Chapter 1: Penalty Game
In the heart of South Domino, hidden deep within old and abandoned buildings, people from all over the city would gather to wager their rare cards, money, and other valuables in Duel Monsters card games. While these gambling tournaments weren't exactly illegal, it was common knowledge that South Domino was a dangerous place. Even the toughest of gang leaders knew to never go out alone. Nevertheless, the rumors said that some of the rarest of all Duel Monsters cards in the world could be found here.
Jounouchi probably would have never told Ryou about these tournaments if he'd known that Ryou would be stupid enough to actually go check it out on his own. This was no place for a high school student, especially one with such a delicate face. In a setting where everyone, both men and women were heavily muscled and hostile, Ryou was extremely out of place. But Ryou never had a very good sense of self-preservation.
Tonight the tournaments were held within an old broken-down warehouse. A large and noisy crowd of spectators was watching an intense duel take place between a large, intimidating gang leader and a challenger. The gang leader, who went by the alias "Scarab," was the current champion around these parts. His winning streak had been going on for over six days now, the longest anyone had ever lasted, and he had gained quite a following because of it. Behind him stood his girlfriend as well as his entire team of gang members in matching jackets, ready to pounce on anyone who might cause trouble.
The challenger was just an average man in his thirties. Predictably, he lost the duel and had to be carried away, kicking and screaming, for he had bet his entire deck of Duel Monsters cards and lost. Scarab held his prize above his head in triumph, and the crowd went wild.
"Anyone else dares to challenge me?" Scarab shouted to the crowd.
The room quieted down as the crowd whispered amongst themselves. They were all too afraid to step up.
"Hey come on, don't be shy! Is there no one brave enough to go up against the mighty champion of Duel Monsters?" Scarab said.
"I'll try," said Ryou in a small, timid voice.
The immediately crowd parted away to let Ryou through. Everyone who saw him broke out in laughter. What was this thin, baby-faced high school student doing here?
"Go home kid," said Scarab. "Duel Monsters isn't for children."
"Please? I've never played Duel Monsters before, and I really want to try it out," Ryou said.
"Do you even have any valuable cards to offer me?" said Scarab.
"Well, no…" Ryou said, and the crowd broke out in another round of laughs. "But I have this." Ryou reached underneath his shirt and pulled out the Millennium Ring, which glinted in the dim light of the warehouse. "It's real gold. Take a look."
Without taking the Ring off his neck, Ryou held it out for Scarab to touch. Scarab snapped his fingers, and immediately his girlfriend handed him a nail filer, which he used to scratch the surface of the Ring. There was no mark, indicating that the gold was most likely real. Scarab's eyes flashed greedily and he considered yanking the piece of jewelry from Ryou's neck, not caring if the boy choked to death. But then Ryou took back the Ring and tucked it neatly underneath his shirt once again.
"I'll duel you under one condition," Ryou said. "You need to let me take one card that you won this past week to use in our duel. If I win, I get to keep that card. If you win, I'll return the card and hand over my precious artifact."
"Alright, it's a deal," said Scarab.
Scarab put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Almost immediately, two of his followers came in carrying a heavy black suitcase and set it open on top of the dueling machine. The cards were all face down. When Ryou tried to flip them over to see what they were, one of the gang members smacked his arm away. Confused, Ryou looked up at the gang leader for an explanation.
Scarab just shrugged. "The condition was that you could take a card. That doesn't mean you're allowed to see what you're picking."
Ryou wanted to protest, but thought better of it. It didn't matter anyway. If he closed his eyes and felt for the heart of the cards, he knew exactly which card was the one he wanted.
Finally, it was time for the duel to begin. The audience members pushed and shoved each other for a better view. The dueling machine was about the size of a ping pong table – pretty small compared to a standard-sized dueling machine, but the holographic functions worked well enough for the audience to get a general idea of what was happening.
"Well, let's see," Ryou said, furrowing his brow in concentration. "From what I've seen, I'm supposed to summon something, right? I summon The Gross Ghost of fled Dreams and end my turn." Ryou placed the card on the table in an upright position and clapped delightedly when a tiny holographic form of the monster appeared on the table. The spectators started to whisper amongst themselves.
"I summon Alligator's Sword in attack mode, and I'll use it to destroy your monster," said Scarab.
"What do you mean by attack mode? Is there more than one way to summon a monster?" asked Ryou innocently, which caused the crowd to burst out into laughter. Did the child know what he was doing? It almost seemed as if he didn't even know the basics of the game.
Scarab laughed too. "You should have learned the rules before challenging me, kid. I'm not gonna help you."
"Oh, okay then," Ryou shrugged. "I guess I'll, uh, summon another monster? Yeah! Malice Doll of Demise in…attack mode? End turn."
"I summon Ape Fighter in attack mode, and I'll use it to kill your Malice Doll. Also, Alligator's Sword! Direct attack!"
"I'll summon Earl of the Demise in attack mode. This monster's pretty strong, so I bet you can't kill it."
"Not so fast. My Ape Fighter has a special ability. When it destroyed your previous monster, it gained 300 attack points, and that means your Earl of the Demise is dead! Also, my Alligator's Sword gets to attack you directly again, which brings your life points down to 400."
"Oh wow! You're really good at this! I didn't know it had that kind of special ability!"
The kid's so clueless, it's actually insulting, thought Scarab. Never in all his years of dueling had he ever faced somebody so unbelievably incompetent. He'd better finish the duel quickly before the crowd became bored out of their minds.
"Welp, now that I have three fiend monsters in the graveyard, I can now special summon Dark Necrofear!" said Ryou.
"Wait, what?" Scarab said, surprised "Where'd you get that card?"
"From your suitcase, silly. I guess you don't look at every single card you've won. Dark Necrofear attacks your Ape Fighter! Boom! Your monster is dead!" Ryou said playfully. "I'll also put a card face down and end my turn."
Scarab was speechless. Had this kid been faking incompetence this whole time? "I'll sacrifice my Aligator's Sword to summon Firewing Pegasus and use it to destroy Dark Necrofear. I'll also put a card facedown and end my turn." Scarab smirked, as Ryou's lifepoints were now down to 350. One more attack and the match would be finished.
"Thank you very much," Ryou said. "Now I can activate my trap card: Destiny Board." A large oujia board appeared on Ryou's side of the field, spelling out the letter D. "In five turns, it'll spell out the word DEATH, and if you can't defeat me by then, I win automatically," Ryou explained.
"What the – ?" Scarab exclaimed, his jaw dropping wide open. The crowd was now in an uproar of excitement.
"Also, I'll activate this spell card: The Dark Door," Ryou continued. "That way, only one of your monsters can attack each turn. I'll place Aswan Apparition in defense mode and end my turn."
Scarab was utterly stunned. "So you were faking it!" he cried out, standing up so forcefully that he knocked over his own chair. "I'll have you know that I hate being toyed with! You'd better cut the act, or you'll suffer the consequences!"
"Okay okay, you caught me. I'll stop fooling around," Ryou said, raising his hands in surrender.
"Good because I'm not through with you yet! Firewing Pegasus, attack!"
To Scarab's surprise, a white light shot out of Firewing Pegasus' back and attacked him instead of his opponent. "How is this happening?" Scarab said.
"When Dark Necrofear is in the graveyard, her spirit possesses one of your monsters and takes control of it," Ryou explained. "Plus all of the life points you lost from that attack gets added to my life points. I guess I forgot to mention~"
The game was downhill for Scarab from that point on. Ryou's combination was flawless. Even if Scarab were to launch a successful attack, Ryou would simply summon another monster in defense mode. Before long, five turns had passed and Ryou won the duel.
"Good game," Ryou said. "That was a lot of fun. Bye now!"
And with that, Ryou grabbed his cards and left as quickly as possible. The crowd parted to let him through. Some people cheered for him, some whispered, and some simply gawked at him in stunned silence.
Ryou made his way away from the warehouse and out into the streets of South Domino, unaware that he was being followed. He was halfway to the safer side of town when two members of Scarab's gang suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his way.
"Um, excuse me. Could you let me through?" Ryou said politely. One of the gang members responded by shoving Ryou to the ground. Then, Scarab appeared along with three more gang members. The gang surrounded Ryou on all sides, blocking all means of escape.
"No one makes a fool out of me and gets away with it," Scarab said. "Now hand over your cards and your gold, and we might go easy on you."
The gang members closed in on Ryou, grinning ominously and cracking their knuckles. All of a sudden the Millennium Ring emitted a blinding flash of white light, and every member of the gang except the leader was thrown up several feet into the air by magic. They each landed with a loud thud as they hit the hard pavement several meters away.
Bakura got on his feet. Facing Scarab with a menacing smile, he said, "You should have just accepted your defeat. My host beat you fair and square."
Scarab was confused, but he wouldn't let himself be intimidated by a mere high school student. "You bastard!" he cried out as he threw out a punch. Quick as lightning, Bakura dodged the fist and knocked Scarab's feet out from under him. Scarab tried to get back up but found that he couldn't move. It was as if a magic force was pinning him to the ground.
Bakura laughed with an air of insanity.
"What are you?!" Scarab cried out.
"Penalty game!" Bakura shouted. The Millennium Ring glowed brightly. Scarab screamed in terror as his body seemed to turn into beetles. Bakura decided it was time to go home.
XXX
Ryou suddenly found himself standing in the main room of his apartment, having no recollection of when or how he got there.
"Landlord, you should know better than to do something so unnecessary and dangerous," said a calm yet disapproving voice from inside Ryou's head. "I'm especially displeased by the way you used the Millennium Ring as a gambling chip."
"Sorry about that," Ryou said sheepishly. "I didn't have anything else valuable enough to persuade him to duel me. But I won didn't I? And I got the card I wanted. Besides, even if I had lost that duel, I knew you wouldn't let anybody take the Ring away from me."
"Che, so you were counting on me to save you if your plans went awry?" said the Ring Spirit. "For your sake, I hope that card you won was worth the effort."
"Trust me, it was definitely worth it," Ryou said, pulling out his recently completed occult deck and checking to make sure that he had everything. At long last, Dark Necrofear was in his hands. He was happy beyond belief.
He may be a scattered-brain idiot, but at least he has good tastes in cards, the Spirit of the Ring thought to himself. Aloud the Spirit said, "Next time you decide to put your life in danger, you deal with the consequences yourself. I'm going to fight all your battles for you."
"Don't worry, I think that's the final time I went there. I have all the cards I need now," Ryou said. "By the way, how exactly did you get away from that gang? You didn't seal away their souls, did you?"
"What do you take me for? I told you, I've changed. My soul-sealing days are over," the Spirit lied smoothly. "All it took was a bit of convincing. I told the pitiful gang leader that he was being a sore loser, and he felt so guilty that he apologized for his actions and let us go."
"How wonderful! It's nice to know that even gang leaders can be reasonable," Ryou said trustingly.
"Yeah, of course," the Spirit chuckled.