"Well that spirit that possessed Bakura seemed to know a bit about them." Blake stated. "Maybe unlike Yami, that spirit can actually remember his past."

Weiss returned from the bathroom, having caught Blake's last sentence. "Speaking of which, what's that… eye-stealing spirit called anyway?"

"Bakura." Saixus answered.

"…What?" Nora asked with a tilted head that the others followed.

"Oh I'm not kidding. The spirit of the Ring is also called Bakura."

"…What?" Weiss repeated as she sat back down. "But… but that just confusing!"

"Not to mention unlikely as heck." Qrow added.

"Well you can always just call him Yami Bakura if you want to avoid any confusion." Saixus proposed. "Now before we start the second interlude, I have a reward for you guys for making it this far."

"Oh! What is it? What is it?" Ruby asked excitingly.

"I will give you guys one plushy of any monster you've seen this interlude." Saixus said. "The majority will decide which one so think very hard-"

"KURIBOH!" Every single girl shouted at the same time.

"…Sigh, should have seen that coming." Saixus snapped his fingers and a plushy life-sized Kuriboh appeared in the air before falling in the middle of the floor. "Also don't worry about this one exploding. Hug to your hearts content."

All the girls got up to grab the plushy but soon realized that there were six of them and only one plushy Kuriboh.

The girls glared at one another and all thought the same thing. 'THIS MEANS WAR!'

The guys and dog wisely decided to hide behind the couches. "You just HAD to give them that, didn't you?"

Saixus shrugged nonchalantly at Qrow as the chaos ensued.

---

And done! The first interlude of the original Yu-Gi-Oh dub is finished after nearly four months of writing…

(MasterSaixus has fainted.)

Okay, so obviously I didn't expect this interlude would become as long as it did. It's just, there were so many moments from the first season alone that I wanted to include that before I knew it, I had THIS monster of a chapter. I'm pretty proud of the end result as this is no doubt the longest chapter I have ever written. I'm really grateful to all the readers who went through my ridiculously long interlude and I hope you all enjoyed it.

I still have to begin writing the second interlude though soooo… yeah, don't expect that one to come out any sooner than this one. I wish I could finish it faster, but there's still a thing called life I have to deal with.

You can still suggest moments from season 2 that you'd like to see in the second interlude.

Also, sorry to all the reviewers whose favorite moments from season 1 didn't make it in.

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SPOILER WARNING FOR RWBY VOLUME 8!

It is pure coincidence that I managed to finish this chapter shortly after volume 8 ended. I can't say that was bad timing on my part though, cuz now I get to share my overall thoughts of the entire season with you guys.

Honestly? I really liked this season. It was in my personal opinion a step-up from volume 7 even if there were a few things I was not really happy about.

The biggest of which being no doubt Ironwood going jet-crazy to the point that he not only shoots his fellow council-man and blows up multiple refuge-ships, but threatens to bomb all of Mantle for absolutely no fucking reason! I hate how they ruined Ironwood's entire character in only two seasons.

Despite this however, there were a lot of golden moments in this season as well. Winter turning against Ironwood was especially great to watch. And Ozpin frigging nuking Salem was definitely NOT something I saw coming. I know it didn't kill her but it greatly affected the plot to the point where I could no longer predict which route the show would take until they used the Relic of Knowledge.

Speaking of which, Ambrosius was an absolute treat and I loved how they used him in a very clever way to bring best girl to life… only to have her killed shortly AFTER! I have been fearing Penny's death the entire season but after they turned her human, I figured it was no longer gonna happen. I mean, who would be sadistic enough to kill Penny (Again!) so shortly after she became human? RoosterTeeth, that's who!

I cannot however say that Penny didn't get a good death. If you're gonna kill off my favorite character, at least do it in a meaningful way. Having Jaune of all people be the one who had to do it was heartbreaking to say the least. And having second best girl of the season become the new Winter Maiden is certainly something I won't complain about.

Then we have Cinder… I… don't want to give her any complements but… I was happy to see that she finally used her head for once instead of just rushing in and excepting everything to work out. Massive props to Watts for the giant roast he gave her before she used the Relic of Knowledge to roast him, literally. (Am I the only one who's confused about how Ambrosius was able to create fire in the first place? I thought his creations weren't allowed to be used for destruction?)

Using the last question in the Lamp to figure out the heroes plan was smart, but I can't help but feel like that was a massive waste of a question. The villains could have used it to figure out how to get to the Relic of Choice hidden in Beacon. Also, Salem keeps saying how easy it is to manipulate people, yet she can't see when Cinder is clearly lying to her? I really don't understand why Salem would keep someone around who's definitely gonna betray her the first chance she gets.

Emerald betraying Salem and joining the good guys was something I always thought was gonna happen, but I didn't think it would happen this season. Hopefully Neo will get a redemption arc too in season 9, but right now she's on the fence for 'killing Yang'.

Let's be honest, is there anyone here who thinks team RWBY is really dead? No? Good.

Oh, and Ren and Nora FINALLY being open about their feelings for one another was wholesome to watch, even if they didn't come together in the end. (SOMEDAY!)

As for my overall favorite episode… I'm stuck between Dark and Creation. Sure, seeing Ironwood get taken down, meeting the Spirit of Creation and Penny becoming human was great to watch, but holy hell was the Hound horror-episode a good one. I love it when they go on a more horror-related note with the Grimm, they are the perfect horror-material. And the reveal of the silver-eyed Faunus inside the Grimm was as horrific as you can get. A bit of a shame he's already dead but the promise of more silver-eyed people sharing a similar fate makes me wonder what other monstrosities we might get to see in the future.

---

That was all I had to say. I thank you all again for reading my interlude and I hope you can all be patient for the second one. And before you ask, yes, the Egyptian gods will definitely make an appearance in it.

This is MasterSaixus, signing off.

(Chapter updated in January 2022)