Author's note: Just a reminder, any monsters presented in bold are my OCs, even though (spoiler warning) the duels here do not feature them.

Chapter 5: Matches, madness and monkeys

Gohan, Yugi and Tea were running through a tunnel, on their way to the next Duel. During this, Tea asked Gohan what he could have summoned if he sacrificed his Lesser Mystic Totem of Defense and his Lesser Mystic Totem of Healing, to which he replied that he would have gotten a Greater Mystic Totem of the Sanctuary (0/?), which gained 750 Defense points for every friendly monster and 250 for every enemy. Its abilities included enemies not being able to select other monsters as attack targets, healing for the same rules as Defense Point Calculation at the beginning of every turn and the ability to receive and use Protection Counters, which could be gained by not having any attacks declared against the controller or his monsters during his opponent's turn, and two of them could be used to negate any hostile spells, traps or monster abilities that adversely affected the controller.

They eventually found Joey dueling against some weird Beast man or something with a gavel. Gohan assumed that this must have been someone's Deck Master, but as the duel went on, he thought that manipulating Joey's luck-based actions was his special ability. It was only after Noah came in and attempted to disqualify the man, revealed to be one Johnson, for cheating that Gohan realized that something was off. After Joey won the Duel, the four of them eventually found Serenity and Duke Devlin dueling presumably another member of the Big Five. Serenity had apparently almost given up, but Joey, Yugi, Tea and Gohan gave her their support, and eventually, she and Duke pulled through, although they later found out that Tristan lost his Deck Master and, by extension, the duel.

The four of them then went looking for Tristan, and eventually found him attacking Kaiba and Mokuba. This confused Gohan, but after it was revealed that the attacker was actually Nesbitt, the duelist to whom Tristan had lost, Gohan immediately delivered a strong jab to the imposter's abdomen, throwing him backwards into a building. He later emerged on a motorcycle, grabbed Mokuba and rode off, punching his hostage in the stomach. Gohan immediately decided to give chase and took to the air, but all of a sudden a Giga-Tech Wolf flew at him, distracting him long enough for Nesbitt to escape. After getting the cursed thing off him, Gohan found out Kaiba had taken a motorcycle and pursued Nesbitt, and the rest of them, including a strange robot monkey, followed in a three-wheeled pickup truck.

When they got there, Gohan was sure he'd just found the monster that would be the bane of Goku's existence: Injection Fairy Lily. He unknowingly deviated from his original plan to watch Kaiba's Duel with another one of those Big Five to imagine Goku trying to avoid coming into the contact with the dreaded needle using any means necessary. By the time he snapped out of it, Kaiba had already won, and had resumed searching for Mokuba.

Everything went relatively smoothly. Yugi and Tea had separated from the rest of the group, and Gohan decided to stay with Serenity, Duke, Joey and the robot monkey in case anything attacked them. After all, without either him or Yugi there, they were defenseless.

Eventually, something did attack them, and it turned out to be four of the Big Five. Joey tried to evade their attacks, all of which were aimed at their vehicle, while Gohan remained behind to fight them off. Lector used his Jinzo to fire eye lasers at him, but everyone was surprised when Gohan just deflected them with his arm. What was even more surprising, especially for the attackers, was when he returned fire. The first ki blast, aimed at Lector, instead hit a weird fish-type creature. Gohan's second hit Crump, who fell from the sky, a few meters ahead of his first compatriot. Next to fall to a ki blast was Johnson, who, as he fell, swore to somehow put Gohan on trial for attempts to do grievous bodily harm. Lector managed to dodge Gohan's fourth shot, but ultimately succumbed to a fifth, after which Gohan flew down the road to catch up with Joey. Eventually, all four of the apparently not so big Five who were attacking recovered and charged down the road. Gohan saw them coming, and immediately raised his hands above his head, placing his left palm on the back of his right hand. An energy wave started charging up, and when the fish-warrior creature, Crump, Johnson and Lector were close, it happened. "Masenko… HA!" he shouted, thrusting his hands forward and letting go of the energy. The projectile hit Lector and then caused a large explosion which launched the truck of Joey, Serenity, Duke and the monkey forward, also causing it to overturn and roll along the ground, throwing Duke straight into the air. It would surely have been a deadly fall had Gohan not noticed and caught him before he hit the ground.

They were soon reunited with Yugi, Tea and Kaiba, and after that, things went relatively smoothly. They ran into Nesbitt in Tristan's body, and through him, all of the Big Five dueled against Yugi and Joey. They didn't allow Gohan to participate though, as from the sounds of it, Crump was extremely fearful of his abilities. After the two won, got Tristan his body back and Gohan fended off yet another attack that ended with Noah banishing Big Five, they then proceeded to watch Kaiba's duel against Noah. Gohan was quite appalled that the latter used Kaiba's brother as a shield to stop an attack, yet amazed at the fact that he could also heal himself, just like Gohan did in his match against Crump. The duel's conclusion, however, sickened both him and Yugi, to the point that the latter would continue the Duel: Noah turned both Kaiba Brothers into stone.

Yugi also used Seto's graveyard, as technically, he was just taking over the duel. As it continued, though, Gohan felt a very strong urge to screw the rules and interfere in the fight. The reason for this was that, towards the end of the duel, Noah began turning more people into stone. First were Duke, then Tristan, then Serenity, then Tea, then Joey and finally, Gohan. However, Gohan wasn't going to stand for this. As he stood helpless in stone, he felt a growing power inside him. It was rising to the point where he couldn't contain it even if he tried, and soon his stone form burst open, and he immediately flew like a bullet right into Noah's Deck Master form, getting thrown back to the other statues afterwards by Noah, in shock that he managed to escape from being turned into stone and gasping for air.

The Duel would eventually end in Yugi's favor, after which Noah tried unsuccessfully to take his body. However, a new face revealed itself after everyone was turned back to normal, which Seto Kaiba had identified as his stepfather Gozaburo Kaiba. His first act was a strange one; he turned the Virtual World's environment into night and a full moon had appeared in the sky, after which Yugi was restrained in such a way that he was forced to look at it. Gohan couldn't see what Gozaburo had hoped to accomplish with this, but then it hit him: Yugi was part Saiyan with the tail, and that spelled bad news. After a few minutes of Yugi panicking and trying desperately to close his eyes, during which Gohan kept trying to remove the restraints but was kept away by an invisible force field, his muscles began bulking up to the point that his clothes were destroyed, and everyone saw him grow in size, brown hair sprouting all over him, until he looked totally different than before. This wasn't tiny little spiky-haired Yugi Muto, this was a giant hairy gorilla gone berserk. This gorilla was hitting and crushing any piece of terrain it could reach, and also firing ki blasts from its mouth, further devastating the Virtual World. "What have you done to Yug you freak?" Joey shouted.

"I just made him show all of you what he really is." Gozaburo responded.

"Enough with these pathetic mind games Father!" Kaiba began shouting.

"These aren't mind games Seto, I'm just showing you what the boy really is!"

"By hacking into the Virtual World and changing Yugi's body to a giant monkey?"

"I didn't have to hack into anything! All he needs to do is look at the moon and voila, you see his true colors!"

"Just because you made Yugi turn into a giant gorilla doesn't mean that's who he truly is!" Tea then spoke.

Noah, meanwhile, was trying to delete the moon, and after a few minutes, it was gone and the daylight returned. The Great Ape then started shrinking, its mouth returning to normal, and the body hair disappearing. Eventually, Yugi Muto lay naked on the ground where the Great Ape used to be, his tail there for everyone to see until Noah made his original clothes appear on his body. Noah then offered to help everyone escape, and after getting stabbed in the back, fighting off an army of monsters (mainly due to Gohan's support), being informed of an incoming orbital strike and having Noah help them escape for real, they all awoke in some sort of connection pod, but suddenly Noah told Gohan to wait, and that he had a present for him.

After a few minutes, a secret compartment opened in a nearby wall. It contained a Duel Disk and a deck of Duel Monsters cards. Looking through the cards, Gohan realized that this was the Deck he had created in the Virtual World, card for card. "Take them Gohan…" Noah said through the intercom, "…I have a feeling you'll need them later."

"But Noah..."

"I suggest you take them now Gohan. Many of your cards you'd have to scour the globe for so I'm doing you a favor. Besides, this probably won't be the first time you'll be forced into a Duel, so take them!"

After a while, Gohan took both items, but waited for Yugi and Kaiba, both of whom were still inside the Virtual World, while everyone else headed back to the blimp. Remembering one other thing Yugi needed help with, he questioned Noah about the identity and possible whereabouts of Mrs. Muto, but strangely enough, there was no data on either of those subjects. Once Yugi and Kaiba were free, all three of them ran back to the blimp and took off just before the orbital strike hit, just barely escaping the resulting explosion. After that, the Battle City tournament resumed, and Kaiba, Marik, Yugi and Joey, when they arrived at the island, were set to Duel in a four way free-for-all to which no spectators were allowed, so Gohan tried practicing his skills in a non-tournament duel with Ishizu in the meantime.

The finals did pique Gohan's interest a bit. The first semi final round kept his attention as it seemed to test not only dueling skill, but physical endurance as well, as Joey faced off against Marik. He almost won, but collapsed at the end due to the pain suffered as a result of all the physical damage dealt to him as part of the "Shadow Game". The last semi final was watched by Gohan in mid-air and, surprisingly, a God vs. God scenario nearly blew him away from the Duel Tower. The Final round was a cause for concern though: the very souls of Yugi and the real Marik were at stake. Gohan, for the first time since sensing the Pharaoh inside Yugi, saw that the two separate power levels he had been sensing inside one body had just become one for the body that the Pharaoh was using, and one for Yugi, who hung shackled by the shadows in the air. It was a very close call, but after the man who originally posed as Marik came up to the Duel Tower, the dark presence that had since taken over Marik's body suddenly found himself trying to retain control over it, and eventually it was damaged enough that the real Marik could regain control and surrender the Duel, saving Yugi and destroying the dark presence once and for all.

With Yugi's victory came an announcement: the island was going to be destroyed. However, as it turned out, the blimp was powerless so everyone, save for Yugi and Gohan, was stranded. The solution to the problem soon arrived: a helicopter that was originally meant to get Joey to a hospital, and with everybody on board the blimp informed that they shall instead be using said helicopter, it took off with about a minute to spare before the Duel Tower island was rocked by explosions, and a jet in the shape of a Blue Eyes White Dragon emerged with the Kaiba Brothers inside. Ishizu, Marik and their stepbrother Odion later left for their home after requesting to be Yugi's guides when he visits Egypt, and after that, Mai and Duke parted as well. Gohan only left for Mount Paozu after getting to say hi to Solomon Muto. It was kind of essential that Gohan get back home: he had missed out on two days of training, and according to the warning they got, the Androids were on the horizon.

Meanwhile, a day later in a little village in an undisclosed location, one of the villagers was rushing to one of the houses. After entering, he knelt, stared into the dark corners of the dwelling and spoke: "My Lady, I think I found something that you may like to know."

"Really?" spoke a female voice.

"Yes, my Lady."

"Well?"

"It involves one of the Saiyans we discussed," after which he held out a report. A hand reached out of the darkness and took it away from him, and then both withdrew back into the shadows. "This is very interesting indeed. You may go," the female voice spoke after a few minutes. Once the villager was gone, words could be heard echoing through the hut: "From the sounds of it, he's getting quite rowdy. I may have to keep an eye on him."