Akia yawned and stretched her arms right after the teacher left the room.
"You never change..." Yugi told his sister.
"Isn't that a good thing?" Akia replied.
"Did you even listen to anything the teacher said?" Her brother asked her.
"I did, in fact. He said "Good morning, class" then I kind of zoned out."
Yugi sighed at his sister's nonchalant behaviour. He then directed his attention at the two empty seats in the class. "Kaiba and Bakura haven't been in class since Duelist Kingdom..."
"Kaiba's probably busy with his big shot company to care about school." Jounouchi talked in a mocking way. He always did that when mentioning Kaiba.
"I guess for Kaiba it is normal, but not for Ryou..." Akia said. She couldn't reach him ever since he left them after arriving at Domino Pier. The girl was getting a little worried about him.
After classes were over, Yugi and Akia went back home along with their friends Anzu, Jounouchi, and Honda. The five friends planned to spend their afternoon together like many times before.
While watching a rerun of the Duelist Kingdom Finals, Sugoroku came in a hurry, with Mokuba drenched in rain shivering beside him. "Yugi, I think something's wrong." He told his grandson.
"Mokuba!" Yugi exclaimed.
Akia hurried and got a dry towel to give Mokuba. Anzu went to the kitchen and made him some hot milk tea.
"Thank you..." Mokuba expressed his gratitude.
"What happened, Mokuba? Why are are you all drenched from the rain?" Akia asked him.
"Yeah, aren't you rich enough to be driven in a car?" This time Jounouchi's voice was more filled with curiosity than mocking.
"I need your help... My brother's in big trouble!" Mokuba pleaded.
"Trouble? What do you mean?" Akia inquired.
Mokuba then started explaining what had happened, "when we got back to the company, big brother started investigating his employees to find out who his traitors were."
"Traitors?" Anzu asked.
"There are people from Kaiba Corp who joined Pegasus and helped him take the company away from my big brother." Everyone listened intently to what Mokuba was saying. "It didn't take him long before he found out the traitors behind all of this. When he did, however, they begged for his forgiveness. He didn't buy it. They then changed the subject and told him that they completed his virtual game based on Duel Monsters in hopes of gaining his forgiveness. Since big brother had been working long and hard on that game system, he took them up on their offer and went to try the game out, swearing to deal with them later, depending on how the game turned out. The problem is that this was all actually a trap set by them to trap my big brother in his own game! When I found that out, they tried to take me and lock me up, but I managed to escape. I didn't know who else to turn to but Yugi... That's why I'm here. I need your help to save my big brother."
At the mention of a new video game system, Jounouchi's eyes lit up. "Let's go and play the-... I mean, let's hurry and get Kaiba!"
Anzu and Akia gave him an exasperated look.
"You're right; we have to go there and save Kaiba." Yugi agreed with his friend.
Without losing any more time, Yugi and the rest followed Mokuba to Kaiba Corps. Arriving there, Mokuba made used a back entrance that was only known to him and his brother. He had to make sure that they weren't spotted by the five traitors and their henchmen. They then reached a room that Mokuba quietly opened. Everyone went in and started looking around, impressed by the technology.
"I've never seen anything like that. It's like a sci-fi movie." Akia was looking at the pods with a transparent glass cover. There were exactly four of them.
"We'll be going into these to enter the game." Mokuba informed them.
"There are only four of them. Does that mean only four of us can go?" Honda inquired.
"Exactly. I'm going, so there are three more spots for you guys," Mokuba confirmed.
They all looked at each other.
"Since it's based on Duel Monsters, I should probably go too," Akia volunteered.
"Same here," Yugi followed suit.
"Well, I'm not about to miss out on a chance to try out a new game system," Jounouchi said excitedly.
"So I guess it's decided," Anzu concluded.
Mokuba helped everyone get into a pod, and then he explained to Honda what buttons he should press to start the game up. After that, he went into his own pod. Akia's heart was beating in excitement. She was always a fan of games in general, so the idea of trying out something completely new thrilled her.
The pods closed up over the participants and they were transported to the virtual world. Yugi, Jounouchi, Akia, and Mokuba landed in a graveyard.
"This looks crazy real!" Jounouchi yelled out.
"Yeah, it's just as gloomy as real graveyards..." Akia shuddered.
Yugi was more interested in the round gadget attached to his wrist. He noticed that his other three companions also had one. "Mokuba, do you know what this is?"
"This is your deck holder," Mokuba explained, "the deck you had in the real world when you came into this world has been transferred. This is what you'll be using in this world to battle."
"I see..." Yugi replied.
Akia then spotted some movement from the corner of her eye. She then turned towards it, and saw three monsters.
"Watch out!" She shouted to warn her friends.
Everyone turned towards the newcomers and prepared themselves to battle.
Meanwhile, Honda and Anzu had been standing guard in the room, making sure that no one would come and disrupt what their friends were doing.
"I hope Yugi and the others get back safely..." Anzu wondered.
"I wish I went. Anything for a good video game!" Honda said.
"You don't even know how to duel properly..."
"Hey, I might not be as good as Yugi and Akia, but I bet I can hold my own against Jounouchi-" A sound from outside the room interrupted Honda. Anzu had noticed it too. They both tiptoed to the door, and opened it slightly. What they saw made them start panicking about the situation.
"Those are some Kaiba Corp. henchmen!" Anzu whispered to Honda.
"This is bad. If they come over here, Yugi and the rest are doomed!" Honda replied.
The two got back inside and locked the door. They then started stacking in front of the door everything they can find lying around to buy some time for their friends.
"Let's hope it holds long enough for them to come back," Anzu said.
"If it comes down to it, we'll use our own bodies to keep this door closed!" Honda told his friend.
Back to the virtual world, Yugi and the others were confronted with three monsters.
"This is bad! We have to destroy them. Their stats are shown on your duel gadgets." Mokuba informed the other three.
They all glanced at their wrists. They were up against Dragon Zombie (1600/0), Armored Zombie (1500/0), and Clown Zombie (1350/0).
Mokuba, being the one that knew the system the best, took out one of his cards and summoned Rude Kaiser (1800/1600). Yugi, taking example on him, summoned Black Magician (2500/2100). Akia decided to stand back for this one, since she believed that Mokuba and Yugi's monsters would be enough to handle it.
Mokuba's monster attacked and destroyed Dragon Zombie, while Yugi's Black Magician pulverized Armored Zombie and Clown Zombie.
"Way to go!" Akia cheered.
Right when they were about to celebrate, the three monsters that were just destroyed, started reviving themselves.
"What...?" The red-eyed girl uttered in disbelief.
"I didn't know about that! They must've done some kind of modification to the game!" Mokuba concluded.
"They come back up? Well I'll just have to bring them right back down!" Jounouchi exclaimed.
"Jounouchi, wait!" Yugi called out to his friend.
But it was too late. Jounouchi had summoned his Flame Swordsman (1800/1600) and launched an attack on the revived Dragon Zombie. Akia checked her duel gadget and saw that its stats had increased from (1600/0) to (1760/0). "Its stats increased?!"
It was still too weak to stand a chance against the Flame Swordsman. However, it revived itself a third time, with even higher stats.
"Jounouchi! Get your Flame Swordsman away from it!" Yugi quickly tried to warn his friend.
"Wha-?!" The blond teen exclaimed in confusion.
The revived Dragon Zombie, now even stronger (1920/0), was able to destroy Jounouchi's Flame Swordsman. A counter on Jounouchi's duel gadget that counted 2000 went down to 1820.
"What's that all about?!" Jounouchi questioned in panic.
"Those are your Life Points! If they reach 0, it'll be Game Over. Usually that'd just bring you back to the real world, but I don't know what other changes were made by the five people who trapped my brother here," Mokuba quickly explained.
Jounouchi gritted his teeth. It was only the beginning, and he had already lost Life Points.
"I recognize those monsters!" Yugi's observed.
That sent a spark of realization in Jounouchi's eyes, "now that you mention it... I recognize them too!"
Akia was looking at them, confused by what was happening.
"Jounouchi, you know their weakness," her brother told his friend.
"Oh yeah! 0 defence points! I just need to use Shield and Sword against them," having said that, Jounouchi pulled out the spell card from his deck and used it on them. Yugi then summoned his Black Magician once more and annihilated all three of the zombie monsters.
"Damn, way to go, guys!" Akia cheered.
A counter on everyone's duel gadget went up to five points.
"Yeah, that's just a points system. You can exchange them for rewards later," Mokuba told them.
"Alright, let's get going then. Kaiba won't wait for us forever," Akia said.
Just as the group was about to start walking, a small flying light came at them. It looked like a little fairy dressed in blue with a little staff.
"What's that thing?" Jounouchi pointed at it, a bit skeptical at what it might be.
"I don't know, but it's adorable!" Akia exclaimed.
The little fairy kept flying around, trying to tell them something.
"I think... it wants us to follow it," Yugi tried to interpret what the strange creature was doing.
"Yeah, I think so too," Mokuba agreed.
"You sure we can trust that thing?" Jounouchi asked.
"Well, it's the only lead we have..." Akia replied with a shrug.
Deciding that it was their best course of action, the four of them started following the little fairy.