The World

Chapter 3: Learning to Play

Yami gritted his teeth as a sharp tug was felt in the back of his mind. He could slowly feel the presents of his physical body trickling away and his mind being pushed into the digital threats of cyber space. The feeling was a bit unnerving. He couldn't say that the thought of him not returning back to his body didn't cross his mind, because it was the first thought that crossed his mind. However; he processed on, the feeling on his controller clutched tightly in his hand being his last physical awareness.

The next thing that his mind was aware of was the feeling of his feet planted on hard metal. Wait… metal? Did the game not work? Had he unknowingly come back to his body and stood in an effort to remove himself from the console?

On the contraire, for when he opened his eyes, his room was no longer his background, but a busy little town. His eyes widen as they darted from side to side taking in all they could before he would have to move.

"Hey buddy, are you going to stand there all day? Other people have places to be ya know."

Yami anxiously scuffled out of the way, not being too confident of his new cyber legs, and mumbled an apology at the semi-angry player. The player took Yami's former position without even acknowledging Yami's humble words. It really didn't bother him though. He was too busy taking in this new world to be worried about some rude random player. The metal platform he had just removed himself from was apparently The World's means of transportation, seeing as the rude player from before just disappeared after calling out the name of what Yami assumed to be a place. A large transparent metal ring spun slowly on top of the platform and gave the impression that it was a about to hit anyone that came near, but whenever someone was near, the ring simply passed through them and kept rotating.

Easily becoming bored with the transportation center, as Yami dubbed it, he began to make his way over and onto the roads that lead into the busy little town. Faint sounds of music could be heard floating through the air as the spiky hair teen surveyed the many old fashion looking stores. Many strange looking people wearing brightly over done costumes and odd markings on their faces paces up and down the street with ether sword or staff in hand. Occasionally they would stop at a store and began to bargain with the owner or stop at another person and began a chat, few looking more serious then others.

'What am I suppose to do now?' Yami questioned as his feet brought him to a stop in the middle of the street. He looked around searching for any clue of what to do next but only found a few signs announcing the date, time, and place of something called an event. He felt sure that that would be relevant in the future, but right he just needed to know what he was doing. Sighing from stupidity of not reading the player's manual, Yami turned to the nearest shop window and trudged over, preparing him self to ask for help; A task that he had never been too fond of.

"Excuse me, but could you tell me…"

"Morning to you sir and Welcome to Gribbling's Grocery's!"

Yami looked taken back by the sudden boisterous interruption of the plump salesman.

"Uh yes, good morning," Yami greeted back a bit hesitantly, "Could you…"

"Will you be buying, selling, or trading today?" The almost robotic sounding clerk interrupted again.

At this point Yami had started to get irritated with the salesman. He wasn't looking to buy or sell anything, he had nothing to buy or sell with. All he wanted was a bit of information about what it was he needed to do around here, but apparently this gentlemen was trying to make things difficult.

"Listen," Yami breathed out trying to calm his flustered nerves, "I have nothing to buy with…"

"Excellent sir!" the clerk exclaimed as the back walls of his shop flipped up to reveal several shelves of odd fruit that wiggled slightly and squirmed about. "I would high recommend the 'What-a-melons' today sir, they are 1 coin a piece."

Yami was taken back as the salesman quickly held up a medium sized green, round fruit with two eyes and a mouth. "What-a-melon" the green fruit repeated as the salesman announced it's name.

"Please pick an item you wish to buy."

"Look, I can't buy anything, I don't have any coins. I only wanted to know…"

"At this time you have one hundred gold coins," the clerks said never letting his cheeky smile leave his face.

Yami shock his head. "There's been a mistake, I don't…"

"Please pick an item you wish to buy sir."

The spiky hair teen growled in a mix of annoyance and frustration. "Fine! I'll take this fruit then."

Yami snatched the round fruit from the shop keepers hand and glared at it. "What-a-melon!" the fruit screamed more forcefully as Yami gave it a disturbed look.

"Thank you sir for shopping at Gribbling's Grocery's. Your total gold coins are now ninety-nine." With that said, the shelves behind the plump man snapped shut with a bang and the window to the shop fell down in front of Yami causing him to take a forced step back. A neon orange sign soon fell over the window and read in big bold letters, 'CLOSED'.

Yami stared at the window with mixed confusion and annoyance at the persistent shop keeper. "What-a-melon?" the squirming fruit squeaked before it disappeared from his hands.

"Hey!" Well this was perfect. Not only did he not receive the slightest bit of information, but now the stupid piece of fruit that he had bought had disappeared. Now what was he to do? Go ask for more help? No, that wouldn't do any good, especially if his help was anything like his previous help.

Yami released a grunt of annoyance as he was about to leave, but stopped when he heard muffled laughter from behind him. He turned around and glared at the person that was laughing and saw that it was a girl.

Yami looked the girl over taking in the colorful and unusual costume that wasn't that abnormal in this realm. Her costume was in the style of a two piece. The top half was ruby red metal and was worn like a bikini, but only had one strap that went over the right side of her shoulder. The bottom piece was a pair of slightly off colored red tights that were covered in the front and back by a dull navy blue loin cloth. On the sides of her hips was more of the red armor like metal that went down by her side and ended halfway to the knee. Her elbows were caped with a gray metal pad that had a spike protruding from the back of it. From there more of the red armor stretched from the gray pad to her wrist. She wore a small choke and a pair of boots that were the same color as the cloth around her waist and strange yellow stripes covered her shoulders, upper arms and also curved under each of her azure blue eyes. Her hair was brown and short, only long enough to rest at her chin and a large sword much like Yami's was strapped on her back with the hilt resting over the left shoulder.

"What are you laughing at?" Yami scolded with his trademark glare painted over his face.

"Sorry," She smiled, suppressing her giggles, "It's just, I've never seen someone so completely lost in here, even for a newbie."

The pharaoh clad teen's eyebrow twitched slightly at the term. It's true that Yami wasn't much of a gamer and was unfamiliar with the general gaming slang, but he had heard Yugi use a few terms several times while playing on one of his many consoles. Yami knew that the term meant, new or inexperienced, and that was as good as an insult to him.

"What do you know?" he shot back.

"I know better than to communicate so freely with an AI."

'Perfect' Yami thought bitterly. Here again were more game terms that he wasn't familiar with and nothing he had heard Yugi say in the past could help him out this time.

The brunette could tell that this 'newbie' was truly clueless by the lack of response, but his face never gave him away. Had she not recognized his quick to snap back attitude she would have thought by his face alone that she had been mistaken about his status as a player and backed off, but his mouth gave him away, along with one other detail, his stats.

"An AI," She repeated so he had an opportunity to defend himself if he really knew what she was talking about, but clearly his silence spoke loud enough. "It means Artificial Intelligence. So no matter how many times you try to hold a conversation with a shop keeper, they'll never understand you or answer you back properly."

"And why not?" Yami asked folding his arms over his chest.

"Because they weren't programmed that way," She simply replied but reconsidered when she saw the teen's stare urging her to continue. "AI are not like you and I. They have no body to return to on the other side, there just computer programs placed here by 'The World's' administration system to serve the players."

"Ah, I see." Yami gave a thoughtful look around at the other players who were currently buying and trading at the other shops."

The brunette gasped slightly and stood in front of Yami's line of vision. This took him back slightly. "I'm sorry. You must think I'm so rude, but I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Tea and I'm a first level Heavy Blader."

Yami stared at Tea's outstretched hand for a moment before hesitantly returning the gesture and a reply. "I'm Yami and I'm a Heavy Blader as well."

"Well it's nice to see a new face around here Yami."

The spiky hair teen nodded and then resumed looking around. "So, how do I make this game start?"

Tea's face faltered and her brow twitched before returning a nervous smile, "Why don't I show you around first? You know, just give you a basic over view of the game."

Yami looked confused at her reply, but nodded in return. He couldn't understand why someone he had just met would offer to help him so freely.

Tea lead Yami to a field with grassy rolling hills with a stone house structure in the distance. The sky was scattered with small puffing white clouds and the sun was at a pleasant angle in the sky.

"So, let me get this straight," Yami mused with his hand resting on his chin in a thoughtful matter while his other hand supported his elbow, "this game is all about leveling up."

"That's right," Tea nodded, glad to see that the information was finally starting to sink in. "The more creatures you destroy, the stronger you become and your strength is measured by your level. You should be able to see all your stats on your menu screen."

Tea looked over to see that her company looked to be in a daze. This told her that he must be checking his menu screen to see if her information was accurate. When she saw that his eyes had refocused she continued.

"Now, here comes the good stuff. Some monsters hold treasures."

"Treasures?" Yami repeated

Tea nodded, "Like special power ups, items, or summoning monsters. Once you've defeated the creature, if it holds a treasure it will be left on the ground for the player to open. Lower level creatures will only carry common items such as potions for healing HP (Hit Points) and curing poisons, but a higher level monster holds more powerful/rare items like curing your whole party's HP, special techniques, and if you're really lucky a summoning monster."

The pair was currently walking closer to the structure. Now that Yami was closer to the building he could see that there was a fenced in area around the front side with what looked like small, large snout pigs sniffing about the grounds, but the pharaoh clad player was more interested in Tea's last statement then some bazaar farm animal.

"A summoning monster." Yami mused, "Sounds intriguing, but what are they? What makes them so special, so rare?"

Tea looked to be thinking on the subject. At about that time they had reached the stone structure and were now both leaning on the fence. Tea had her elbows on the top railing well Yami's only support was his back since his arms were folded across his chest.

"Well," Tea start, still looking as if she was trying to find the perfect words. "Very few player's have them, because there really hard to find. Usually only the hard core and powerful players have them, but on occasion some average player's have been lucky enough to find one."

"Yes I understand, but what are they, and how exactly does one going about retrieving one?"

Tea smiled at the 'newbie's' eagerness to learn. She could remember when she first started her on-line adventure and could remember how eager she was to learn and master the game. "A summoning monster can be found after you defeat an extremely powerful monster, sometimes there also given to winners of an event, but not often. They come in the shape of a card and can only be called into battle once their master's magic has reached a certain level. The more you fight, the more your magic level goes up. Each summoning monster has its' own special ability, and just like the monsters you fight, summoning monsters have their own levels. A lesser summoning monster like the 'Magician of Faith' takes lesser magic to summon because her effect in battle is not as great as say the 'Dark Magician Girl' which takes more magic because her battle damage is greater."

Yami nodded in a thoughtful manner, taking in all the information that his companion had just relieved to him. At first, the thought of just leveling up being the only objective of this game was quiet boring to him, but this new twist of achieving monsters to fight by his side was an altogether different thing. He knew that this part of the game, he would greatly enjoy.

"Do you have one?" was the question that was out of Yami's mouth before he even realized it.

The brunette looked surprised by the question at first but then slightly embarrassed, "Well, kinda, yeah."

"Kinda?" Yami replied. "May I see it sure?"

Tea bite her lip, "Sure, but I have to say first that I was only one of the lucky player's that found a lesser summoning monster, so try not to be disappointed."

With the warning in mind, Yami watched as Tea held out her right hand and right before Yami's eyes a thin card appeared in her grasp.

"Here," Tea said as she held out the card for Yami to look at, "she may not be the strongest summoning monster out there, but, I'm proud to have her."

Yami took the card gentle from the heavy blader's hand so not to damage it in any way. The card was labeled at the top in bold black letters 'Magician of Faith' and had one star under the right side of the title. There was a picture of a girl on the rest of the card. She wore purple robes that were colored deeper than the purple color of her long ponytail styled hair and she carried a crescent moon staff that had a ball floating between the two tips of the crescents moon.

Despite the fact that the monster was indeed weak, Yami couldn't help but to still be in awe of the creature. If this was only one of the weaker monsters, then what did one of the powerful ones look like.

"Maybe you can see her in action today." Tea said cheerfully as she took back her card, "I'm meeting the rest of my party here in a minute so we can all go level up. If you like, you can come join us. I'm sure the guys won't mind if you came with us."

Yami seemed to be thinking about her offer, but didn't get the chance to think on it much longer because of two loud cries that could be heard coming there way.

"That's them right now." Tea announced while grabbing Yami's upper arm and ushering him along against his will. "Come on, I'll introduce you."

When the brunette blader finally stopped pulling Yami along he looked up to see two taller males standing in front of them. The one that was standing the closest had short but large blonde hair and brown colored eyes. He wore a small brown vest that didn't quite reach down to his waist and the front lay open and exposed his bare chest. Between the opening of his vest, a green marking of an 'O' with spiky points around the outside lay in the center of his chest. The strange marking could also be found on both sides of his upper arms. Green pants covered his legs and ended tucked into a pair of brown matching boots. Wrapped around each of his forearms to his wrists were white ribbon like clothes and upon his fist he wore what appeared to brass knuckles that strapped around the whole back of his hand and end just above the knuckle area. And lastly a black belt with a silver belt buckle that had a drawing of two crossed axes on it was strapped around his waist.

"'Ey Tea, whose you're friend?" the blonde boy greeted and then eyed Yami with a curious but friend smile.

"Hey Joey, this Yami, he's a newb…" Tea stopped in middle sentence when she saw the said teen's sharp eyes shot her a fiery glare. "I mean new play, Yami's a new player."

"You mean he's a newbie?"

Tea sweatdropped at the other unidentified boy while a large vein could been seen popped out above Yami's twitching eyebrow.

"Tristan you idiot!" Joey yelled and knocked the boy in the head with his fist.

"Ow, geeze, watch what you're doing with those things man," Yami heard Tristan yell at Joey. He watched the two boys grumble to one another while he looked over the recently identified player's outfit. This boy also wore a brown vest similar two the first except his vest was lighter in color and had short sleeves instead of no sleeves. Underneath his vest he wore a two color shirt, the chest part being colored blue and the torso and collar yellow. He wore matching blue pants that ended in the same style as Joey's and also wore the same type of boots both in color and in fashion. Also, on his back were two crooked looking draggers that were strapped on in a 'X' pattern. On top of his head he wore a short brown hat where the edges were folded up on the side so it would look like a flatten bowl. Small golden wing stood upward at a laid back angle on each side of his hat and a blue strip on each side of his cheeks starting at his jaw bone and ending just under his eyes finished off his costume.

"Enough you two, saving your fighting for the monsters." Tea scolded the two as if she were there mother.

Joey released Tristan from his head lock. "Yes ma'am."

"So where di'ja ya guys wanna go?" Tristan asked while straightening his hat.

"Well I was thinking," Tea began, "that maybe we could begin Yami with us. You know, give him a few pointers."

"Fine with me."

"Yeah sure Tea," Joey nodded with his eyes closed and hands on his hips, "After all… there's no better way or person to learn from then the great Joey Wheeler."

The small grouped sweatdropped as Joey ended his short speak in an overly dramatic pose and was grinning and laughing like the cat.

Yami was seriously beginning to doubt this guy's sanity and wondered if joining this game had been that great of an idea after all. But what else was there to do? Go home to an empty game shop where the only thing to do was to go through his little brother's room and think about old times while blaming himself? I think about what things would be like if that wreck hadn't happened? He couldn't do that. Deep inside, he knew that it would kill him. The guilt, the pain, everything would weigh him down and eventually crush him. Part of him knew that that's what he deserved, but the other part of him, the part that held to reason told him that Yugi wouldn't have wanted that. Yugi most of all wanted Yami to live, to enjoy the company of friends that he never allowed himself to have. So that's what he could give Yugi. He could swallow his pride and learn to make friends again.

"'Ey Yami!"

Yami snapped out of his daze and looked up to see that his three companions where half way back up the hill and on there way to the teleportation gate.

"You comin' man?" Tristan yelled.

Yami nodded not knowing if they could see him or not and took off after the three friends.

"I got it!" Joey bellowed as he rammed his spiky brass knuckles into the forehead of a small brown fur ball looking monster.

"No wait Joey!" Tea and Tristan yelled simultaneously.

Unfortunately the blonde had already launched his attack and had no time to pull back. As his fist got closer to the little fur ball it finally turned around to face him.

"Ahhh!" Joey yelled as he could now tell exactly what it was he was attacking.

"Kureee!" the little fluff ball yelled in surprise.

When Joey was about to connect fist to head with the little creature a sword came swing from out of nowhere and cut the little creature in half so that it harmlessly vanished into thin air.

"Yeah!"

"Alright Yami," Tristan cheered as he ran over to his newest fellow play, "Your first monster and you're already saving Joey's butt."

"'Ay, I heard that." Joey grumbled but then looked over at Yami with a sheepish grin. "Thanks man, I didn't see it was a Kuriboh. If I had of touched that thing, it woulda blow me ta high heaven."

"Looks like somebody's a natural." Tea commented slyly.

Yami simply shrugged his shoulders, "It was a lucky guess. I knew it had not be something about the way Joey was attacking it, because the Joey's stat levels are way above the Kuriboh's levels so it couldn't be strengthen."

"That's so fast thinking."

"Tristan's right," Joey nodded, "we could use someone like you in our party."

"So do you say?" Tea asked as she stepped out from behind Yami, "You wanna join our party?"

"Party?" Yami reply. He didn't understand why they were having a party after defeating one low level monster.

"It means team in game term." Joey answered giving Yami a funny look. "Boy, you really are a newbie aren't ya."

Yami looked annoyed at the use of the term but didn't say anything more about it. "And you want me to be on your team?"

"Yeah, any newbie who saves Joey's butt is okay in my book."

"Shut up Tristan!"

"And besides, your team should be made up of all your friends." Tea explained while ignoring her other two friends. "We're all friends here right?"

Yami world around him seemed to freeze and fade to black and white as Tea's voice rang through his head.

"We're all friends here right…?"

'This is the one thing that Yugi always wanted me to have.' Yami thought as the memory of his younger brother's voice echoed along with Tea's.

"…everybody needs friends there own age Yami, even if you don't want them. I...I want you to have friends."

'I know Yugi, I know." Yami cooed inside his head. 'You and grandpa both know how much I hate to relay on others, but this time, we'll do it your for. I'll do this for you, and for grandpa.'

"So what do ya say Yami?"

Yami looked up to see that Joey along with Tristan and Tea were standing in a 'one-person-shy-of-a-circle' with there hands out stretched and laying one on top of the other.

Yami hesitated for a second before nodding and stepping in the empty stop of the circle. "Yeah Joey, I'll join the team." And with that Yami added his hand to the top of the pile.

Computer: Adding new party member… Processing… Player: Yami Muto.