Chapter 1 – Pilot - Part 1

U.S.A, Las Vegas, July 2008, 8.25 AM

Exiting out of a yellow taxi to the pathway was a young man that had a mixture of colours in his hair, most of which was concealed by a simple leather brown cattleman hat resting on his head. His hair was primarily covered with crimson red hair that went down into a braided ponytail, however there was a streak of violet purple on the upper portion of his large fringe, light baby blue on the lower part. He wore fresh dark brown hiking boots that looked as if they were the first time they were worn, followed by cargo trousers of a slightly lighter shade of brown. On his upper body he had sleeveless, navy-blue vest jacket that was thin on his body and a simple, blank, crimson red shirt without any branding or pattern that matched much of his hair underneath. His blue eyes squinted looking at the sunlight as he came out of the taxi, shielding his eyesight with his slightly tanned arms, as he was not yet adjusted to the sweltering heat of Las Vegas. He moved to the boot of the car and grabbed two bags; one that was a large black leather backpack with a tent attached and the other a leather brown duffel bag, closing the boot of the taxi as he did so.

"Keep the change" the young man spoke in a cold, simple manner. The taxi driver nodded and wordlessly pocketed the money, leaving as quickly as he came.

Avoiding the crowds in the street, the young man focused his attention to the building he had arrived nearby; an extravagant, well-polished casino hotel with bustling crowds of people with similar sized luggage coming in and out. The young man carried his belongings up a small flight of stairs to arrive at the entrance, avoiding groups of chatting people as he did so, looking up at the ridiculously large blue banner that was displayed proudly at the front entrance. It simply read in a silver stylized font, KaibaCorp's Odyssey Tournament.

"Leave it up to the Kaiba Corporation for unnecessary theatrics" he thought, as he would have believed that since a large array of the crowds only needed to be here for a short time, it would have been a lot more cost-efficient to have booked out a smaller venue. "But at least I can keep a low profile here for the time being".

As he made his way into the casino, what he was able to see through the crowds didn't feel like much of a casino at all, though there were still many people and the building itself still carried prestige, a large amount of the slot machines and game tables had moved aside to the more quieter corners of the building, and had been replaced with rows of fancy tables that had been covered with playmats that had famous Duel Monsters depicted on them: the one's he saw had art of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Dark Magician, Cyber End Dragon and the Ancient Gear Golem. The seats were almost all taken, many of the people sitting down were either duelling or looking through their respective decks.

Before he was able to reach down to the red and gold carpeted floor to grab a bottle of half-drank water from the pouch of his backpack, a loud but quick melody could be heard through the speakers of the building, to which everyone in the building perked up and listened attentively to what everyone knew to be an important announcement.

"Attention Duellists!" a masculine voice boomed through the speaker. "The time is now 8:30AM. The main venue of building will now be opening. Please make your way to the venue now as the Odyssey Tournament opening ceremonies will commence in two minutes!".

Everyone in eyeshot immediately began to pack up their belongings and carry them as fast as possible through the casino to get to the doors of the main venue. Although there was easily enough space for three people to fit into the doors at a time, there were still many people squeezing through the doors to be in the venue first as if in a desperate frenzy. The young man in the hat took his time to get in, attempting to remain inconspicuous amongst the flocks of duellists.

In the main venue appeared as if the world's largest televised theatre production was about to begin; standing at the back of the venue was a large theatre stage which had the two of the same banners from the entrance above and below it. Looking up you could see the walls were painted in red and purple, with a domed roof that had an eloquent mosaic design above. You could either walk down a small staircase to the main part of the venue that was in front of the stage and stand up to watch the ceremony with most of the crowd or go around left or right to the multiple rows of the gallery above to sit down and get a higher view. The young man managed to get space in the centre of the crowd on the main floor that had a KaibaCorp themed carpet. From what little he could see in front of him he could tell that in front of the stage was a barrier that had multiple different camera crews from different television companies with large monitors and a tough-looking security team on the other side to stop anyone attempting to sabotage the event and get on stage. There was even more camera staff hanging from elevated platforms nearby the gallery.

Suddenly, the lights in the building dimmed with multiple white lights spinning around above. The doors into the venue were closed. The same voice from the speaker from minutes before spoke in a loud voice that controlled the tension in the venue.

"To kick off our ceremonies, everyone please welcome Mr Mokuba Kaiba!"

Loud clapping and applause erupted from the crowds as a late teenage Mokuba Kaiba stepped into view on the stage, large lights following him as he went to the centre. He had grown out his hair in almost wild fashion, but he was wearing a finely pressed silver tuxedo suit that shone in the light. He raised his KaibaCorp logo microphone to speak.

"Thank you everyone for joining us for the KaibaCorp Tournament!" his voice boomed through the venue, as he gave strong, charismatic gravitas. "As you may know, with the help of Industrial Illusions, we are about to commence a unique kind of tournament the duelling world has never seen before!" he waved his hand powerfully in the air, getting a strong reaction from much of the crowd. Flashing lights of cameras shined as photographers in the front row took their photos as he held his pose. "The winner of which will receive 200,000 dollars!" Much of the crowd cheered and whooped. "As my brother Seto would say, Duel Monsters was not only about the strategy of the game, but the trials and tribulations each duellist had to endure in order to truly succeed. Now we will finally put his beliefs to the test on a much wider scale! The Odyssey tournament will make duellists ride on horseback, as soldiers did many centuries ago. Each duellist will have to travel for days to get to the next phase of the tournament, while duelling against opponents on the way!".

On cue, a tall man with sunglasses came to view on the stage, guiding a horse to the front near Mokuba. As instructed earlier, the photographers took off the flash from their cameras to not scare the horse on stage.

"Every duellist will be given a horse that matches their height and weight, to give everyone equal footing in the tournament" Mokuba continued. "We will also give everyone a credit card specifically for feeding your horse as the tournament goes on" he brandished the KaibaCorp card for the crowd to see. Behind him, there was a screen that zoomed on his hand so everyone could clearly see the card he was holding. As quickly as they came, the man and the horse exited from view of the stage.

"We will now be revealing the new duel disk that will be used in the tournament! Introducing the Odyssey Duel Disk!"

From where the horse arrived, a blonde-haired woman in a similar suit from the man in sunglasses walked onto the stage, carrying what appeared to be two copies of the new duel disk on a large navy-blue cushion. As the screen zoomed in to see the new duel disk, the young man in the hat saw that it had a smooth silver design, the usual baby blue and red arrow for each monster zone was instead changed to dark blue and an orange arrow. In the centre of the duel disk where the life point total was usually shown was a screen with a dark blue casing. It was able to show not only the life point total of the multiple players, but also their fields as well. Where the compartment for the graveyard was, also in dark blue, had the initials 'GY' for Graveyard and was also joined by two smaller compartments, one on the left and one on the right. The one on the left had the initials 'ED' for Extra Deck and the right had 'BZ' for Banish Zone. On the left side of the screen appeared to be a laser pointer.

The young man in the hat could not believe that KaibaCorp was able to keep the design of the duel disk a secret for so long, given that people had been speculating for a while and the media would be desperate to leak any evidence of it.

Mokuba carefully took one of the duel disks and attached the duel disk to his arm. "The new Odyssey Duel Disk comes with an automatic deck shuffler that does not damage any of the cards to ensure fair play!" As he spoke Mokuba placed a deck of Duel Monsters cards into deck compartment on the side of the disk, two seconds after he did so the cards began to shift and shuffle through each other at a rapid pace, then came to an instant halt, much to the wide-eyed amazement of much of the crowd.

The blonde-haired woman did the same with the other disk as she and Mokuba turned sideways to face each other.

"How duellists will engage each other in a duel will be using this laser to activate each other's duel disks!" as Mokuba pointed to the laser, he then pressed a button which shot out a laser beam of red light which hit the woman's duel disk, causing both blades of each of their duel disks to snap together, then a pen like click sound from inside the duel disk could be heard, followed by a constant beeping to signify a duel.

"By firing at the disk, a signal activates from within the disk, initiating a duel, the laser can also connect to another's disk through clothes and bags" Mokuba said, tapping the side of the disk. "After a duel is initiated, it cannot be declined or deactivated, so a duel must take place. However, you cannot enter another duel before the sixty-minute time limit is over. Any tampering with your duel disk, and it will be an automatic disqualification from the tournament. Which then brings me to the rules."

The crowd somehow perked up even more, even the people like the young man in the hat who hadn't expressed any outward expression, listened closer as this would be the most important part of Mokuba's speech thus far.

The woman took off her disk and left the stage as Mokuba directed the crowd to the screen behind him which read 'Phase One'.

"There will be eight phases in the tournament, the first being to travel from here, Las Vegas, to a small town called Battle Mountain, in five days! The catch being that before you can get the goal and complete the phase, on your journey you must get three wins from other duellists to put on your duel disk record while avoiding three losses. Getting three losses or failure to get to the location on time will result in an elimination from the tournament. Finally, we will be using the latest format of play, meaning the new ritual summoning rules will be in effect."

Murmurings could be heard across the crowd. The young man in the hat remained silent.

"The tournament will truly begin dead-on 2PM at a KaibaCorp post at Moccasin Road near Veteran's Memorial Highway, so make sure you're ready! We will check for your measurements, and you will receive your horse there! As you exit be sure to pick up an information leaflet and your duel disk in the main building! That's all you need to hear, so I will see you all very soon! Best of luck, you'll probably need it!"

The curtains in the stage came together to conceal it, Mokuba staying in the middle of the stage in a pose until he was out of sight, crowd clapping all the while. Then, another melody came from the speakers.

"Attention Duellists! Please return to the main building and officially register!"

As the hordes of duellists dispersed into the main building, the young man saw that the tables had been removed and replaced with several booths to register, all spaced out with tons upon tons of boxes for the new duel disk. Like sports fans lining up to get a ticket to the next game, the crowds queued up with the lines stretching incredibly far. He waited half an hour before finally making it to the front of his line, standing in front of the booth desk with a bearded man in a suit sitting down to greet him.

"Forename and surname please" the suited man said.

"Yudan Raines" the young man responded.

The man in the suit took a moment to process what he had just heard.

"Oh… like in Raines Railways?"

"Coincidence" Yudan said flatly.

"Alright…" the man began to type away on a computer. "Nationality?"

"Japanese – American."

"Age?"

"Eighteen."

"OK, here is your duel disk, your horse credit and your Odyssey Identification card" he handed a duel disk box, a KaibaCorp-themed card and a red card with a gold streak that had Yudan's information to him. "You'll need to show it to the staff at the post to let you in and give access to your horse. Be sure not to lose it".

"I won't."

Yudan left the booth with his new belongings and placed his Odyssey duel disk in his duffel bag and zipping up his cards into back pocket of his bag, unbeknownst to him, catching the eye of similarly aged man as he went past what was left of the queue. He was slightly taller and muscular than most of the men in the venue, but not enough to catch people's attention. His unkempt black hair matched the tight dark grey shirt he was wearing, along with his dark blue shoes and worn, branded, grey jogging bottoms with dulled white lines going down them. He had a black tracksuit jacket that was tied firmly to his waist. His brown eyes carefully followed Yudan's every move into a small bar nearby until he left his sight through a corner.

When the man left from the booth he went to sit with a meek-looking, brown-haired man who looked a similar age, sitting outside of view from the bar portion of the casino, eyes locked on his phone in worry. He was wearing a black vest over a white shirt with clean black trousers and shoes. They sat down at one of the tables that was spare.

"Oh, hey Mason, how did the ceremony g- "

"You won't believe who I saw on the way back!" Mason interrupted, speaking in his Texan accent. "Eric, I found that guy from the poster! He actually showed up!"

"What? That Yudan Raines guy?" Eric replied. "You're not actually thinking about trying to sabotage your chances in the tournament just to get that money, right?"

"Forget the tournament! If I manage to make sure this guy doesn't compete, I'm set!"

Eric couldn't believe Mason's audacity. "B- But how would you even do that? A-Are you going to cripple him or something?"

"I won't need to be that extreme. The guys at the booths said if you don't have your I.D card when the tournament starts, you can't compete! All I gotta do is get it from him!"

"But HOW?"

"Don't worry, I have a plan" Mason said slyly. "All I need is a helping hand."

Mason whispered into Eric's ear for a minute, going over the details of his plan. Eric gulped.

"I can't do this! If this goes wrong, I'm losing my job!"

"Think about it! It's like a ninety percent chance to win the lottery!" Mason grabbed Eric by the shoulder in reassurance. "We'll split the 50,000-dollar bounty both ways, that will clear your debt no problem, won't it?"

"B-B-Bu I-I can't w-we…. Oh fine!"

Mason grinned. "That's what I like to hear, now go put our plan into action."

Yudan sat idly by one of the seats of the bar, finishing off one of the only non-alcoholic drinks there, a glass of raspberry juice. He left his seat and went to grab his bags when all of a sudden, he hit something, falling to the ground with a clatter. When he looked up, he saw one of the bartenders had accidentally walked into him as they went past, dropping their tray of coasters and red plastic straws. The bartender was in a bit of a panic.

"S-So sorry! I'll clean this u- "

"No, it's OK" Yudan put down his backpack and knelt down. "I'll help".

Yudan picked up what he could of the straws and coasters, placing them back on the tray, the bartender leaving silently past him through the door.

Yudan ordered a cold bottle of water from the bar and looked through his belongings to make sure he had everything ready and hadn't forgotten anything. Spare clothes, check. Passport, check. New duel disk check. I.D card…...

"I swore I picked it up, and I put it in here…." He thought as he began to panic, scrambling through the zip pocket of the bag in case it moved as he was walking around. "No…. this is not happening, not after all the trouble, what it took just to get here, I need to retrace my steps, what I was doing, last thing I was doing, I was…."

Yudan came to a realization.

"Hey, did ya snag it?" Mason had been waiting impatiently by the table for Eric's return.

"I did! It actually worked!" Eric passed over the I.D card to prove it.

"Great! Now all we need to do is contact them, show this card to prove we did the dirty work, and watch the dough rake in! This is going the easiest payday that I've ever- "

"HEY!"

They both turned around to see Yudan was standing right by them, furious. "What do you think your doing with my card!?"

Mason turned back to Eric. "I thought ya would have lost him!?"

"I thought I did!"

"HEY, I'm talking! What do you think you're trying to do with that!? That's not going to let you in, you know!"

"Mason, the jig is up! We need to cut our losses and give it up!" Eric shuddered.

"Don't worry, I'll handle this!" Mason passed him a camera and turned back to face Yudan, revealing the card to him. "We know we can't get in using this, but we can't just give it back ya know! A lot of good cash to earn by keeping you out of the tournament!"

"What!?" Yudan's fears had turned to reality. "Give me one reason not to grab security! If it's the Kaiba Corporation you're dealing with, they'll be on you like a ton of bricks!"

"One reason, that's all?" Mason bluffed. "Well for a start if you cause too much of a scene, everyone'll figure out that your Yudan Raines, and they'll be on ya like a pack of German shepherds!"

Yudan thought he was correct; if the other duellists found out who he was, even if he gets his I.D card back he'd have too many people trying to sabotage him in the tournament. But he needed to find out I way to get back the card, or everything he'd done would be for nothing.

"We'll duel for it."

"What?"

"A duel. Winner keeps the card."

"Why should I do that when I can just leave?"

"You gave your friend a camera, right? I imagine that was for photographic evidence in case I tried to fight it off you, but instead he can film our duel. That way, you could prove to security that I wagered it in a gamble and lost it fairly, so you'd be free to leave."

Mason pondered the challenge.

"Mason, this is bad, you can't do this!" Eric shuddered again.

"I can and I will! Hell, this will probably be a good warm-up if I decide to still go with the tournament anyway" Mason boasted. "And don't worry, I know a place where we can duel with a little privacy".

"You do?" Yudan asked.

"Yeah! There's a big 'ol duelling arena on the top floor, fitting for a serious wager like this! We'll meet there in five minutes, whaddya say?"

"Deal."

To the surprise of Mason and Eric, Yudan's eyes left them and he walked straight off to the elevator nearby.

"I think you've bitten off more than you can chew" Eric said to Mason.

"If anyone's bitten off more than they can chew, it's him, just stick to the wager and make sure that camera's ready!"

As Mason and Eric arrived at the top floor, they saw clear as day Yudan in the new duel disk, standing in a large arena that had white lines painted on the floor which formed what looked like a tennis court. Yudan stood in the upper half of the arena which was coloured in a ruby-red, Mason grabbed his Odyssey duel disk and walked to the other half which was coloured in a light blue. Eric went past and stood to the side near the many tables nearby that had small groups of people minding their own business. He turned on the camera and faced it to the two duellists, trying to keep his hands steady, but shaking from anxiety regardless.

"I assume you still have the card?" Yudan said, facing Mason.

"Obviously!" Mason threw the red and gold card to the centre line of the arena, in between the two duellists. "Get ready to say goodbye to t- "

Yudan had activated the laser on his disk, firing it towards Mason's, which hit the disk's centre screen dead-on, causing the two blades of both of the duel disks to snap together, followed by a click and beeping to signify the disk was ready, all of which made Mason jump, keeping him on edge.

"You think you're really funny, don't ya?"

"No need for back and forth, we've spoken enough, let's just get straight to it."

Then, as they both pressed the 'Ready' button on the screen, the two holographic projectors, one on the left, other on the right, launched out from both of the disks at the centre, making a few guests shield themselves instinctively as they glided by to the edges of each corner of the lined area. They then unfolded out to project rainbow lights like a lava lamp, ready for the holograms to be used and the duel to begin. Both duellists put they're respective main and extra decks in the correct compartment, decks whizzing through as they automatically shuffled. They looked at their screens to show the empty field and their names – Yudan Raines VS Mason Arthurs.

A coin flipped on the screen, next to their names, Yudan with a heads, Mason a tails. The coin landed on tails, meaning Mason would go first.

"Remember what's at stake here, Mason!"

"I know, I know Eric! Just record and enjoy the show!" Mason shouted.

Yudan thought if this duel was anything, it was not a show.

The two young men readied themselves and yelled a declaration as if completely in sync with one another.

"DUEL!"

END OF CHAPTER