Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh GX. If I did, I would've been replaced by now.


Author's Note: Well, look at that. 7 years. It's been 7 years since I posted the first chapter of Breaking the Society's Hold. And to commemorate this, I'm posting a chapter that harkens back to Missing You. Perfectly logical!


While Chazz and I both knew what Zane was ranting about, everyone else didn't.

"Show the world what the professional dueling world is really like?" Marcel asked.

Zane looked at him for a second, then turned to me and Chazz.

"I see you two didn't heed my warning." Zane said.

"Cut the crap!" Chazz said. "Just tell us what you plan to do and if you've kidnapped someone again."

The spectators started talking amongst themselves when they heard that.

"Ha! As if I'd need to resort to that again!" Zane said. "As for my plan, I told you. I will expose the reality to the mindless fools watching this sham of a tournament!"

Zane reached into his coat, grabbing for something. The security officers held him back, thinking he was pulling a weapon.

"It's just a disc." Zane said.

One of the officers searched Zane's jacket and, sure enough, pulled out the disc he was talking about.

"If you wanna know what happened to your precious Dimi, take a look at that." Zane said.

"Uh, Boss Men, what's the say?" Atticus asked into his headset.

After a moment, Atticus nodded.

"Well, duel fans, the committee wants to see the contents of that disc as much as you do!" Atticus said, striking an over-the-top pose.

Hassleberry walked in, taking over for the guy holding Zane, who left to deliver the disc.

"I knew we should've court martialed you after the kidnapping." Hassleberry said.

For those who didn't catch that part of my life story, Zane had kidnapped Alexis in an attempt to lure me into a duel against him. But, despite putting me through intense pain with electro-collars, I still beat him.

He got the last laugh back then though, when he shook my confidence in the Pro League.

A monitor flicked on, showing Crowler. Chazz's brothers were sitting behind him.

"The sponsors of this tournament and I have discussed it, and we will be showing the contents of Mr. Truesdale's disc." Crowler said. "We will be airing it to the public on a ten second delay, however."

After another minute, the screen flickered again, playing what was on the disc.


It was just the previous night. Judging from the sky, I'd say it was just around the time Alexis and I were leaving for our meeting with Harrington.

Based on the video, it seemed the camera was located somewhere on Zane's body.

I don't know if he started to film here, or if he cut anything beforehand, but Dimitri was already standing in front of Zane. The two were near a cliff.

"Zane?!" Dimitri asked. "Zane Truesdale?! What are you doing here?"

"I'm not surprised you don't know." Zane said. "After all, you only care about the limelight, don't you?"

"Huh?!" Dimitri asked. "What are you blathering about?"

"I'm here for a duel, you hack!" Zane said.

"Oh, you still duel?" Dimitri asked, in a snide tone. "After that humiliating loss to that cheater Aster Phoenix, you just disappeared. The talk around the League is that you'd given up on dueling entirely and took up marine biology."

"Well, I AM looking at a bottom-feeder." Zane said.

Dimitri's face scrunched up in anger.

"What did you say?!" Dimitri shouted.

"Enough talk!" Zane said. "I'm not about to let someone like you keep making a mockery of dueling! Now, duel!"

"Get lost." Dimitri said. "Take your aggression and 12-year old mindset and find someone else to harass."

Dimitri started walking off.

"Sure! I'll go talk to the tournament officials about the incident with Yugi Muto's deck!" Zane said.

Dimitri stopped in his tracks.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Dimitri said.

"Don't pretend it didn't happen." Zane said. "Not only were there countless witnesses, but your opponent in that duel is good friends with your sponsor's younger brother. Once the word gets out, they'll back me up."

Dimitri nearly lunged at Zane, but held himself back.

"That's dirty!" Dimitri said. "I thought you were an honorable duelist!"

"I left those childish ideals behind a long time ago." Zane said. "Besides, you're not one to talk about honor, after the countless duelists who you've thrown under the bus, like Phoenix."

"He was nothing but a cheater, pasting whatever picture he wanted on his cards." Dimitri said.

"Everyone could see they were proxies." Zane said. "But if you don't want YOUR secret leaking, duel me."

"Why? What for?" Dimitri asked.

"If you lose, you drop out of the tournament and never show your face around the dueling world again!" Zane yelled.

"You can't expect me to agree to that!" Dimitri said.

"It's either that, or you get a nice scandal for those vultures to eat up." Zane said.

Dimitri growled and activated his Duel Disk.

"Fine!" Dimitri said. "Di-mi will duel you, just to get you out of here!"


Well, this was bittersweet. On one hand, Zane had kidnapped Alexis and was out to destroy the Pro League. On the other hand, Dimitri had tried to make Aster out to be a cheater. Both disrespected their opponents, but Dimitri had influence over thousands of impressionable young minds.

It wasn't even a choice who to root for.

I looked at the others. Marcel was watching in confusion, but it seemed obvious that Atticus, Hassleberry and Chazz had the same thought I did.

As much as it sickened us, Zane was the one we wanted to win.


Back on the screen, the two had drawn their opening hands.

"So, who goes first?" Dimitri asked.

"You need every advantage you can get." Zane said.

Dimitri sneered and drew a card from his deck.

"I play Foolish Burial!" Dimitri said. "I can send one card from my deck to my graveyard! And I'm sure Evil Hero Sinister Necrom won't mind!"

A card shot out of Dimitri's deck and he tossed it in his graveyard.

"Now, by removing Necrom, I can summon Evil Hero Malicious Edge!" Dimitri said.

Bladedge's Evil counterpart appeared on Dimi's field, licking his claws.

"I play a card facedown and end my turn." Dimitri said.

A card appeared between Dimitri and Malicious Edge, as Zane drew a card.

"I'd heard you started using Heroes." Zane said. "Guess you're still nothing but a copycat duelist."

"So what?" Dimitri spat. "Am I supposed to believe in the Heart of the Cards, or some stupid crap like that?"

"Heart of the Cards, no." Zane said. "Whatever cards lead to victory! Everything else can be thrown away! But don't think because someone popular uses it, that means you'll be great too!"

"Don't lecture me!" Dimitri said. "Just take your turn!"

"By discarding Cyberdark Cannon, I can add a Cyberdark monster to my hand!" Zane said. "Then I can do the same thing with Cyberdark Claw for a Cyberdark Trap card!"

Zane discarded two cards, then chose two from his deck.

"Now, let's play the monster I added!" Zane said. "Cyberdark Edge!"

The mechanical wings appeared on Zane's field.

"When Cyberdark Edge is summoned, it pulls a Dragon type monster from the grave to absorb!" Zane explained.

"Too bad my graveyard has no cards, let alone dragons." Dimitri said.

"Who said I was taking the monster from your grave?" Zane asked, practically growling.

A dragon covered in violet armor appeared under Cyberdark Edge. Edge latched itself to the monster, as the wires on Edge connected to it's own wires.

"Since it absorbed Cyberdark Cannon, Cyberdark Edge's Attack Points go up by 1600!" Zane said.

Edge's Attack Points rose to 2400.

"Attack!" Zane commanded.

"What?!" Dimitri yelled.

Cyberdark Edge flew above Malicious Edge and shot a blast from Cyberdark Cannon at Dimitri, who's Life Points dropped to 2800.

"That's against the rules!" Dimitri said.

"It's Cyberdark Edge's ability." Zane said. "Then Cyberdark Cannon's ability activates! When a monster it's equipped to attacks, I can send one monster from my deck to the graveyard."

Zane picked a card from his deck and placed it in the graveyard.

"I'll play one card facedown." Zane said. "Here's your chance to show you're not just a hack!"

Then the camera faltered slightly, pointing at the ground for some reason, before focusing on the duel again.

"Good." Dimitri said, smirking at the card he just drew. "I've wasted enough time with this duel already, you useless loser!"

Uh, full disclosure, Dimitri may not have said loser.

"Take to the field, Evil Hero Infernal Gainer!" Dimitri said.

A hero in generically black and red armor, with horns and spikes, appeared next to Malicious Edge. I know all Evil Heroes looked like they wandered in from Pandemonium, but this one took the cake with how much it looked like an Archfiend.

"Infernal Gainer lets one of my Fiends attack twice this turn!" Dimitri said. "Of course, he has to leave the field for two turns, but there won't be another! Malicious Edge! End this with a double helping of Needle Burst!"

Infernal Gainer disappeared, and Malicious Edge rushed forward.


"End this?" Atticus asked. "But Malicious Edge didn't have enough Attack Points!"


"Go! Rush Recklessly!" Dimitri yelled.

Dimitri's facedown card turned up, boosting Malicious Edge's points by 700.

"I play my own facedown!" Zane said. "Cyberdark Invasion! I can equip a Dragon or Machine monster from my graveyard to a Cyberdark monster! So, I'll equip Cyberdark Edge with Cyberdark Claw!"

A monster with six sharp blades jutting out of it appeared on the field and attached to the top of Cyberdark Edge.

"Thanks to that, Cyberdark Invasion gives my Edge 1000 Attack Points!" Zane said.

Cyberdark Edge's Attack Points shot up to 3400, just above Malicious Edge's 3300.

Malicious Edge went to stab Cyberdark Edge with his claws, but those were blocked by Cyberdark Claw's blades. As the two Edge's had their claws clashing, Cyberdark Cannon pointed it's tail at Malicious Edge, shooting a blast right through it, shattering the Evil Hero.

Oh, fine! This duel was really getting edgy. I made the pun! Are you happy?

Dimitri's Life Points lowered to 2700.

"Since the monster they were equipped to battled, Cannon and Claw both have their abilities activate!" Zane said. "Cannon lets me send a monster from my deck to the graveyard, like before!"

Zane tossed another card from his deck to the graveyard. Guess he still hadn't learned from decking out against me.

"What about Claw?" Dimitri asked.

"I can send a monster from my Fusion Deck to the graveyard." Zane said with a quiet malice.

Dimitri's eyes widen as he noticed Zane remove his Cyber End Dragon card from his Fusion Deck.

"You're not gonna… This isn't like you!" Dimitri said.

"I'm afraid you're thinking of a different me!" Zane said, before grunting.

"Whatever!" Dimitri said. "Send your monsters to the graveyard! It saves me the trouble of doing it myself! I lay down a facedown and end my turn!"

"Still stealing from better duelists, I see." Zane said.

"He was enough to beat the guy who humiliated you." Dimitri said. "And if I'm using better versions of his cards, can you really hope to beat me?"

"Don't remind me of that!" Zane yelled.

"What's the matter?" Dimitri asked. "Reality too much for you? Can't handle the truth?"

"I spent the last few years of my life refining my deck so it would never lose to either of those two again!" Zane shouted. "But because of you, I lost my chance for a rematch against Aster Phoenix! Now you'll get a taste of-"

Zane groaned, then cleared his throat.

"My turn." Zane said. "I activate Cyberdark Invasion's second effect! I get to destroy one of your cards, at the cost of a card equipped to one of my monsters!"

Cyberdark Claw disconnected from Cyberdark Edge and shot straight for Dimitri's facedown card.

"I'll activate that card before it can be destroyed!" Dimitri said. "Waboku!"

The card shattered as Claw hit it, but the effect was already active. Zane wouldn't be able to damage Dimitri this turn.

"Then I'll bring out Infernal Dragon." Zane said, as the green dragon appeared.

"Now who's copying who?" Dimitri asked. "Infernal? Edge? You need to get more original."

Zane likely sneered at this.

"I play Heavy Storm!" Dimitri said.

A harsh wind blew, destroying Cyberdark Invasion and Cyberdark Cannon.

"When Cannon is destroyed while equipped to one of my monsters, I get to draw one card." Zane said.

"Too bad it won't help you!" Dimitri said. "I summon Evil Hero Infernal Prodigy!"

The twisted hero appeared on Dimitri's field, giggling to itself.

"What's so funny, you ask?" Dimitri said. "Infernal Prodigy has a wicked scheme on his mind. His Evil Mind!"

Dimitri held up a card in his hand.

"When I have a Fiend on my field, Evil Mind lets me activate an effect, based on the number of monsters in your graveyard!" Dimitri explained. "And since that number is above four, I get to add a Hero monster or Dark Fusion to my hand."

Dimitri chose Dark Fusion, which he immediately showed Zane.

"That's because I plan to use Dark Fusion!" Dimitri said. "I fuse my Evil Hero with a Level 5 or higher monster in my hand!"

Infernal Prodigy was swallowed by darkness. Morinphen appeared next to the darkness and was pulled in as well.

"Tearing through the enemies who threaten justice and people, become the bane of my opponent's existence!" Dimitri chanted.

From out of the darkness stepped a monster in armor made to resemble Raviel, Lord of Phantasms. It held up the claws on its hand guards and ran them across its neck, clearly threatening Zane.

"Evil Hero Malicious Bane!" Dimitri said. "Any questions before you face justice?"

Zane didn't look impressed.


"Why does he have a card like Morinphen in your deck?" Marcel asked.

Morinphen was a pretty hard card to use. So, why did Dimitri have it in his deck?

Just before the tournament, it had been talked about by dueling fans across the world, for how awkward it was to fit into decks. Dimitri added it to his deck to cash in on the card's temporary relevance. It was a small miracle it turned out to be useful.


"I activate Malicious Bane's super power!" Dimitri said. "He destroys all your monsters with less Attack Points than he has, then increases his Attack Points by 200 for each of them!"

With a swipe of his tail, Bane sent out a wave of darkness, which shattered Cyberdark Edge and Infernal Dragon. Bane's Attack Points rose from 3000 to 3400.

Zane seemed to take this hard, dropping to a knee and panting.

"Now, Malicious Bane!" Dimitri cried out. "Baneful Scraper!"

Malicious Bane leapt over and clawed at Zane. Zane's Life Points dropped to 600, as his screams of pain rang out.

"It took all I had, every card in my hand, but now you're finally seeing what a true hero of justice looks like!" Dimitri said. "Do whatever you want with your last losing turn! Next turn, Infernal Gainer returns, so even if you try defending your Life Points, I'll have a second attack!"

"Too bad you won't get that turn." Zane said, sounding strained. "I'm bringing out Cyberdark Chimera!"

A monster that looked like a mishmash of Zane's three original Cyberdark monsters appeared on his field, snarling at Malicious Bane.

"That thing only has 800 Attack Points." Dimitri said. "Are you planning to ram it into my Bane so you can 'lose on your own terms'?" That last bit was, obviously, with a mocking tone.

"You want a large Attack value?" Zane asked. "Cyberdark Chimera lets me discard a Spell card to add Power Bond to my hand."


"This'll be fun to watch." Atticus said.


"Now I play that Power Bond!" Zane said. "You should know by now, it lets me fuse monsters together, and thanks to Cyberdark Chimera, I can use monsters in my graveyard for materials! So I'll fuse the five Cyberdark monsters in my graveyard, Horn, Keel, Edge, Cannon and Claw!"

As the five monsters appeared on the field and began being welded together, Dimitri's expression turned from pompous arrogance, to one of fear.

"Born of the darkness in my heart, come forth and declare war on all who stand against you!" Zane chanted. "Cyberdarkness Dragon!"

A new version of Cyberdark Dragon, now equipped with Cyberdark Cannon and Claw, slithered around on Zane's field. Through Power Bond's effect, it's Attack doubled from 2000 to 4000.

"Cyberdarkness Dragon, reach into the depths for your power source!" Zane commanded.

Cyber End Dragon rose from Zane's graveyard, before Cyberdarkness grabbed it, raising Cyberdarkness Dragon's Attack to 8000.

"That's enough to wipe your pathetic Bane off the face of this planet, Dimi, but since you wanted a strong monster, I play Megamorph!" Zane said. "Followed by Limiter Removal!"

Cyberdarkness Dragon went from 8000 Attack Points to 10,000, then further to 20,000!"


That's overkill!" Hassleberry said, tightening his grip on Zane.

"Maybe." Zane said, smugly. "But you can't say he didn't have it coming."


On the video, Zane took a second to catch his breath. Dimitri took this time to find any way out of the duel.

"Th-Those cards must have come from your sleeves!" Dimitri said. "You… You had spare copies, didn't you?!"

"They're all one of a kind." Zane said. "Although, I did run into your old pal Weevil in the Underground League. He blabbed something interesting. Seems while he does like cheating before duels, he found hiding cards in his sleeves to be too 'pedestrian'. He certainly wouldn't keep four copies of a card in reserve."


"Y'know, now that he mentions it, that did seem weird." I said. "Duelists can only use up to three copies of a card."

"So why would Monsieur Underwood have four in his sleeve?" Marcel asked.

Obviously because he didn't. Dimitri planted them there!


"You couldn't have gotten this lucky!" Dimitri said.

"What's the matter?" Zane asked mockingly. "Reality too much for you?! Can't handle the truth?!"

"There has to be a secret to your success!" Dimitri cried.

"There is a secret to my success." Zane said. "One that any true duelist knows!"

"H-Huh?!" Dimitri asked.

"It's something that you'll never have, copying whatever decks are big, whatever cards are the topic of the week!" Zane yelled. "Something that keeps duelists from making excuses like their opponent cheating! It's something even the most worthless duelist can have!"

"What… What is it?!" Dimi asked, fear welling up in his voice.

"It's simple!" Zane said. "You don't have the passion! The passion for dueling! The passion to keep winning, beating an opponent no matter what! You don't have the heart of a duelist!"

Dimitri devolved into screams of pure terror at this point, collapsing on the ground and backing away.

Absorbing Cyber End Dragon's power, Cyberdarkness Dragon powered up a blast.

"Cyberdarkness Dragon, DARKNESS CYBER STREAM!" Zane yelled at the top of his lungs.

Cyberdarkness Dragon fired it's shot at Malicious Bane, shattering the Evil Hero, and taking Dimi's Life Points to 0.

As the dust cleared, Zane approached Dimitri, who stared up at him in fear. One growl was all it took for Dimitri to scamper away, dropping his Genex Medallion and a few cards from his sleeves.

I think Zane knelt down and picked up the medal, then thought about picking up the cards.

The footage cut off there.


The crowd was going nuts. The People's Duelist, Everyone's Hero, Dimi was shown to be a cowardly fraud.

Is it bad if I was hoping this would help restore Aster's reputation?

After a moment of a blank screen, Crowler and the Princeton brothers appeared again.

"W-Well, that is quite the video." Crowler said.

"We'd like to assure everyone that Dimi is being dropped by our company immediately." Slade said.

About time.

"So what's the plan now, Zane?" I asked. "That video showed the world what a fake Dimitri was. Now what?"

"Same thing as ever." Zane said. "Defeating anyone out there. This tournament is supposed to have the best duelists of our generation, and it seems like you need a fourth now. And look at that, I just happen to have one of those GX Medals that grants you entrance into the tournament."

"But you weren't nominated to-" Marcel started, before backing down to Zane's glare

"I'm sure the tournament committee will be willing to talk about this." Atticus said.

"Just let him enter!" Chazz shouted.

"What?!" Was pretty much everyone's reaction.

"My family is sponsoring this whole tournament." Chazz said. "I should be able to pull some strings. But on one condition! You're dueling me first, Zane!"

"Chazz, what are you doing?" I asked.

"I've always wanted to duel Zane." Chazz said. "Besides, there's something different about him. Something's changed since you dueled him with those electrodes."

I thought I was just imagining that. Hopeful optimism, y'know?

"So, what do they say?!" Chazz asked, turning to Atticus.

Atticus jumped slightly and began speaking into the headset, making sure nobody could hear him.

"Chazz, are you nuts?!" Jagger asked on the screen.

"I'll personally take responsibility for this tournament crasher." Chazz said. "Give me this chance!"

Atticus relayed the message, and the three men on the screen discussed things away from the camera.

"It's decided!" Crowler said. "Chazz Princeton will duel Zane Truesdale in this first match of the Duel Academy Representative Tournament!"

Chazz was right. Something was different about Zane.

For one, he wasn't using those shock collars, but that might have just been to avoid doing anything illegal on camera. Then again, I'm pretty sure filming Dimitri without his knowledge was against the law.

But his personality had done a 180. Well, maybe 90 is a better term.

He was still the victory obsessed creep I had beaten, disrespecting his opponent and using his favorite monster as fuel for his Cyberdark cards, but there was something in his speech to Dimitri about the Heart of a Duelist that seemed like the old Zane breaking through.

Was Zane really coming around? Or was this just another attempt to break his opponent?


Author's Note: Once again, I'm kicking myself for forgetting this last chapter, but my great friend WarMixedSoul123 read through the duel to make sure the details were right, and I can't thank him enough for that.

I can not believe it's been 7 years since I started this remake series. I really can't believe that it's taken 7 years to finish this.

For reference, even with the five years I left the original Truth languishing, I finished the original fanfic series in just over seven years, from January 1st 2007, to February 14th 2014. It should be obvious, but this fanfic won't be over by Valentine's Day. But I will end it before the end of the year.

Another thing that gets me is that I'd thought I'd get these fanfic done within a year, from the start of 2015, to the end of that year. Or, at the very least, get the first three done in that time, then write the Fury and Truth remakes during early 2016. But life never goes as planned.

Speaking of plans, Zane's appearance here is something else carried over from older ideas for this fanfic.

I'm gonna be honest here. After Missing You, I didn't have any major plans to use Zane again. But I did plan from the beginning to use Dimitri in the Truth remake, specifically as the face of the Pro League, and further, as representing all the evils Zane talked about in Missing You.

So, when I was figuring out ways to expand the original Truth into a longer fanfic, especially without the titular Truth, I had the idea of a 4 Vs. 4 tournament between Kaiba/Duel Academy's best, and the best duelists the Princeton's could get. Obviously this changed. But one of the ideas I had was that Team Kaiba would be a player short, until Zane came through to help Jaden, taking on Dimitri.

So, that got changed, along with the idea for the tournament in general, to what we have here, Zane still being a heel, but one with more genuine passion for dueling, even if he lacks respect.

And, honestly, in hindsight, it seems so obvious. Not only do they both exist on opposite sides of the Pro Duelist spectrum, but with someone like Dimitri using underhanded tactics, including blackmail, Dark Zane, who cares first and foremost about defeating his opponents, makes perfect sense as his opponent.

Now, will Zane follow that same path of redemption I had planned for him in the initial plans for this story? You'll have to find out.