Author's note: I know I said in my profile that I was going to give this story a break, but I realized when writing this that if I were to include what you are about to read and what I had planned for when Gohan might have to duel, the result would be one huge, illegible mess, so I decided to instead write those two occasions separately. I have sort of come to a decision regarding the question of whether or not to make Gohan a duelist, although I still haven't really decided what he will use. For now, here's Chapter 3. I hope you enjoy this, and all reviews and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, I don't have too good a grip on the personalities of Duke, Mai and Serenity, all of whom are appearing in this story, so I am issuing a possible OOC warning for each of them
Chapter 3: Battle City through Saiyan eyes
Gohan spent the next couple of days training with Goku and Piccolo, his first Namekian teacher of the martial arts, in preparation for the Androids. One day he decided to fly by himself to Domino City to see how Yugi was holding up. While Piccolo was quite uneasy about this, Goku silenced his objections, saying that Gohan needed a break every once in a while. But before leaving, Gohan tried to get Goku to give him as much history about the Saiyans as possible, knowing that, since he achieved his Super Saiyan form, Yugi would be quite uneasy, and would want to know about them, to find out what they are. Gohan, for a brief moment, considered going to Vegeta for this information, but eventually decided against it, as there was almost no chance of him helping out the son of his rival, despite him knowing more about the Saiyans than anyone else alive. Besides, he wasn't really known for his patience and willingness to answer other people's questions.
Gohan arrived in the Domino City skies, heading first for Yugi's game shop. Upon finding out that Yugi wasn't there, he then flew back into the sky, soaring over the many buildings in the hope of finding his friend. With no luck so far, he wondered what had happened, and also how to find Yugi. Then it hit him: Goku and Piccolo taught him how to sense energy, so he just needed to calm down and concentrate. How could he have forgotten that basic skill? Gohan closed his eyes and began to mentally search for Yugi's energy. The noises of the city made it quite difficult, so much so that just when Gohan thought he'd found Yugi's power level, he'd have to repeat his efforts in trying to locate it after getting a bit closer. This happened three times, but eventually, he found him at the Domino Pier… chained to an anchor and dueling Joey?
Seto Kaiba was also there, and the minute Gohan touched down, he began questioning him. Kaiba revealed that someone was manipulating the duel: it was structured so that it would have to be completed in a certain amount of time or the participants would be dragged to the bottom of the ocean by the large anchor. The winner of the duel would be allowed to free himself from the shackles binding him to the anchor before being dragged down with the loser, and if anyone tried to interfere with the Duel, one of the men at the docks would drop a heavy crate on Tea, who was bound to a chair directly underneath, via remote control. Gohan couldn't see what the problem was: during the times when he trained Yugi, he taught him how to use ki blasts, even teaching him the Masenko. According to the former, Yugi could have just flown up to the man with the remote that would drop the crate, brought him down before he could react, taken the remote, destroyed the crate with a ki blast, destroyed the anchor and chains with another ki blast and nobody would have to die.
However, this was Yugi's fight, and woe betide Gohan if he were to butt into a fight involving someone with Saiyan genes. When he asked Yugi about the fight, it was revealed that Joey was being possessed by someone else. This presence seemed to be quite alarmed at Gohan's arrival and was also quite confused about his abilities to the point where it asked him if he had somehow used the Millennium Scale, the only Millennium Item to remain under the radar, to fly. However, it was quite clear that the person mind-controlling Joey was no fool, as the "Rare Hunter" with the remote was ordered to keep his finger on the button in case someone were to try something. As the duel continued, the stress of the situation was getting to Gohan. In a way, Yugi's friends were his friends too, and right now at least one of them was being used as a hostage. Eventually, the stress reached a point where Gohan could take it no longer and before he knew it, he had delivered a devastating kick to the Rare Hunter with the remote and destroyed the crate above Tea with a Masenko.
Joey immediately began shouting "Alright child, enough games! Show me your Millennium Item!" with Gohan responding with a laugh and a statement that he didn't have one. The latter was aiming a ki blast at the anchor when Yugi told him to let the duel continue. Apparently, he wanted to try and find a way of breaking through to Joey without the Duel being interrupted. "So this is what Vegeta means when he talks about Saiyan pride," Gohan thought as he stopped charging the energy in his hand and let Yugi resume the Duel. Eventually, through Yugi's efforts, the mind control over Joey broke, but by then the former had lost his last few Life Points, and although it became a Draw, allowing both players a chance at freedom, the anchor dropped before the opportunity could be taken. Upon seeing Yugi and Joey get dragged into the water, Gohan immediately dove in to save them both. Underwater, he could see Joey fiddling with Yugi's ankle, and soon he could see the latter was released. Gohan immediately brought Yugi to the surface and was about to dive back in when he saw someone new dive in with the other key, eventually bringing Joey back. This woman was later identified as Joey's sister Serenity, who arrived with Tristan, Mai and some guy called Duke Devlin a short while ago.
Yugi then brought Gohan up to speed on what was currently happening: he, Joey and Kaiba were participating in a new card game tournament: the Battle City tournament (Gohan was glad at that point that Vegeta wasn't there; it would have been far too much of a disappointment to him) and Yugi and the presence inside his Millenium Puzzle, revealed to be the spirit of a five thousand year old Pharaoh with a very bad case of amnesia, had to deal with a group known as the Rare Hunters and their leader Marik, who could take control of people's minds. Yugi had also acquired a very strong one of a kind card called "Slifer the Sky Dragon", part of a set of three "Egyptian God Cards", the second belonging to Kaiba and the last being in the possession of Marik. They were now trying to win the Battle City tournament to defeat Marik.
Yugi, in return, wanted Gohan to answer a few questions. His first question was quite predictable, what was he? Gohan was at last finally able to answer that: Yugi was, like him, a Human/Saiyan hybrid, and to keep Yugi from thinking that he knew it all along, he mentioned the fact that he was told this by Goku. The second question was also quite predictable: what exactly are the Saiyans? Gohan explained it as best he could; they were an extraterrestrial warrior race that looked a lot like humans except for their tails. They were also quite different to humans because of a number of things, including what happens when a Saiyan looks at a full moon (answering one mystery that Yugi could never figure out in the process: he was told by his grandfather that he could NEVER look at the moon.)
After Gohan's explanation, Tea stated that there is no possible way Yugi could be a Saiyan as he had a human grandfather and, by extension, a human father and mother. She also stated that she hasn't seen any tail of any sort on Yugi, whereupon something moved in the waist of the child in question. From the back of his waist, a large brown lump of hair emerged. It continued to grow taller, moving in an anticlockwise direction around Yugi, until they could finally see it: a brown tail was now sticking out the back of his pants. He turned to Tea, Serenity, Tristan, Duke, Joey and Mai with a sorrowful look on his face. The only ones who really displayed any shock were Tea, Serenity, Mai and Duke, as Joey and Tristan already knew about it, having pulled on it once or twice when they were still Yugi's enemies. After his little secret was exposed, Mai kept muttering to herself that "she didn't know Yugi was a freak, but due to him treating her well, she didn't mind," with Duke doing the same, while the only thing Tea could ask was: "Why didn't you tell us Yugi?"
"I was afraid Tea," was Yugi's response
"Afraid of what?"
"Would you really want to be friends with someone who has a brown, hairy tail sticking out from his back?"
"Ah. I see your point, but after the amount of time we spent together, you could have at least told us!"
"Joey and Tristan already knew about this. As for Mai and Duke, if I had kept my tail exposed when they met me, do you really think we would have started a friendship with them? They would have seen me, and probably you as well, as circus freaks."
"Again, you make a good point Yugi, but my point is that we are your friends: you don't have to keep secrets from us! Look at Mai and Duke, they are still here and from what I have heard, they don't care that you have what you have!"
Yugi could see he was defeated here. He thanked Tea and everyone else for not turning against him when they discovered his tail, and they continued to walk to the Battle City Finals. When Joey asked Serenity what she thought, she told him that she, like Mai and Duke, didn't really care that Yugi had a tail. However, Yugi requested that his tail remain a secret between them, and that he didn't want to bring this knowledge to Kaiba or Marik's attention. He asked the spirit of the Pharaoh what he thought, and as it turned out, he was quite happy that one mystery about Yugi had been answered, as the Pharaoh himself was very confused when he found that his host body had featured a tail, something that he definitely did not remember having in his days as Pharaoh.
Everything proceeded relatively well, aside from one attempted kidnapping of Mai by some guy that Gohan really couldn't be bothered to know, and soon, the group reached the location revealed to the duelists by their Locator Cards. Gohan thought the people who made the finals were quite interesting: he could sense some sort of dark, yet hidden presence inside the man that identified himself as Namu, he could also sense something that felt extremely malevolent inside Ryo Bakura, and was also amazed that he was able to actually duel as, according to Joey, he had sustained a severe injury, and as for Marik, for an evil mastermind who likes taking control of people's minds and turn them against their friends and family, there was absolutely nothing special that Gohan could sense. Gohan, curious to see who the last contestant was, and what he/she might be, he decided to remain outside for a bit longer when everyone else boarded the KaibaCorp blimp that had landed in the stadium. However, it turned out that the only noteworthy fact about the woman that arrived was the fact that she was wearing a mask.
The duels brought Gohan a few interesting experiences. He got to see for the first time the malevolent entity inside Bakura take hold in Yugi's first Duel. He also got to see Slifer the Sky Dragon for the first time, and his first thoughts were of Shenron, the dragon that rose out of the Dragonballs. Gohan thought for a moment that maybe Slifer was just a red Shenron, as they were both dragons and they looked very similar in body structure and length with the only notable differences being the extra mouth, the lack of whiskers and the red and black coloring instead of green and pale yellow.
The one thing that caught Gohan's attention during the duel with Joey and Marik was that, when the latter tried to summon his God Card, there was instead a big lightning storm that knocked both players unconscious, with Joey winning because he was able to get up faster. The time of happiness was, however, short lived, as Gohan sensed the dark presence inside Namu, who was eventually revealed to be the real Marik, begin to grow and take over.
The third duel got Gohan his first taste of the Shadow Realm, courtesy of the real Marik Ishtar's dark presence, and also the first sighting of the Winged Dragon of Ra. Then things got rather confusing for him: Kaiba had assured everyone that the monsters were just holograms, and yet they felt real, and what is more, Joey, and eventually Yugi, moved to shield Mai from the Dragon's flaming breath as it came towards her. If the monsters were indeed holograms, what was there to be afraid of, and if they weren't, why wasn't Yugi trying to deflect the blast somewhere else? Gohan was pretty sure he had taught Yugi how to deflect incoming energy attacks, but then he remembered that the spirit of the Pharaoh had assumed control, and he might not know what Yugi did.
Duel number four didn't really excite or interest Gohan, as it was between some rich guy and the masked woman. Although he got to see the third Egyptian God Card, he couldn't really find anything interesting in the duel. It was only after that, when this woman, named Ishizu, told Yugi of her family history and passed her Millennium Necklace to him, that Gohan took any notice. He got into a good sleep for that night; however, he was woken up later by a strange, yet familiar energy that he had so far sensed twice. He immediately deduced that somebody was playing a Shadow Game, possibly Marik and Bakura, as he could sense neither of their energies. By the time they got to the Duel Arena on the blimp, however, it was too late.
After that, Gohan woke up to another ordinary day… or so he thought. As the sight of a large tower came into view on the horizon that morning, the ship changed course as what was probably a hacker contacted them, after which a fortress emerged from the ocean. The blimp then landed inside the fortress and, with a few orders, a threat and a couple of gunshots from the defensive turrets, everyone except for a select few disembarked and went down a passage. They then ran into a group of five people, none of whom Gohan recognized, who challenged everyone in the room, probably including him, to a Duel in order to acquire a fresh body. After they explained something about a new Deck Master rule, a hole opened up beneath Gohan. He shortly began to fly upwards, but by that point his hole had closed, and something strong started sucking him down the pit. He hoped Yugi and his friends would be alright, and he also secretly hoped that he wouldn't have to Duel, as he didn't have a deck.