A loud bell rang at Domino City High School, signaling the end of the day. Most students hustled out of the building, but a few stayed behind, mingling in a classroom.

"Man, could class get any more boring? I was about to fall asleep," Jacob Harrison said, standing and stretching out his limber body. He squatted down, his running suit expanding with his quads and calves. Straightening himself out again, he pulled out a small box, setting it on the table next to him.

"You did fall asleep," sighed his sister, Susan, tying her long brown hair into a ponytail. "Luckily, I copied down all the notes for you…once again."

With a cheesy grin, Jacob said, "You're the best, sis! Now, who's ready to duel?"

He peered across the table at his two other friends, Aaron and Scott. Aaron was a typical bookworm, his face buried in a book about mathematical algorithms. He didn't seem very interested in Jacob's open challenge. On the other hand, Scott, a muscular teen with a blue Mohawk, pulled a similar box out of his backpack and set it on the table.

"You're on, Harrison!" Scott exclaimed, flipping open the latch on the box that was held closed by Velcro. He laid a deck of cards onto the flat surface and took a seat. "I'll squash you with my dinosaurs, bro!"

Susan put a stop to the duel before it even started, slapping a booklet down for them to see. The cover read OFFICIAL BATTLE CITY RULEBOOK. Aaron looked over as she began explaining. "Hold on, guys. Before you go at it, I think you should familiarize yourselves with Seto Kaiba's new Battle City rules. You are participating, aren't you?"

"Of course!" they both shouted in confident unison.

"Okay, so things are quite a bit different from Duelist Kingdom. You didn't have to sacrifice weaker monsters for stronger monsters there, so it was really down to whoever got the stronger monster out first. Kaiba's changed this, and for the better, I think. Now, in order to summon a 5-star or 6-star monster, you have to sacrifice one monster. For 7-star, 8-star, and 9-star monsters, you need to sacrifice two monsters. For a 10-star and above monster, you need to give up three monsters."

"I'm gonna miss spamming really strong monsters at no cost," Scott said as Susan turned the page.

She continued, "Another big change is Fusion Monsters. If you use one for a sacrifice, it counts as however many monsters you used to make the fusion. For instance, if Kaiba sacrificed his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon—"

"Why would he do that? There's nothing stronger than that dragon," Jacob interrupted, crossing his arms.

"I don't know! Just go with it. Anyway, if he did that, it would count as three sacrifices."

"That's a pretty cheap way to get stronger monsters out, don't you think?" Scott wondered.

"No, it's a good test of skill," Aaron spoke quietly. "Seto Kaiba is a genius for coming up with these rules. It makes the game a lot fairer and more equalized than it was before. Now someone who only has high level monsters isn't guaranteed victory. In fact, it's more likely for them to lose."

Scott waved him off. "You just have a crush on Kaiba." Aaron shot him an icy glare. "Keep going, Susan."

The girl cleared her throat, pointing to the bottom of the page. "It also notes that Fusion Monsters must wait one turn before attacking." She turned the page again. "You know about direct attacks, so I won't go over that again. Hmm. Here's one. You can't look at your opponent's Graveyard. On that note, when you discard from your hand or deck, you don't have to show your opponent which cards you got rid of."

Jacob fiddled with his deck. "That could work in my favor! Hah."

Susan flipped through the book, looking for any rules that needed to be brought up. She reached the final couple pages, squinting. "The forbidden and limited list. Hmm. It's mostly just cards that inflict effect damage, like Hinotama and Meteor of Destruction. You can only have one copy of Monster Reborn in your deck now, too."

"Darn, I was thinking of having three copies of all those cards in my deck," Scott said, fanning through his deck. "They all fit my dinosaur theme, don't you think?"

"Why are there so many rules?" Jacob whined, shuffling his cards. "Duelist Kingdom was so much simpler."

"And inconsistent and filled with plotholes." Aaron returned to his book, no longer interested in the conversation.

Susan stood up, leaving the book on the table. "Well, I'm gonna head home. I suggest you guys look that over some more and memorize the rules, especially you, Jake. It'd be pretty embarrassing to lose your first duel because you forgot how to summon monsters correctly."

Jacob chuckled nervously. "Yeah…right. I'll see you at home, sis. Let Charles out when you get there."

"Will do," she said, grabbing her jacket and leaving the room.

Susan didn't usually walk home from school, but it was a cool summer evening and her bike had a flat tire. Domino City wasn't a bad place to live, but like most every place, it had its share of misfits and criminals. Unfortunately for her, she managed to encounter a gang of these lowlifes. They were wearing long purple robes, and didn't appear to be anybody she recognized from the police reports.

"You wouldn't happen to have any rare cards, would you?"