Chapter One: Back in Black

It was yet another Saturday afternoon in the town of Domino. The seven heroes of that world were engaged in another practice session with their powers and special abilities; however, this time was different in that Yugi was trying to help his grandfather, recently endowed with the ability to shift back to his previous form of Yuri, hone his 'new' powers.

"Okay, Grandpa, are you ready?" Yugi asked, standing in front of him with his outline glowing with blue magic.

His grandfather had already put the charm of his staff around his neck, transforming him into the former prince of the Dimension of the Gods. He held his hand out in front of him, letting the charm glow and vanish as it became the Dark Magician Girl staff which he clutched firmly in his grip.

"Ready," he said.

Yugi conjured up a few small, rather weak magical orbs which he fired out at Grandpa. In retaliation, he held the staff out in front of him and fired out light blue beams which destroyed the orbs on impact. Next, Yugi started blasting out orbs at other crates posing as civilians, which Yuri had to stop by flying up in the air and firing out beams of magic at them.

While they were involved in this practice, a portal opened up at the end of the warehouse. Out of it stepped King Spencer, who watched as his former child soared and blasted orbs out of existence.

Spencer cupped one hand to his mouth and yelled out, "Yo, Yuri!"

The distraction made Grandpa turn his head to see who was speaking. He stared down at Spencer, for he was wearing a very interesting outfit: a black leather jacket, funky T-shirt with the words Rock On! written in bright red letters, leather pants with silver studs running down the sides, and black leather shoes. He wore chain bracelets on both wrists and silver studded belts around his waist and neck.

At that moment, Yugi fired out another blast which was headed right towards Grandpa.

Horrified, Yugi cried, "Grandpa, look out!"

Grandpa turned back and, with a yelp, quickly fired out a beam which destroyed the orb.

Spencer shook his head. "Yuri, Yuri, Yuri…when you're in battle, you can't let yourself get distracted that easily, especially when somebody is firing at you."

Grandpa floated back down to the ground and cried, "Well, I can't exactly help it when my former father suddenly comes in dressed like…like…that."

The others stopped their fighting so that they could stare in shock at Spencer. "Uh, Spence, what's wit de getup?" Joey asked.

"Oh, this?" Spencer replied, looking down at his clothes. "Just my outfit for the little mission which I hope you chicos will accompany me on."

"I do hope you're not trying to go undercover, because I highly doubt you won't be noticed in an outfit like that," Kaiba said, staring at the chain bracelets.

Spencer rolled his eyes. "No, this isn't some undercover sting, and even if it was, I'd blend in quite nicely with the crowd involved, thank you very much." He grinned. "Do you guys think you'd be ready to rock and roll all night tonight?"

The others stared at him. "You guys have rock in your world?" Joey asked.

Spencer blinked. "Uh, yes. It's only one of the greatest forms of music invented throughout the entirety of its history. Just about everybody can find some type of it which they like. But that's not why I'm getting involved in this, though-it's because of who this involves in our world of rock."

He zapped up a poster of what appeared to be a typical rock group with a green spiked-hair drummer, a pink-haired bassist, and an electric guitarist with curtained black hair streaked with blue. The caption of the poster read in bright red letters: The Assassins.

"These three, Kizu, Kataki, and Keigai, are the members of one of the most popular rock bands in the history of the Dimension of the Gods-and, we suspect, living up to their band's name. Ever since they've come onto the rock scene, the Kingrah Police have started noticing a small pattern occurring involving them and other rock groups-whenever some other band suddenly takes their former place on something like, say, the top spot on some top 100 songs chart, that particular band meets up sometime later with a mysterious...accident."

"What kind of 'accident'?" Yugi asked.

Spencer started ticking off his fingers: "Jersey Chicks, beat The Assassins for a Best Album of the Year award, destroyed a few weeks later due to a fire supposedly started by faulty wiring in their special effects system. Scarlett Rayne, beat The Assassin's record number of newly-released CDs sold in one week, and a couple weeks later their tour bus ran off into a ditch because the brake cord was mysteriously cut. And just a few months ago, Battered Souls beat The Assassins in a poll for Hottest Band of this Century, and then mysteriously had spotlights fall on them during a concert due to an 'inexplicable' gust of wind which came up and blew them down."

"Wow, bands in your dimension really get compedidive," Joey commented.

"Sí, sí, but such competition has to be brought to an end, and we're hoping that could finally happen tonight. Last week, this one new rocker girl named C.J. had her latest hit beat The Assassins' former top spot on a top 100 songs chart in this one popular music magazine. She's holding a concert in Kingrah's Hathor Bandshell tonight, and we suspect that they're going to use that concert to make their move. We cannot afford to lose another rocker to their sick actions, so I'm hoping that if you guys could accompany me there tonight, we could split up, keep an eye out for anything which looks suspicious, and perhaps finally stop those creeps from literally killing the competition. You guys up for it?"

"So, if we wanna take dese psychos outta business for good, all we hafta do is go to a rock concert an catch em in de act?" Joey said incredulously.

Spencer smiled and nodded. "I thought it'd be a much more fun kind of mission than simply going out and having to beat up a bunch of nutcases."

"A mission where we just have to listen to music and stop a few nutty rock stars before they can make that music die-man, why can't all of our missions be like that?" Tristan moaned.

"Because I'm sure we wouldn't really want to risk killing our hearing, getting trampled by obsessed fans, or simply being tortured by someone screaming into a blaring sound system for an hour or so almost every week," Kaiba replied, rolling his eyes.

Spencer glared at him and asked, "Kaiba, I swear, if just once in your life I could see you actually enjoy yourself and experience some emotions besides anger, conceit and sarcasm, I could die a very happy man."

"Then I'm sorry you're going to have such a terrible death," Kaiba replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

The king shook his head and turned back to the portal behind him, thinking to himself, One day, that man is going to actually act like a real human being, and I swear upon the gods that when that happens, I am so going to be there.