Tea's Time to Shine

Magicman: Wow! Numerous rave reviews for my first chapter. It's always nice to be appreciated. Thank you all.

Tea: I have fans? Cool!

Joey: I'm happy because I have a bag of chips! *Munches on the chips*

Tea: -_- Well that was rather mundane.

Smokegirl: *reads the review to 'Yami-Magicman' and her eyes go red* What did I say about calling me Yami-Magicman?!?!

Magicman: Uh oh. Hey Smokegirl! Kaiba just called you a Marik-wannabe again!

Smokegirl: WHAT?! Oh that's IT!

(Smokegirl runs off and Magicman sighs in relief.)

Magicman: So with that out of the way, just sit right back and leave the magic to me!

Pegasus: It's about time! *Sips his fruit juice*

***

Tea looked up at the cruise liner, slightly awed. It was even bigger than the ship that brought Yugi and company to Duellist Kingdom for his epic match against Pegasus himself. Ticket holders and ticket gatherers swarmed the pier and entered the great ship over a gangplank. Despite its great size, the ship bobbed lightly in the water, its hull gleaming in the late afternoon sun. All in all, it was an impressive sight.

"Wow. It certainly is a big boat."

Tea rolled her eyes and smiled at the mundane comment. She turned and looked back at her lagging companions. "Come on guys! We don't want to be late for the cast off."

"Go easy on us Tea!" Ryou panted as he lugged his suitcase along. "We do have quite a lot of luggage to carry."

"And who's fault might that be? As you can see, everything I need is right here in my knapsack." Tea gestured to her pack.

Yugi groaned as he lugged along his stuff. Tea had thought that inviting Yugi and Ryou to come with her to the tournament would make things easier, since they could both bring their Yami's packed in their respective Millennium Items. (Bakura hadn't wanted to come, but Ryou pointed out that he could not cook and had no access to funds with which to purchase food). Unfortunately for the light sides, this meant that they had to pack for two people, instead of just one. The strain of dragging belongings for two was a little hard on the back muscles.

'Come on Yami!' Yugi groaned mentally. 'Can't you come out and lend a hand?'

'I'm afraid not Yugi'. The Pharoah sounded amused. Tea's only aloud to bring two guests. I'd be a third wheel. Literally.'

'I'll get you for this Yami' Yugi grumbled.

While her companions toiled, Tea's mind was awhirl with thoughts and plans and strategies. In spite of her tough talk to Bakura, she was nervous out of her mind about this tournament. She didn't have any special reason for duelling like Yugi or Joey, and a lot of these duellists had way more experience than her.

'What would Yugi and Yami say about this?' She pondered. 'Yugi would just say to do my best and it'll all work out, and Yami would probably say something mystical and inspiring to raise my confidence. Either way, they'd both be such sweeties about it.' She sighed. 'If only...'

"Tea? Are you alright?"

Blinking quickly, Tea smiled at Yugi. "Oh, I'm just a little nervous. This is my first tournament and all."

Yugi smiled back. "Well, if you just play your best and have fun there's no reason to worry. I'm sure that you'll do great!" He paused and seemed to listen to someone. "Yami says 'if you know yourself and believe in your skills then you're halfway to the Duellist Kingdom finals already.'"

Tea smiled again. "You two are such great friends."

Yugi blushed slightly and was rather grateful for Ryou's interruption.

"Excuse me mates," he said in his loveable British accent, "But it seems that the ticket collectors are headed this way."

And so they were. One, a young man with a smiled plastered on his face, held out his hand. "Tickets and registration please" he asked pleasantly. Tea handed him her boat ticket and showed off her duelling gauntlet. "Very good Miss" he continued, still pleasantly. Tea started to wonder if this guy was a robot or something. "Are these two your guests for the trip? Yes? Then I'll just stamp them and you can be on your way. Have a good time at Duellist Kingdom!" The man stamped Ryou and Yugi's left hands with a purple stamper, before going off to bug some other young people.

Ryou looked dubiously at the picture of the stamp. "I'm not sure that I like the idea of going around with a purple Millennium Eye on my hand."

"Well at least you're allowed to come with me now. Or are you?" Tea looked troubled. "You two may have been stamped, but your Yami's aren't."

"Actually Tea, while Yami's in the Puzzle, what happens to me happens to him" Yugi reassured.

Tea looked relieved. "Well in that case, all aboard!"

The trio boarded the cruise ship with ease, especially since a couple of porters had taken their bags to their rooms. Ryou picked up a map of the ship and stared at it studiously. 'This makes no sense!' he wondered to himself. 'We're on the deck, but this thing says that we're in the hold!'

From within the Ring, Bakura snorted. 'You're holding it upside down, idiot!'

'...Oh.'

'Bah! I'm exploring this place on my own!'

'Okay' Ryou agreed as his Item began to glow. 'But don't do anything that would get you thrown overboard.' Bakura sent him the image of a raised middle finger, just before forming on the deck. Luckily, nobody was watching.

"Let me know if the girl comes to her senses so we can go home" Bakura growled to Yugi. "If not then leave me alone!" Then he stalked across the deck to disappear behind a corner.

Tea frowned in the direction that Bakura took. "He can sure ruin a pleasant moment."

***

At Ryou's guidance, they eventually made it to the centre of the ship. Or, more appropriately called, the duellists' territory.

The room was quite large, and contained everything that gathered duellists would need. A washroom was off to the side, a snack bar was snugged into a corner, and there were tables and chairs, and even a big duel platform in the centre of the room. As a matter of fact, it was the duelling platform that caught Tea's attention first.

The duel in progress seemed slightly one sided on the surface. Looking deeper, though, it was fairly even. One duelist, a blonde-haired girl had four Scapegoats and a Millennium Shield in defence mode with two cards face down. She had 1200 lifepoints left. Her opponent, whose turn it was, had two cards facedown and all of her lifepoints with two Giant Soldiers of Stone in defence mode.

Yugi took one look at the girl with the soldiers and pulled a double take. "What in the world?"

Tea looked down at her friend. "What's wrong Yugi?"

"Yami just said that she's the girl from the commercial!"

They turned their attention back to the duel, where the girl was laughing. "Alright girlie" she sneered with a smirk on her face, "It's been fun but I think I'll finish you off right now!"

"Why don't you back up your threats!"

"With pleasure!" The girl from the TV slapped down a card. "I play Dark Ruler Ha Des in attack mode!"

The holo-computer read the new data and produced the image. The mighty demon king, clad in splendid robes and a horned crown, arose from the depths of a black holographic hole to glare his evil at the opponent.

"But wait! There's more! Now I'll play Puppet Magic of Dark Ruler, sacrificing my Giant Soldiers to bring back Summoned Skull from the Graveyard!"

Dark Ruler dangled his hands and strings shot out from the ends to dangle into the great black pit. The strings caught onto something in the depths of the darkness. Ha Des pulled and hauled out the Summoned Skull, looking as cruel and evil as its master.

"Next I'll summon Dark Necrofear in attack mode, by pulling three monsters from my Graveyard!" The blue demon appeared next to its larger brethren. "And this magic card, Monster Reborn will allow me to return Beast of Talwar!" The sword-wielding monster materialized next to the growing mob of darkness and evil. "And finally, Premature Burial will allow me to bring back my Beast of Gilfur, at the bargain price of 800 lifepoints!" A smaller, black demon crawled from the ground to take the final slot on the girl's monster field, as her lifepoints dropped to 1200. She smirked evilly at her opponent. "Scared yet?"

"Not even a little." Despite the bold words, she did indeed look a little nervous. "You may have five monsters but they can't penetrate my Millennium Shield!"

If anything, the smile turned even eviller. "That's why I have this! My Raigeki will blast your monsters to scrap!"

As she lay the card down, light gathered in the sky above her opponent's field. "That light will soon strike, eliminating all your monsters from the field!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it! I activate Magic Jammer!"

"Not so fast! My Seven Tools of the Bandit will disable you Magic Jammer!"

"Then my Solemn Judgement will end this chain of effects once and for all, leaving my monsters unharmed!"

Yugi, Yami (who'd come out when Dark Ruler had been summoned) and Tea all stared at the flurry of magic and traps that crackled and flashed across the field. "This is way intense" Tea murmured.

By the time Solemn Judgement's effect brought them all back to square one, the blonde girl had all her monsters left, no facedown cards, and 600 lifepoints for Solemn Judgement, whereas her opponent with the demons had one card facedown, and 200 lifepoints after feeding her Seven Tools of the Bandit. The blonde sighed in relief.

"Well it looks like I've pulled through your little storm. And what do you have to show for it? Nothing! I hope you're happy."

Demon girl only stood and smiled. "Yes, as a matter of fact I am."

"You see" she continued, "You've been very entertaining. This is actually my favourite part of the duel. The part where you've exhausted your defences and have nothing left to stop me. Yes, you really did fall into my trap. It feels so fulfilling when a plan comes together. So anyway, you, my little bitch, are going down." Demon girl flipped up her remaining facedown card. "This magic card is my personal favourite. It's called Tribute to the Doomed, and it lets me destroy one of your monsters at the cost of discarding one card from my hand." She laughed maniacally as great mummy bandages tore through the floor of the field. Relentlessy, they wrapped around the Millennium Shield and dragged it off to the graveyard.

Yugi whistled. "Wow! She's good!"

Yami nodded sagely. "Yes. She played all those cards just to get her opponent to waste her defences. I'm glad that we didn't have to face her anytime."

"So I have to instead," Tea said softly.

Demon girl was dancing in her booth now. One by one, she ordered four of her demons to wipeout the Scapegoats, until her Dark Ruler Ha Des was all that remained.

"And this, bitch" she said, smiling cruelly all the while, "Is what you get when you mess with me. Now Dark Ruler" her voice rose to a frenzied pitch, "Finish her off for good! Black Magic Strike!"

The monster clapped its hands together, a ball of impenetrable darkness forming. The very air hummed with power as the ball grew in size and strength. As the humming reached a fevered pitch, the demon king of the underworld hurled the black ball of frothing, surging magic directly at the lifepoints of the hapless blonde girl.

And above the scream of the attack's energy came a wild cackle of sadistic glee.

***

"Well I'll be damned. Tea Gardner actually decided to enter!"

Tea was suddenly grabbed from behind and nougied by a familiar voice. "Mai! Cut it out! Ow!"

The tough blonde laughed and released her friend. She grinned as Tea straightened and tried to fix her hair. "I just got this hair the way I like it," she grumbled.

Mai laughed again. "Then you shouldn't have turned your back!"

While Tea was regaining her dignity, Yugi moved to talk with Mai. "Hi Mai!" he said cheerfully. "I didn't know that you entered."

"Hey, I'm not getting left out of a tournament like this!" she preened.

"There's a lot of competition here," Yami noted, looking about at the multitude of female duelists. "I wasn't aware that there were this many girl duellists."

Mai waved a finger at Yami. "Just because you can't see the female element doesn't mean that it's not affecting the world. The sign of a good house is that it stays clean without evidence of the housekeepers."

Yami looked confused. "I'll take your word for it."

Tea, her hair back in order, rejoined her friends minus Ryou, who had gone wandering the hall. "So who did you bring with you Mai?"

Mai's face split into a grin. "Do you have to ask? Oh Joseph!"

Joey, still dragging his duffle bag approached the group. "Hey Mai, have you seen Serenity? She- Tea!"

Much to Mai's annoyance, Joey ignored her and turned to his brunette friend, a serious expression on his face. "Look Tea, I'm sorry. I said some mean things to you that aren't even true, and if they are they don't matter! You can just do your best like Yug and I do, and-"

Tea smiled as Joey rambled on. "You may be a total dunce sometimes Joey, but you've got a good heart. Don't worry; all is forgiven."

"Yah really mean it? Alright!" Joey danced around for a few seconds before turning back to Mai. "Yo, Mai. Have you seen Serenity? I've been looking for her."

Mai waved a hand casually. "Oh let her be Joseph. She'll be fine."

Reluctantly, Joey agreed.

Mai caught Tea by the arm and started to drag her off. "Lets catch some girl time, Tea."

"Whoa! There's no need to pull!"

Yugi smiled at Tea's protestations then turned to Joey. "So Mai invited you and Serenity to go to the island with her?"

Joey smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. "Well it's a chance to get out and see the world."

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Yami asked slyly, causing Joey to blush.

"No way! Hey, are you implying that there's anything between me and Mai?!"

"Who said anything about Mai?"

"Well...I..."

Yugi rolled his eyes and looked reproachfully at Yami. The darker side merely raised an eyebrow meaningfully. Seeing a decidedly lack of remorse, Yugi changed the subject. "So, did you see the duel earlier? That duellist from the commercial was there."

Joey stopped stammering and began to look serious. "You mean the one with the grey hair? Yeah, she was there. Man, she gave me the creeps!" He shuddered. "She really enjoys crushing other duellists, you know? She reminded me of that eliminator from last time, Panik."

Yugi shivered and Yami looked grim. They both remembered the deadly duel in the dark for Mai's star chips. Though Panik had fallen prey to his own tactics, it had been a chillingly close call.

"The weird thing" Joey continued, "Is that I've heard of her before."

"Say what?" That got both of his listeners' attention.

"Yeah. I hang out in card shops a lot and I hear all of these rumours. One of them was about this creepy girl. Apparently she's pretty well known, but not in a good way, if you catch my meaning. She's about as famous as Mai is." He looked around before leaning in conspiratorially. "I even hear that those two have got history together."

Yugi cocked his head, puzzlement written across his face. "What do you mean history?"

"I don't know. But they're sure not friends."

While the boys were whispering conspiratorially to each other, Mai was talking to Tea about things.

"So now that you've gotten a look at the competition, what do you think?" Mai asked.

Tea considered. "Well" she said at length, "It's a bit overwhelming."

"Ah yes. The 'overwhelming' phase." She threw an arm around Tea's shoulder. "Kid, that'll last just as long as the first time you inflict damage on someone's lifepoints."

Tea rolled her eyes. Kid indeed. "You may have been around the world a lot more, but you're not that much older than me."

"We'll see in the duelling arena, won't we?"

"We certainly will." To change the subject, Tea brought up something she'd been wondering for a while now. "So, who would you say is the toughest of the competition around here?" she asked, scanning the area. "There sure is a lot of it."

Mai sobered up as she considered the request. "That's a good question Tea," She said slowly. "There're a lot of tough duellists out there who could beat you pretty easily. But there's only a few who'll be able to destroy you. And She's one of them." Mai looked at her friend with hooded eyes. "She's one of the best duellists I've ever faced, and I've tangled with the best."

A bit surprised at Mai's seriousness, Tea looked into her eyes. They were slightly darkened with the severity of the situation. "You mean she's here on the boat?"

"Oh yeah. She wouldn't miss this tournament for the world. Above all else, she loves to totally destroy her opponents beyond a shadow of a doubt. That's why they call her the Dark Destroyer."

"Oh Mai" a voice behind them laughed. "You always were so dramatic!"

The voice nearly made Tea's skeleton try to escape through her mouth. She whirled around to face off with none other than the girl she had watched duelling earlier.

She could have been called beautiful. Her voice was smooth and controlled, arrogant and contemptuous of everyone with just the slightest tremor in it. She was tall for a girl, about five foot ten without an ounce of fat on her frame. Her hair was a silky grey colour, dangling straight down to the middle of her back. Her skin was very smooth and bereft of blemishes, if rather pale. Her eyes...her eyes would have made Seto Kaiba back up a pace. They gleamed a smoky grey in the artificial light shipboard lights and they seemed to be opened a little too wide. Deep within those eyes, Tea could see a trace of the wild untamed fury that coursed through her veins, usurping the place of blood. That caused the voice tremor, that and the control it took to hold it all back.

She was clad in tight grey jeans, a grey sweatshirt, and a short- sleeved grey jacket. This she stretched in as she regarded the two women in front of her. "And besides" She continued in a wolfish drawling tone, "Only my pathetic victims call me the Dark Destroyer. My name is Zev, Mai. Zev Crawford."

Mai's face twisted into an expression of intense dislike. "Well Zev, you can forgive me for telling my friend here to watch out for snakes. They can be poisonous you know."

"Of course." Zev's voice hardened just the tiniest bit. "Did you also warn her to watch out for harpies? They'll tear out your eyes the first chance they get."

Mai hissed slightly. "Talk like that is going to get you pulled from your darkness and eliminated, girl."

Zev's eyes narrowed and her grey-painted lips formed into a snarl of loathing. "Watch your shadow Mai. Because one day you'll find me walking out of it!"

Fury crackled through the air for several seconds. Then Zev turned contemptuously away from Mai and found herself looking at Tea. She frowned slightly and a puzzled look came into her grey eyes.

"I don't recognize you." She said to Tea. "Who are you?"

Before Tea could answer, Mai cut in. "She's the next Queen of Games, more than likely." This caused Zev to burst into wild, hysterical laughter. For a full minute she cackled and laughed and nearly choked on her mirth. Tea shot a glance at Mai who smiled back.

When Zev finally regained control of herself, she smirked. "Ah dear me, but that was funny Mai!" she snickered. "If I don't know the serious competition, then it doesn't exist. You know that! She's obviously a rookie. Barely worth my time."

This made Tea's hair bristle slightly. "If you're going to insult me, then insult me to my face!" she snapped.

Now Zev did look at Tea, something akin to a smile decorating her features as she sized her up. "Well, you do have spunk, don't you? Good. I like that, it makes life more interesting." Again came that wild, hysterical laughter. "What's your name and where are you from, rookie?"

"I'm Tea Gardner, and I'm from Domino town. Where are you from? The psych-ward?"

Zev pondered for a moment. "First of all, I'm from Toronto" she began. "Second, there might be just the slightest bit of truth to what Mai said, about your Queen of Games-ness. Domino has produced many fine duellists, even if most of them were men," she added disparagingly. Then she smiled wickedly, and Tea thought she preferred her laughter. "I'll be sure to watch out for you during the tournament. Try to survive." She bowed mockingly then turned and stalked away, pushing aside people in her way.

Mai sidled up next to Tea. "So, what do you think of the competition now?"

Tea looked at her with a pleading look in her eye. "I think that I'm going to stay as far away from her as possible."

***

Zev stalked her way through the chamber, head down and contemplating her new competition. Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when she ran into someone full on.

"Watch where you're going woman!" a dark raspy voice growled.

"Get out of my way!" Zev screamed. She balled a fist and slammed it into the midriff of the person who appeared before her. The creep folded like a cardboard box, and she was free to stalk on, a smile on her face. But before she went on her way, she paused and looked down at the face the guy she'd just laid out on the floor.

His long white hair billowed about like a snowstorm and his dark eyes glared back up at hers furiously with mingled pain. Zev smiled sweetly at him before walking onward. Head down, she smirked to herself. 'Now that one is worth paying attention to'.

"Bakura!" Seeing the confrontation, Ryou rushed to his Yami, who was struggling to sit up. "Great Scott, are you alright? Who was that girl?"

Bakura ignored his lighter side and smirked at the girl's back. 'Ooh!' he thought to himself, 'I like her!'

***

Magicman: Aha! Completed is this chapter! Bwahahahahahaaa!

Tea: Yipes. Zev is creepy

Joey: Understatement of the year!

Pegasus: So that's it?

Magicman: That's it! Tune in next time! Serenity's going to be in the next chapter!