Author's note: I hope you have enjoyed this so far. This chapter name was inspired by the name of the Dragonball Z episode "Memories of Gohan". Please read and review.
Chapter 1: Memories of Yugi
About twenty years had passed since the crash.
Now 14 year old Yugi Muto was left wondering why fate had dealt him such a bad hand (which was ironic due to the fact that he played the famous Duel Monsters card game). Not only was he frequently bullied because of his small size and vulnerability, but there was one thing wrong with him. For some reason, Yugi had sported a brownish monkey-like tail. He had it since birth, and was always wondering, if he was human like his grandfather said, why everyone else didn't have a strange tail protruding from their lower back. Every so often, the school bullies would also discover Yugi's tail (which he had hidden right underneath his belt) and pull or squeeze it. To him, this was akin to severe torture. Yugi also had no idea who his mother was because, he was told, she had to leave when he was still very young, and his father was also gone. Then there was the fact that was almost completely alone, except for his grandfather and one child by the name of Gohan who also featured the strange monkey tail, but other than those people, there was nobody to help him in life. Oh well, there wasn't much he could do about it now, he thought, as he tried to reassemble one artifact that was in his grandfather's possession: the Millenium Puzzle.
As far as he could remember, the only friends Yugi really had were Gohan, his father Goku and the friends they had. Yugi, however, didn't get to spend much time with them, as something always got in the way, and even if he was lucky, he'd only be able to spend time with Gohan. The earliest he could remember of something getting in the way of spending quality time together was when he was much younger, maybe 8 years old, and at the time everyone had been called away to deal with strange visitors to Earth, apparently called "Saiyans", then they were called away to go off into space. Oh, how Yugi envied them at the time: going into space was probably one of the greatest accomplishments of the human race, but the stories he was told by Gohan weren't the prettiest: they involved a list of ruthless killers, including characters named Dodoria, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force and, worst of all, Frieza, who, Yugi was told, destroyed an entire planet. Then, a couple years later, there was one incident where Yugi breathed in strange gas that caused him, his grandfather and just about everyone else to somehow act in a menacingly evil manner until another gas stopped the first one from having more of an effect.
To date, the most time Yugi had spent with Gohan was after the debacle with the strange gas, which the latter identified upon request during their first meeting as "Black Water Mist", basically a method of mind control used by one Garlic Junior, who had since been banished. Yugi only got to be with Gohan for a short while after his mother, after looking at the former's background, decided he would be a much better influence on her son than all the rest of those fighters that hung around Goku. Yugi's only price for company was that Gohan train him as he wanted to try and stop continuously being bullied. That, and the fact that, somehow, he had a bit of a strange knack for fighting.
They had quite a good arrangement going until one day when Gohan and his friends sensed an evil force approaching the planet. Yugi accompanied them, yet he hid, knowing all too well that he was currently no match for anybody, and later that day he saw what he would eventually come to know as Frieza for the first time. Thankfully, Yugi was able to stay safely hidden, and the tyrant was quickly brought to his knees along with everyone else that accompanied him by a mysterious sword-wielding boy who could strangely turn his hair blonde at will. He, according to Yugi, looked like he'd fit best in a Duel Monsters card as maybe a strong monster called the Gold Swordsman or something similar, and after that, it was back home to his game shop.
Not only back home, but also back to school, back to being picked on, back to being victimized and back to bad days. This day was no different, even with one piece of the Puzzle being stolen, although he was having a slight bit of luck: he was making excellent progress with assembling the Millenium Puzzle. There was only now one piece left, and, strangely, it was given to him by his grandfather later that evening. In went the piece…
… and then his life was changed forever.