Blademaster
15th June 2007, 12:12 PM
Hello, duelists, video gamers, and fanfiction-lovers alike.
Blade here, and after a two-week delay of computer problems and failed solutions to said problem, I'm finally ready to post the first chapter of my latest fanfic: Yu-Gi-Oh!: Twilight Princess. I suggest you check out the trailer first if you haven't already done so, in order to get a better idea of what's going on in some places.
...Done? OK, let's begin.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of its affiliated characters, ideas, plots, settings, storylines, or products, all of which are property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami. I also do not own the Legend of Zelda franchise or any of its affiliated characters, ideas, plots, settings, storylines, or products, all of which are property of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo. What I do own is this story, my characters, and my made-up cards.
And that's the only time I'm gonna say it, so...
Let's go.
Hooves pounded against the dark soil.
A magnificent steed, with a mane of golden hair and a coat the color of fresh cream, charged across the open plains, which spread out for miles on all sides before a majestic castle. Under normal circumstances, the vista would be a true sight to behold - a verdant view of the magnificent kingdom of Hyrule in all of its ancient glory.
Unfortunately, that day was one that none would ever dare to call normal...
Astride the galloping marvel was a beautiful female figure with braided hair the color of honey and sapphire-blue eyes, which matched the earrings hanging from her pointed ears. No older than 25, the lovely woman was garbed in a pale pink dress with a violet wrap around the midriff and golden pads draped over her shoulders, which matched her ornate, bird-shaped necklace and tiara, as well as the scale-shaped brooch on her stomach, suspended from the latter of which was the Coat of Arms (for lack of a better term) of her kingdom. White gloves concealed her forearms and hands, one which clutched a gold-rimmed blue shield inscribed with the same 'Coat of Arms' as her dress bore and the other of which held a thin, gold-hilted sword with purple velvet wrapping the handle.
The regal woman slowly coaxed her horse to a stop and looked up at the sky, her visage twisted with fear and anger.
'The sky is clouded with darkness...' she thought. 'The winds sting and whip at my skin...'
She lowered her gaze.
'This does not bode well - the Goddesses themselves are voicing their disapproval of all of this - they know as well as I do that in this battle, they cannot aid us. None can... It is our fight, and ours alone...'
"Princess Zelda!"
The regal woman turned her head - riding towards her on a pair of armored brown horses were two silver-clad figures, resembling medieval knights, but with a few differences - their crested helmets left their worry-wrought faces fully exposed; their gauntlets and boots seemingly devoid of plates or ridges, but rather pliant and smooth, like rubber. In their hands were shields and swords identical to hers, but less intricately designed and laiden with gold.
"Princess Zelda," one knight repeated, bowing his head as he spoke the name, "the army has assembled and is waiting for you to lead them into battle."
The woman, identified as Zelda, was silent for a moment.
"Princess Zelda...?" the knight repeated.
"You're Majesty?" the second one added.
"How many have assembled?" Zelda asked after a moment's hesitation.
"We were unable to attain an exact number, but there are at least 150,000." the first knight replied.
Zelda's stomach turned to ice. She knew that the impending war would be the bloodiest in the history of Hyrule - if not in the history of humankind. Of the 150,000 soldiers to fight, she knew at least 90% of them wouldn't return, and the opposing armies - enemies as they were, they were still her people - would suffer just as much.
"In the name of Farore..." she said under her breath, a lone tear forming in her eye.
"Excuse me, Princess?"
Zelda blinked back the tear and took a deep breath.
"Nothing... It was nothing." Zelda said, steering her horse around so she could face the knights. "Lead me to the assembly."
"Yes, Your Majesty." the knights said at once, their horses stepping aside to allow Zelda's to pass, then turning and following her.
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A few miles away, Hyrule Castle stood in all its splendor, towering over magnificent Hyrule City. A sight to behold it was, but while the city was normally complemented by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, it now seemed abandoned - devoid of any and all civilian activity. Any possible casualties had long since been evacuated to the relative safety of the surrounding cities. The once-prosperous Goron and Kakariko were now struggling to maintain enough supplies to sustain the evacuees, and the normally quiet villages of Kokiri and Ordona were now jam-packed with activity from the sudden population explosion.
However, Hyrule City was far from abandoned - lined up in front of Hyrule Castle's main gate as far as the eye could see were armored figures just like the two that were escorting Princess Zelda. But these figures were not all identical - some were short, some were tall; some were old, some were young; some were men, some were women; some were human, others were not. But they were all decked in silver armor, and each and every one of them carried a shield and some sort of a weapon, be it a sword, a lance, an axe, a hammer, a staff, a boomerang, a steel claw, or one of a hundred other different battle-ready armaments, each one more deadly than the last.
"This is it..." one knight who seemed to be wearing a welding mask said nervously. "This is the end..."
"Always the optomist, aren't you Barnes?" a beefier knight beside him said, a large mace resting on his shoulder as he looked over to his boisterous counterpart.
"Optomist?" Barnes echoed, his voice muffled and his armor rattling as he shuddered with fear. "Optomist?! We're about to go to WAR, Fado! This is a death sentence for men like us!"
"Speak for yourself." Fado replied, raising his mace for a moment before replacing it. "I'm not scared of those treasonous Gerudos or their maniacal king."
"Well I am." Barnes said, turning to face Fado. "And they aren't the only ones fighting us... What about the Twili...?"
Fado paused.
"The Twili..." he mused, tapping his mace against his shoulder. "They're a more serious threat in my opinion, but their numbers are small."
"Size doesn't always matter, brother." a guttural voice said behind them.
Barnes and Fado turned to the source of the noise behind them. Standing there in an extra-large suit of armor was a burly humanoid figure with skin the color of sand. Pale yellow stones clung to his joints and head, which seemed almost amphibian in design: his mouth was wide and his stern eyes were small and dark. Stone horns seemed to sprout from the sides of his head; slung over his back was a leathery bag filled with what looked like primitive bombs.
"The Twili are small in number," the creature said, "it's true, but they weild a deadly weapon, brothers - they weild the forbidden Twilight Magic. Just one of them could easily overpower a hundred of Hyrule's finest warriors."
"I knew it..." Barnes whined, hanging his head. "We're finished..."
"Don't sell yourself short just yet, Barnes." Fado urged. "We have no magic, it's true, but we have-"
Before Fado could finish, a loud voice spoke up from the front of the assembly.
"Silence!" a red-and-gold-armored knight with golden-blonde hair demanded. "Be silent, all of you - Her Royal Majesty has arrived and will now address you!"
The knights raised their weapons and cheered as the castle gates were opened, and out stepped Zelda's magnificent steed, with the Princess herself seated upon her back. The two knights who had guided her followed close behind.
"Silence!!" the red-and-gold-armored knight ordered again, raising his sword in the hopes of silencing the rowdy soldiers. "Be silent, I say!"
"No..." Zelda said.
The knight turned and looked up at Zelda, a confused expression on his face.
"But Zelda..." he began.
"Let them express themselves, Link..." the Princess said solemnly. "You know as well as I do that this may be the last time many of them will ever have the chance to..."
The knight, identified as Link, lowered his sword.
"Yes..." he said. "You're right..."
Zelda was silent for several minutes, waiting for the knights' cheers to subside. When finally the town square had fallen silent, Zelda's steed stepped forward, and the Princess spoke:
"Soldiers of Hyrule... We stand today on the verge of a war greater than any other in our kingdom's history. Ganon, king of the Gerudo tribe, has found the Triforce and made its power his own."
A large number of soldiers erupted into shouts of protest at this revelation.
"Ganon has the Triforce!?" one screamed. "We don't stand a chance!"
"This is a suicide mission!" another hollered.
"He'll slaughter us like pigs!" yet another one yelled.
"SILENCE!!!" Link demanded, the vein in his forehead bulging. "Be quiet, all of you!! Princess Zelda has led the Hylian Army to victory time and time again! On what grounds do you dare to question her capabilities?!"
"But if Ganon has the Triforce, then we don't stand a chance against him!" one soldier repeated.
Link paused for a moment, but before he could speak, Zelda interrupted him:
"Ganon does not have the Triforce."
The soldiers immediately fell silent.
"Do not misunderstand my words." Zelda said sternly. "Ganon has not the Triforce, but the power it possesses...
As many of you may recall, the legend of the Triforce is that it is the incarnation of the three driving forces of the Universe: power, wisdom, and courage. Only one of a pure and perfectly-aligned heart may weild all three facets of the Triforce. Do any of you truly believe Ganon is a man of purity and balance?"
The silence that fell across the crowd was enough that a pin dropping would have not only been audible, but it would have echoed as well.
"As I suspected..." Zelda mused. "Ganon is a ruthless warlord - he is powerful, but he is neither brave nor intelligent. Once he found the Triforce, only its power imbued him; its wisdom and courage were lost... Ganon has made himself all-powerful, but not invincible...
Also, Ganon is not our only enemy in this battle - Princess Midna, ruler of the Twili tribe, has betrayed us - she has been ordering searches for the Triforce, just as Ganon has, and is intent on slaying both his army and the army of Hyrule in order to attain it. The Twili tribe has been preparing for this battle through the practice of the magic of the Twilight Realm. Though their tribe is small, the Twili have perfected the dark art; this makes them just as deadly as the Gerudos. They must be stopped at all costs."
Zelda paused for a moment, lowering her gaze. She looked down at the ground, silent, until she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She looked up - and into Link's eyes.
Link looked back at Zelda, his fear and uncertainty almost unreadable. Only a twinkle in his eye suggested what he was truly feeling. He was scared. They all were.
But they had to act - no matter what the outcome may have been.
Zelda looked at Link, then back at the army spread before her.
"Soldiers of Hyrule..." she said solemnly. "Our enemies are powerful. Though they are united against one another, they are more united against us. We are all that stands between them and the downfall of Hyrule...
But as bleak as our predicament seems, we cannot lose hope. We will clash swords with the Gerudos and the Twilis not for power, not for conquest or expansion, but for our right to survive... We are fighting today for our lives, and the lives of our friends and families... Because if we fall in battle today, everyone and everything we hold dear will be lost...
That is why we are fighting today - when we are on the battlefield, we must remember the ones we love... They and our kingdom of Hyrule - our home and the people we share it with - it is our duty to protect them at all costs! We will not relinquish them without a fight!"
The soldiers raised their weapons and gave a cheer.
"We shall not be defeated! We will triumph!"
The soldiers cheered even louder.
"Today, our combined might will dispel the darkness once and for all!"
The soldiers held their arms high over their heads and yelled as loudly as they could, their combined cheers and battlecries echoing through the entire city.
The only ones not cheering were Zelda and Link, who looked at each other silently for a moment, until Zelda finally said what she and Link were both thinking:
"It is time."
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One hundred and fifty thousand Hyrulian soldiers marched across the vast plains of Hyrule, shields and swords raised for battle. They were assembled in a massive formation that stretched for countless miles.
Spanning a hundred soldiers across, the army was led by Zelda and Link, flanked on either side by 5 horsemen bearing the Hyrulian flag. Behind them, Hyrule's finest horsemen sat astride ten thousand horses, each one fully armored, fed, and bred to perfection. And behind them, marching in perfect unison, were well over one hundred thousand footsoldiers.
Their destination was the vast expanse of the Gerudo Desert to the northeast, where Ganon's castle stood, surrounded by dozens of fortresses and thousands of cannonholders, swordsmen, catapults, archers, stockade towers, barriers, and countless other types of defenses intent on keeping unwelcome intruders away. Fortified by such obstacles on one side and surrounded on the other three sides by thousands of miles of arid, merciless desert, Ganon's castle was nearly unassailable.
As the grassy plains and rolling hills of Hyrule began to give way to barren, parched wasteland and jagged ridges, Zelda coaxed her horse to a stop. Link and the flag bearers stopped beside her, as did the rest of the army a few yards back.
At least three times as far from Zelda's army as Hyrule Castle stood Ganon's stronghold - a massive, black, sinister replica of Hyrule Castle surrounded by more guards and fortifications than ten Fort Knox's.
"Link..." Zelda mused. "Something is not right..."
Link squinted at the castle, then turned slightly towards Zelda.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I don't know..." Zelda replied. "But the fields of Hyrule are eerily calm today..."
She reached into her dress and pulled out a wooden object shaped like a hockey puck. Its top and bottom seemed to be made of polished crystal, almost transparent in color and smoothness, and were both surrounded by a band of black metal. On the side of the object was a small wooden dial with a notch carved into one side; the dial was surrounded by 4 odd symbols written in some sort of black dye.
Zelda twisted the object by its top; it promptly elongated into an eyepiece about 8 inches in length. She held the ocular to her eye and peered through it, at Ganon's castle.
The stronghold rose up in the distance, just as she saw it without her eyeglass.
Zelda twisted the dial to the right with her free hand.
The castle stood before her, magnified to the extent that she could no longer view the entire structure without moving the eyepiece.
Zelda twisted the dial to the right again.
The black bricks of the castle were visible in detail now. Zelda moved the eyepiece downward, eventually catching sight of one of Ganon's sniper towers. Each and every one of these tall structures were manned by at least 2 archers at a time, every hour of the day.
But right now, the tower was unmanned...
Zelda's eyes widened; she quickly lowered her gaze to the dry desert at the foot of the castle.
Immediately, her view was blocked by a sea of blackness - tens of thousands of armored figures astride black horses and camels were marching away from the castle, and towards Hyrule City. Each and every one of the dark warriors seemed to wear identical black, full-body armor, except for the one at the very front of the formation...
He was a hideous man, a full seven feet tall not including the height his pitch-black stallion added to him. His skin was a dusty grey-brown, like the desert sand itself, and his eyes were a shade of brown that made them seem almost yellow. His nose was pointed like the beak of some fierce bird, and his red hair was spiked back above and behind his head, his near-baldness concealed by a silver charm with a yellow gem, strapped around his scalp just above his thick, fiery eyebrows. His attire was bizarre at best, consisting of black shoulderpads and armguards situated over a brown-and-white vest and trunks, which in turn were worn over dark-brown pants, black kneepads with yellow studs, and thick brown boots wrapped with white cloth marked with red and blue symbols. On his hands were a pair of gloves the same color as his skin, with black gauntlets and those same white cloths wrapping the forearms. A long, thin sword was sheathed at his waist, and completing the costume was an embroidered Gerudo cape the color of fresh blood that draped from his back.
"Ganon..." Zelda whispered, her voice dripping with contempt.
Through her looking glass, Zelda saw Ganon looking across the sweeping plains, his eyes falling on Hyrule Castle.
And then, he lowered his gaze.
And looked right at Zelda.
A wicked smile crossed the Gerudo king's face; to Zelda's horror, he raised his right hand so that the back of his gauntlet faced Zelda...
A golden triangle appeared on the back of his gauntlet, its golden glow the single point of light in Ganon's dark army. Though she was miles out of earshot, Zelda could still hear Ganon chuckling.
The triangle on Ganon's hand faded; his eyes still locked on Zelda, he held his hand out to his side and pointed, glancing breifly in the direction he pointed in before looking back at her and smirking.
Zelda lowered her eyeglass for a moment, then glanced to her left and raised the ocular again, looking across the plains to the northwest...
Standing silently on the plains as far as the eye could see were thousands of figures in black robes that concealed their entire bodies. Marked by odd, luminous green blyphs, the eerie figures were strangely still, almost like statues.
But as still as they were, Zelda could feel their eyes on her and her army. The figures produced an aura of pure darkness, which eminated from them in the form of small black squares that seemed to tear away from them and drift into nothingness or become 2-dimensional and disappear.
At the head of the army was a tall, decidedly female figure. Though she was clad in the same full-body cloak her disciples wore, her hood was withdrawn enough to make out her flowing red hair that fell to the sides of her face and was bound beneath her chin, a silver tiara resembling a pair of antennae, and a pair of glowing yellow-and-red eyes with black pupils.
'What?' Zelda gasped mentally. 'Midna and her army are here, too? But, how could they have possibly known...?'
Zelda's eyes widened as the figure raised her arm and pointed towards the castle; she and her followers appeared to float forward over the plains.
Zelda turned her gaze back to Ganon's army; they were already advancing again.
Realizing the horrible truth of the situation, Zelda replaced her eyeglass and tugged on her steed's reins; she and her army marched forward, ready for battle.
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The three armies were soon in view of one another. Though the march had lasted only a few minutes, it seemed to drag on for hours.
And now, the three armies faced each other, none of them moving. A deadly silence hung over the field...
Beads of sweat ran down Zelda's forehead...
Midna's eyes darted from side to side, from Zelda's army to Ganon's and back again...
Ganon's lips curled into an arrogant smirk...
Link tightened his grip on the handle of his sword...
For a fraction of a second, everything seemed to go completely silent...
Ganon chuckled, and then he pulled his sword from its sheath and raised it, pulling back on his horse's reins.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Ganon's horse reared up on two legs as the Gerudo king yelled a fierce war cry; immediately one of his soldiers followed suit. Then two more, and then five more... Within seconds, Ganon's entire army had drawn their weapons and were hollering savagely; a second later, Ganon's horse hit the ground running, the entire Gerudo army right behind.
Zelda narrowed her eyes and turned her gaze to Midna.
Midna stood perfectly still, a smug smile on her face as she watched the battle unfold.
Zelda turned her attention back to Ganon; pushing all traces of doubt and worry out of her mind, she raised her sword.
"TO BATTLE!!"
With that shout, Zelda had roused the entire army to draw their weapons. Raising his sword, Link spurred his horse into action alongside Zelda's, the horsemen and footsoldiers of Hyrule following right behind.
The two armies charged at one another, covering hundreds of feet per second. Completely the opposite of the seemingly eternal silence from a moment earlier, time seemed to speed up as the armies charged at one another, Ganon's eyes locked onto Zelda's and Link's at the same time.
The cries of the knights and the roars of their footseps grew deafening as the armies crashed into each other headfirst.
Warcrying knights...
Roaring flames...
Slashing swords...
The sounds of war filled the air, a deafening cacophony of pain and anguish as the soldiers clashed all around their leaders - Ganon and Zelda rushed at each other, swords raised high. They drew closer and closer to one another...
Their swords swung down like twin guillotines.
CLANG!
The war had begun...
YU-GI-OH!: TWILIGHT PRINCESS
Chapter 1
Predestined Meeting
The two swords pushed and ground at one another, sparks flying from their blades as they repelled one another.
Finally, one sword pushed down over the other, and the dominant sword's weilder - a human-shaped figure in black full-body armor covered with gnarled spikes - swung the blade, slashing his adversay in half. The two halves of the red-and black robot warrior crackled as they fell back, and then they exploded in a fiery blast of pixelated metal.
Two youthful male eyes - one blue, one green - narrowed as the Robotic Knight's controller's Life Points fell to 2700.
"Not bad..." the boy said in a young, airy voice as he picked a stray piece of holographic scrap metal from his stringy red hair and tossed it away.
One hundred thousand years had passed since the great war of Hyrule - later known as the Imprisoning War - had ended. In that time, Hyrule had grown and flourished, and then weakened and collapsed. It was a magnificent kingdom, but it was still just that - a kingdom. It rose. And it fell.
And a thousand centuries later, it had been long since forgotten about completely, lost forever in the sands of time. Not even the world's foremost archaeologists had ever even heard its name...
So it came as no surprise that the students of the Golden Gate High School of Naples, Florida had never heard of the ancient kingdom either; it was probably just as well, though - the staff and students there had more important things to worry about, anyway: schoolwork, the upcoming championship game, keeping up with extracurriculars...
But for Roy Budokai and his friends, all of that took a backseat to dueling. For Roy, Duel Monsters wasn't just a card game - it was a way of life.
"I'll play one more card face-down and end my turn." Roy's opponent said. He inserted the card into his Duel Disk, and a hologram of a four foot-long facedown appeared in front of him, behind his Monster. His Life Points stood at 2100.
Roy drew a card, adding it to the other 3 in his hand.
"OK, Culstin," he said, "you and your Dark Blade better watch, 'cuz Roy-boy's got a plan!"
"Oh, really?" Culstin replied, smirking a cocky smirk. "Well, by all means, Roy, let's see it!"
"OK!" Roy agreed, placing a card on his Duel Disk. "First, I play Magnet Circle LV2, so now I can Special Summon a Level 2 Machine from my hand. And since I only have one such Monster in my hand... Bokoichi the Freightening Car, come on out in Attack Mode!"
Roy placed the card on his Duel Disk, and the unmistakeable sound of a train engine blared over the field. A round stretch of train tracks appeared around Roy, and on it sat a red freight car with some sort of a face sculpted into one end of the car. The small caboose rolled around the tracks, then stopped between Roy and his opponent's Dark Blade. Steam poured from a small smokestack mounted atop the locomotive. (500/500)
"Then," Roy said, switching cards on his disk, "I'll sacrifice Bokoichi in order to summon my Blowback Dragon! Attack Mode!"
With a toot, Bokoichi and its tracks vanished, and a much larger Machine rose up in its place. It resembled a mechanical dragon, made of blue-and-silver metal, but where its arms and head should have been there was instead a large groove, settled into which was a huge red laser pistol with a steel lower jaw attached to the bottom of the barrel. The jaw swung open, and a mechanical roar echoed from the Machine's mouth, along with a hissing cloud of steam. Several lights flashed to life over the creature's body as it whirred to life. (2300/1200)
"Now, I'll use Blowback Dragon's effect." Roy said, pointing at Culstin's face-down card. "I have a 2-in-3 chance of it blowing away your face-down card. Blowback Dragon, take aim!"
The Blowback Dragon swiveled its massive gun of a head and aimed it at Culstin's face-down card. A small red crosshair shaped like an 'X' appeared on the card. Then, two larger ones shaped like 'O's appeared on the ground on either side of the card. Blowback Dragon's head swiveled from side to side as the crosshairs scanned over the field, eventually choosing their targets and stopping.
Roy frowned - the smaller crosshair had stopped on the 'X,' but the larger one had stopped on the ground a few feet to the left of the card.
A beeping noise emitted from the Blowback Dragon, which seemed confused as to which crosshair to aim at. After a moment's hesitation, it aimed at the ground exactly in between the crosshairs and fired. A blob of shimmering blue plasma blasted from its barrel and zipped across the field, smashing into the pavement and exploding fantastically, but also harmlessly.
"...OK." Roy said, scratching his head. "Time for Plan B... Blowback Dragon, attack his Dark Blade! Plasma Pulse Blast!"
Blowback Dragon swiveled its massive head around and aimed it at Dark Blade. Several vents around the gun blowed with blue light; blue and white sparks crackled at the tip of the Dragon's snout...
"I activate my face-down card!" Culstin said, his face-down card flipping over. "Union of Opposing Souls!"
The face-down card lifted and revealed itself...
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j89/Soul_of_the_Phoenix/Union.jpg
"This Trap Card allows me to Special Summon a Union Monster from my hand and instantly attach it to a Unionize-able Monster on the field." Culstin explained. "And luckily for me, I just happen to have such a Monster right here: Kiryu, in Attack Mode!"
Culstin slapped the card down, and a huge dragon appeared beside Dark Blade. (2000/1000) At least thirty feet in length, the reddish-orange creature's segmented body combined with its long, beaklike snout made it look very familiar to Roy...
"Whoa." he said. "Somebody call Samus Aran - the Space Pirates are attacking!"
Culstin rolled his eyes.
Blowback Dragon's weapon fired, jettisoning a blob of glowing red energy at Dark Blade. But before it could hit, Dark Blade sheathed his swords, and then jumped up onto Kiryu's back. (1800/1500) , (2000/1000) - (2700/2400)
Dark Blade kicked Kiryu in the side; the Union Dragon responded with a furious roar and a blast of red flames that consumed the plasma - and then the Blowback Dragon itself. The Machine's silver body quickly turned a bright red, and then yellow; sparks began to fly from it, and then smoke and flames, until the Incinerated Machine finally shorted out and exploded in a blast of slag and scrap metal. Roy's Life Points dipped to 2300.
"Crap..." Roy muttered, sliding his last card into his Duel Disk. "I'll set a card face-down and end my turn.
A large face-down card appeared in front of Roy.
Culstin drew.
"Mystical Space Typhoon." he said nonchalantly.
"Damn it!" Roy cursed as a fierce wind blew across the field, flipping over his face-down Weapon Change and blowing it to bits.
"You never were any good at bluffing, Roy." Culstin said cockily. "Now, Yamikiryu Blade, attack him directly! Dragon Sword Swoop!"
Kiryu lifted its head and flapped its wings, lifting off the ground and circling high over the field, gaining altitude until it was at least a hundred feet up. The Dragon seemed to hang there, suspended for a moment, before looping through the air and diving at Roy. Like a meteor, a fiery aura surrounded the Union's bodies as it plunged to Earth, sword held forward like a joust, leaving Roy barely a second to react - all he had time for was a single, rushed thought:
'This... is gonna hurt...'
KER-FWOOOM!
With a mighty roar, the dragonic projectile slammed down on Roy with the force of a hundred pounds of TNT going off, sending up a great cloud of dust and smoke. When the cloud finally dispersed, a holographic crater 30 feet wide and fifteen feet deep is all that remained; at the bottom lay a battered, beaten Roy, his clothes and hair scorched black, and his Life Points at zero.
"Game, set, and match." Culstin said, walking up to Roy with a cocky grin on his face as the holograms vanished and the Duel Disks shut down, leaving neither Roy nor the blacktop he'd been standing on looking as much as scratched from the conflict.
Roy groaned and pushed himself up into a sitting position, his body swaying a little as it always did.
"WhoOOooaaaaa..." Roy said, almost sounding delirious from the attack. "Man... I'm gonna be feeling that for months!"
"Ah, don't be dramatic - you'll bounce back." Culstin replied, pulling the skinnier boy to his feet. "Speaking of bouncing, lunch is almost over. I'm gonna go get a burger. You coming?"
"Nah, I already ate." Roy replied.
"A bag of honey mustard pretzels doesn't count as lunch, dude."
"But I had a side dish, too...!"
"Which was...?"
"A... Mr. Goodbar?"
Culstin shook his head.
"Whatever,man." he said. "Your body, not mine. I'll catch ya later."
"OK."
As Culstin walked away, Roy heard a slow clapping from behind him.
"Another triumphant victory for Roy Budokai..." a sarcastic female voice said.
Roy rolled his eyes and turned around.
"Gimme a break, Amalia," he said flatly, "you know I haven't been having any luck since I stopped using my old deck..."
"Then why did you ever stop using it?" Amalia responded in a playfully snobbish voice.
Roy opened his mouth to answer, but he knew she was right - Amalia Lucetius was probably Roy's best friend, but that didn't stop her from busting his chops at every possible opportunity, usually by outsmarting him with almost no difficulty whatsoever, and today was no different.
"I... wanted... to experiment?" Roy replied sheepishly.
"Experiment?" Amalia echoed, her sparkling blue eyes narrowing at Roy in mock-disappointment. "Experiment in what, losing?"
"NO." Roy snapped back, causing Amalia to giggle. "I wanted to try a different deck because my old one was getting... well... old..."
"Oh, Roy..." she said, shaking her head at him like a big sister may do to her naive little brother. "Roy, Roy, Roy... Haven't you ever heard the saying 'Why change a good thing?'?"
"Yeah..." Roy responded slowly.
"And...?"
"...OK, OK,fine. Starting tomorrow, I'll bring the old deck back. At least it can't do any worse than the last three..."
"That's better." Amalia said matter-of-factly, taking him by the hand andleading him towards the school. "Now come on, let's go to lunch."
"Awwwwww...!" Roy whined as she led him away. "But I said I already ate!"
"Well you're gonna eat again." Amalia insisted, dragging him by the hand. You're too skinny - just look at how weak you are! You're being outmuscled by a 110-pound girl!"
Roy rolled his eyes, letting himself be pulled towards the cafeteria - he knew that when it came to Amalia, resistance was futile...
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Many people, when asked if they believe in alternate universes or parallel dimensions, would answer without giving the topic much thought. After all, such a question would indeed be complex, with serious scientific, religious, and philosophical viewpoints to take into consideration, all to answer a question that likely would not concern most people to begin with anyway.
So most people would either not understand, or if they did, care that in the exact location of Roy's and Amalia's high school, but on a parallel plane, there stood a landmark: a mirror of dull, silvery glass, etched with rings and runes, like heiroglyphs of a long-forgotten language. This mirror sat on a pedestal atop a staircase, facing a slab of flat, white stone, which had a single symbol engraved upon its center. That engraving was of three triangles - one on top of the other two - with a fourth triangle at their center.
The Triforce.
The mirror and the white obelisk stood on parched, sandy earth, its sickly brown-black color reflecting its inability to support any form of life. Surrounding the monument was a massive ring of seats resembling a dismal grey duplicate of the Roman Colloseum, and surrounding all of that was a dreary black fog, which hung unmovingly beneath a clouded, pink and orange sky resembling an eternal sunset.
But this sunset was not one any human would call beautiful: It was a cold and eerie curtain that hung like an executioner's axe over the land, waiting to fall at any time.
As barren and desolate as the twilit landscape was, however, this was not the reason no creatures lived there. The reason for the utter lack of life was because he frequently visited this place...
The tall, sinister figure looked up at the mirror to his left, and then to the stone pillar on his right.
He raised one of his clawed hands and waved it over the obelisk.
The two triangles on top of the engraving lit up with a white light around their edges, their interiors filling with a powerful golden light.
The lower triangle, however, only glowed very dimly, its edges only becoming a dull yellow; its inside flickering faintly.
The tall figure lowered his hand and narrowed his eyes - as dull as the third triangle was, it was still brighter than the last time he had seen it...
'I knew it - my divination was correct.' the figure thought. 'The third Triforce bearer will soon unite with the first two...'
The figure turned away from the monument.
"When all three bearers of the Triforce are united," the figure mused, "the doorway between the Realms of Light and Twilight will be opened once more... And when that happens..."
A deep, guttural chuckle escaped the figure's lips.
"The time finally draws near." he said, pure malice in his voice. "It is so close, I can almost taste it..."
The figure held out his arms, the thick sleeves wrapping them billowing briefly in the wind, and then, with a faint zipping noise, he simply vanished. The only indications he'd ever been there were the glowing of the emblem on the pillar, and the square pixels of pure shadow he'd left upon disappearing...
The first step is always the hardest, they say - let's see if things get any easier from here on out.
Next time, Amalia and a friend have a friendly duel, and there's some more filler stuff to get out of the way, along with the introduction of a main character... Butwill the newcomer turn out to be a friend or a foe?
Find out next time, in a chapter called "Turbo Mecha Overlord."
Don't miss it, or else!
Blade here, and after a two-week delay of computer problems and failed solutions to said problem, I'm finally ready to post the first chapter of my latest fanfic: Yu-Gi-Oh!: Twilight Princess. I suggest you check out the trailer first if you haven't already done so, in order to get a better idea of what's going on in some places.
...Done? OK, let's begin.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of its affiliated characters, ideas, plots, settings, storylines, or products, all of which are property of Kazuki Takahashi and Konami. I also do not own the Legend of Zelda franchise or any of its affiliated characters, ideas, plots, settings, storylines, or products, all of which are property of Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo. What I do own is this story, my characters, and my made-up cards.
And that's the only time I'm gonna say it, so...
Let's go.
Hooves pounded against the dark soil.
A magnificent steed, with a mane of golden hair and a coat the color of fresh cream, charged across the open plains, which spread out for miles on all sides before a majestic castle. Under normal circumstances, the vista would be a true sight to behold - a verdant view of the magnificent kingdom of Hyrule in all of its ancient glory.
Unfortunately, that day was one that none would ever dare to call normal...
Astride the galloping marvel was a beautiful female figure with braided hair the color of honey and sapphire-blue eyes, which matched the earrings hanging from her pointed ears. No older than 25, the lovely woman was garbed in a pale pink dress with a violet wrap around the midriff and golden pads draped over her shoulders, which matched her ornate, bird-shaped necklace and tiara, as well as the scale-shaped brooch on her stomach, suspended from the latter of which was the Coat of Arms (for lack of a better term) of her kingdom. White gloves concealed her forearms and hands, one which clutched a gold-rimmed blue shield inscribed with the same 'Coat of Arms' as her dress bore and the other of which held a thin, gold-hilted sword with purple velvet wrapping the handle.
The regal woman slowly coaxed her horse to a stop and looked up at the sky, her visage twisted with fear and anger.
'The sky is clouded with darkness...' she thought. 'The winds sting and whip at my skin...'
She lowered her gaze.
'This does not bode well - the Goddesses themselves are voicing their disapproval of all of this - they know as well as I do that in this battle, they cannot aid us. None can... It is our fight, and ours alone...'
"Princess Zelda!"
The regal woman turned her head - riding towards her on a pair of armored brown horses were two silver-clad figures, resembling medieval knights, but with a few differences - their crested helmets left their worry-wrought faces fully exposed; their gauntlets and boots seemingly devoid of plates or ridges, but rather pliant and smooth, like rubber. In their hands were shields and swords identical to hers, but less intricately designed and laiden with gold.
"Princess Zelda," one knight repeated, bowing his head as he spoke the name, "the army has assembled and is waiting for you to lead them into battle."
The woman, identified as Zelda, was silent for a moment.
"Princess Zelda...?" the knight repeated.
"You're Majesty?" the second one added.
"How many have assembled?" Zelda asked after a moment's hesitation.
"We were unable to attain an exact number, but there are at least 150,000." the first knight replied.
Zelda's stomach turned to ice. She knew that the impending war would be the bloodiest in the history of Hyrule - if not in the history of humankind. Of the 150,000 soldiers to fight, she knew at least 90% of them wouldn't return, and the opposing armies - enemies as they were, they were still her people - would suffer just as much.
"In the name of Farore..." she said under her breath, a lone tear forming in her eye.
"Excuse me, Princess?"
Zelda blinked back the tear and took a deep breath.
"Nothing... It was nothing." Zelda said, steering her horse around so she could face the knights. "Lead me to the assembly."
"Yes, Your Majesty." the knights said at once, their horses stepping aside to allow Zelda's to pass, then turning and following her.
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A few miles away, Hyrule Castle stood in all its splendor, towering over magnificent Hyrule City. A sight to behold it was, but while the city was normally complemented by hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, it now seemed abandoned - devoid of any and all civilian activity. Any possible casualties had long since been evacuated to the relative safety of the surrounding cities. The once-prosperous Goron and Kakariko were now struggling to maintain enough supplies to sustain the evacuees, and the normally quiet villages of Kokiri and Ordona were now jam-packed with activity from the sudden population explosion.
However, Hyrule City was far from abandoned - lined up in front of Hyrule Castle's main gate as far as the eye could see were armored figures just like the two that were escorting Princess Zelda. But these figures were not all identical - some were short, some were tall; some were old, some were young; some were men, some were women; some were human, others were not. But they were all decked in silver armor, and each and every one of them carried a shield and some sort of a weapon, be it a sword, a lance, an axe, a hammer, a staff, a boomerang, a steel claw, or one of a hundred other different battle-ready armaments, each one more deadly than the last.
"This is it..." one knight who seemed to be wearing a welding mask said nervously. "This is the end..."
"Always the optomist, aren't you Barnes?" a beefier knight beside him said, a large mace resting on his shoulder as he looked over to his boisterous counterpart.
"Optomist?" Barnes echoed, his voice muffled and his armor rattling as he shuddered with fear. "Optomist?! We're about to go to WAR, Fado! This is a death sentence for men like us!"
"Speak for yourself." Fado replied, raising his mace for a moment before replacing it. "I'm not scared of those treasonous Gerudos or their maniacal king."
"Well I am." Barnes said, turning to face Fado. "And they aren't the only ones fighting us... What about the Twili...?"
Fado paused.
"The Twili..." he mused, tapping his mace against his shoulder. "They're a more serious threat in my opinion, but their numbers are small."
"Size doesn't always matter, brother." a guttural voice said behind them.
Barnes and Fado turned to the source of the noise behind them. Standing there in an extra-large suit of armor was a burly humanoid figure with skin the color of sand. Pale yellow stones clung to his joints and head, which seemed almost amphibian in design: his mouth was wide and his stern eyes were small and dark. Stone horns seemed to sprout from the sides of his head; slung over his back was a leathery bag filled with what looked like primitive bombs.
"The Twili are small in number," the creature said, "it's true, but they weild a deadly weapon, brothers - they weild the forbidden Twilight Magic. Just one of them could easily overpower a hundred of Hyrule's finest warriors."
"I knew it..." Barnes whined, hanging his head. "We're finished..."
"Don't sell yourself short just yet, Barnes." Fado urged. "We have no magic, it's true, but we have-"
Before Fado could finish, a loud voice spoke up from the front of the assembly.
"Silence!" a red-and-gold-armored knight with golden-blonde hair demanded. "Be silent, all of you - Her Royal Majesty has arrived and will now address you!"
The knights raised their weapons and cheered as the castle gates were opened, and out stepped Zelda's magnificent steed, with the Princess herself seated upon her back. The two knights who had guided her followed close behind.
"Silence!!" the red-and-gold-armored knight ordered again, raising his sword in the hopes of silencing the rowdy soldiers. "Be silent, I say!"
"No..." Zelda said.
The knight turned and looked up at Zelda, a confused expression on his face.
"But Zelda..." he began.
"Let them express themselves, Link..." the Princess said solemnly. "You know as well as I do that this may be the last time many of them will ever have the chance to..."
The knight, identified as Link, lowered his sword.
"Yes..." he said. "You're right..."
Zelda was silent for several minutes, waiting for the knights' cheers to subside. When finally the town square had fallen silent, Zelda's steed stepped forward, and the Princess spoke:
"Soldiers of Hyrule... We stand today on the verge of a war greater than any other in our kingdom's history. Ganon, king of the Gerudo tribe, has found the Triforce and made its power his own."
A large number of soldiers erupted into shouts of protest at this revelation.
"Ganon has the Triforce!?" one screamed. "We don't stand a chance!"
"This is a suicide mission!" another hollered.
"He'll slaughter us like pigs!" yet another one yelled.
"SILENCE!!!" Link demanded, the vein in his forehead bulging. "Be quiet, all of you!! Princess Zelda has led the Hylian Army to victory time and time again! On what grounds do you dare to question her capabilities?!"
"But if Ganon has the Triforce, then we don't stand a chance against him!" one soldier repeated.
Link paused for a moment, but before he could speak, Zelda interrupted him:
"Ganon does not have the Triforce."
The soldiers immediately fell silent.
"Do not misunderstand my words." Zelda said sternly. "Ganon has not the Triforce, but the power it possesses...
As many of you may recall, the legend of the Triforce is that it is the incarnation of the three driving forces of the Universe: power, wisdom, and courage. Only one of a pure and perfectly-aligned heart may weild all three facets of the Triforce. Do any of you truly believe Ganon is a man of purity and balance?"
The silence that fell across the crowd was enough that a pin dropping would have not only been audible, but it would have echoed as well.
"As I suspected..." Zelda mused. "Ganon is a ruthless warlord - he is powerful, but he is neither brave nor intelligent. Once he found the Triforce, only its power imbued him; its wisdom and courage were lost... Ganon has made himself all-powerful, but not invincible...
Also, Ganon is not our only enemy in this battle - Princess Midna, ruler of the Twili tribe, has betrayed us - she has been ordering searches for the Triforce, just as Ganon has, and is intent on slaying both his army and the army of Hyrule in order to attain it. The Twili tribe has been preparing for this battle through the practice of the magic of the Twilight Realm. Though their tribe is small, the Twili have perfected the dark art; this makes them just as deadly as the Gerudos. They must be stopped at all costs."
Zelda paused for a moment, lowering her gaze. She looked down at the ground, silent, until she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She looked up - and into Link's eyes.
Link looked back at Zelda, his fear and uncertainty almost unreadable. Only a twinkle in his eye suggested what he was truly feeling. He was scared. They all were.
But they had to act - no matter what the outcome may have been.
Zelda looked at Link, then back at the army spread before her.
"Soldiers of Hyrule..." she said solemnly. "Our enemies are powerful. Though they are united against one another, they are more united against us. We are all that stands between them and the downfall of Hyrule...
But as bleak as our predicament seems, we cannot lose hope. We will clash swords with the Gerudos and the Twilis not for power, not for conquest or expansion, but for our right to survive... We are fighting today for our lives, and the lives of our friends and families... Because if we fall in battle today, everyone and everything we hold dear will be lost...
That is why we are fighting today - when we are on the battlefield, we must remember the ones we love... They and our kingdom of Hyrule - our home and the people we share it with - it is our duty to protect them at all costs! We will not relinquish them without a fight!"
The soldiers raised their weapons and gave a cheer.
"We shall not be defeated! We will triumph!"
The soldiers cheered even louder.
"Today, our combined might will dispel the darkness once and for all!"
The soldiers held their arms high over their heads and yelled as loudly as they could, their combined cheers and battlecries echoing through the entire city.
The only ones not cheering were Zelda and Link, who looked at each other silently for a moment, until Zelda finally said what she and Link were both thinking:
"It is time."
------------------------------------------------
One hundred and fifty thousand Hyrulian soldiers marched across the vast plains of Hyrule, shields and swords raised for battle. They were assembled in a massive formation that stretched for countless miles.
Spanning a hundred soldiers across, the army was led by Zelda and Link, flanked on either side by 5 horsemen bearing the Hyrulian flag. Behind them, Hyrule's finest horsemen sat astride ten thousand horses, each one fully armored, fed, and bred to perfection. And behind them, marching in perfect unison, were well over one hundred thousand footsoldiers.
Their destination was the vast expanse of the Gerudo Desert to the northeast, where Ganon's castle stood, surrounded by dozens of fortresses and thousands of cannonholders, swordsmen, catapults, archers, stockade towers, barriers, and countless other types of defenses intent on keeping unwelcome intruders away. Fortified by such obstacles on one side and surrounded on the other three sides by thousands of miles of arid, merciless desert, Ganon's castle was nearly unassailable.
As the grassy plains and rolling hills of Hyrule began to give way to barren, parched wasteland and jagged ridges, Zelda coaxed her horse to a stop. Link and the flag bearers stopped beside her, as did the rest of the army a few yards back.
At least three times as far from Zelda's army as Hyrule Castle stood Ganon's stronghold - a massive, black, sinister replica of Hyrule Castle surrounded by more guards and fortifications than ten Fort Knox's.
"Link..." Zelda mused. "Something is not right..."
Link squinted at the castle, then turned slightly towards Zelda.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I don't know..." Zelda replied. "But the fields of Hyrule are eerily calm today..."
She reached into her dress and pulled out a wooden object shaped like a hockey puck. Its top and bottom seemed to be made of polished crystal, almost transparent in color and smoothness, and were both surrounded by a band of black metal. On the side of the object was a small wooden dial with a notch carved into one side; the dial was surrounded by 4 odd symbols written in some sort of black dye.
Zelda twisted the object by its top; it promptly elongated into an eyepiece about 8 inches in length. She held the ocular to her eye and peered through it, at Ganon's castle.
The stronghold rose up in the distance, just as she saw it without her eyeglass.
Zelda twisted the dial to the right with her free hand.
The castle stood before her, magnified to the extent that she could no longer view the entire structure without moving the eyepiece.
Zelda twisted the dial to the right again.
The black bricks of the castle were visible in detail now. Zelda moved the eyepiece downward, eventually catching sight of one of Ganon's sniper towers. Each and every one of these tall structures were manned by at least 2 archers at a time, every hour of the day.
But right now, the tower was unmanned...
Zelda's eyes widened; she quickly lowered her gaze to the dry desert at the foot of the castle.
Immediately, her view was blocked by a sea of blackness - tens of thousands of armored figures astride black horses and camels were marching away from the castle, and towards Hyrule City. Each and every one of the dark warriors seemed to wear identical black, full-body armor, except for the one at the very front of the formation...
He was a hideous man, a full seven feet tall not including the height his pitch-black stallion added to him. His skin was a dusty grey-brown, like the desert sand itself, and his eyes were a shade of brown that made them seem almost yellow. His nose was pointed like the beak of some fierce bird, and his red hair was spiked back above and behind his head, his near-baldness concealed by a silver charm with a yellow gem, strapped around his scalp just above his thick, fiery eyebrows. His attire was bizarre at best, consisting of black shoulderpads and armguards situated over a brown-and-white vest and trunks, which in turn were worn over dark-brown pants, black kneepads with yellow studs, and thick brown boots wrapped with white cloth marked with red and blue symbols. On his hands were a pair of gloves the same color as his skin, with black gauntlets and those same white cloths wrapping the forearms. A long, thin sword was sheathed at his waist, and completing the costume was an embroidered Gerudo cape the color of fresh blood that draped from his back.
"Ganon..." Zelda whispered, her voice dripping with contempt.
Through her looking glass, Zelda saw Ganon looking across the sweeping plains, his eyes falling on Hyrule Castle.
And then, he lowered his gaze.
And looked right at Zelda.
A wicked smile crossed the Gerudo king's face; to Zelda's horror, he raised his right hand so that the back of his gauntlet faced Zelda...
A golden triangle appeared on the back of his gauntlet, its golden glow the single point of light in Ganon's dark army. Though she was miles out of earshot, Zelda could still hear Ganon chuckling.
The triangle on Ganon's hand faded; his eyes still locked on Zelda, he held his hand out to his side and pointed, glancing breifly in the direction he pointed in before looking back at her and smirking.
Zelda lowered her eyeglass for a moment, then glanced to her left and raised the ocular again, looking across the plains to the northwest...
Standing silently on the plains as far as the eye could see were thousands of figures in black robes that concealed their entire bodies. Marked by odd, luminous green blyphs, the eerie figures were strangely still, almost like statues.
But as still as they were, Zelda could feel their eyes on her and her army. The figures produced an aura of pure darkness, which eminated from them in the form of small black squares that seemed to tear away from them and drift into nothingness or become 2-dimensional and disappear.
At the head of the army was a tall, decidedly female figure. Though she was clad in the same full-body cloak her disciples wore, her hood was withdrawn enough to make out her flowing red hair that fell to the sides of her face and was bound beneath her chin, a silver tiara resembling a pair of antennae, and a pair of glowing yellow-and-red eyes with black pupils.
'What?' Zelda gasped mentally. 'Midna and her army are here, too? But, how could they have possibly known...?'
Zelda's eyes widened as the figure raised her arm and pointed towards the castle; she and her followers appeared to float forward over the plains.
Zelda turned her gaze back to Ganon's army; they were already advancing again.
Realizing the horrible truth of the situation, Zelda replaced her eyeglass and tugged on her steed's reins; she and her army marched forward, ready for battle.
----------------------------------------------------------
The three armies were soon in view of one another. Though the march had lasted only a few minutes, it seemed to drag on for hours.
And now, the three armies faced each other, none of them moving. A deadly silence hung over the field...
Beads of sweat ran down Zelda's forehead...
Midna's eyes darted from side to side, from Zelda's army to Ganon's and back again...
Ganon's lips curled into an arrogant smirk...
Link tightened his grip on the handle of his sword...
For a fraction of a second, everything seemed to go completely silent...
Ganon chuckled, and then he pulled his sword from its sheath and raised it, pulling back on his horse's reins.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
Ganon's horse reared up on two legs as the Gerudo king yelled a fierce war cry; immediately one of his soldiers followed suit. Then two more, and then five more... Within seconds, Ganon's entire army had drawn their weapons and were hollering savagely; a second later, Ganon's horse hit the ground running, the entire Gerudo army right behind.
Zelda narrowed her eyes and turned her gaze to Midna.
Midna stood perfectly still, a smug smile on her face as she watched the battle unfold.
Zelda turned her attention back to Ganon; pushing all traces of doubt and worry out of her mind, she raised her sword.
"TO BATTLE!!"
With that shout, Zelda had roused the entire army to draw their weapons. Raising his sword, Link spurred his horse into action alongside Zelda's, the horsemen and footsoldiers of Hyrule following right behind.
The two armies charged at one another, covering hundreds of feet per second. Completely the opposite of the seemingly eternal silence from a moment earlier, time seemed to speed up as the armies charged at one another, Ganon's eyes locked onto Zelda's and Link's at the same time.
The cries of the knights and the roars of their footseps grew deafening as the armies crashed into each other headfirst.
Warcrying knights...
Roaring flames...
Slashing swords...
The sounds of war filled the air, a deafening cacophony of pain and anguish as the soldiers clashed all around their leaders - Ganon and Zelda rushed at each other, swords raised high. They drew closer and closer to one another...
Their swords swung down like twin guillotines.
CLANG!
The war had begun...
YU-GI-OH!: TWILIGHT PRINCESS
Chapter 1
Predestined Meeting
The two swords pushed and ground at one another, sparks flying from their blades as they repelled one another.
Finally, one sword pushed down over the other, and the dominant sword's weilder - a human-shaped figure in black full-body armor covered with gnarled spikes - swung the blade, slashing his adversay in half. The two halves of the red-and black robot warrior crackled as they fell back, and then they exploded in a fiery blast of pixelated metal.
Two youthful male eyes - one blue, one green - narrowed as the Robotic Knight's controller's Life Points fell to 2700.
"Not bad..." the boy said in a young, airy voice as he picked a stray piece of holographic scrap metal from his stringy red hair and tossed it away.
One hundred thousand years had passed since the great war of Hyrule - later known as the Imprisoning War - had ended. In that time, Hyrule had grown and flourished, and then weakened and collapsed. It was a magnificent kingdom, but it was still just that - a kingdom. It rose. And it fell.
And a thousand centuries later, it had been long since forgotten about completely, lost forever in the sands of time. Not even the world's foremost archaeologists had ever even heard its name...
So it came as no surprise that the students of the Golden Gate High School of Naples, Florida had never heard of the ancient kingdom either; it was probably just as well, though - the staff and students there had more important things to worry about, anyway: schoolwork, the upcoming championship game, keeping up with extracurriculars...
But for Roy Budokai and his friends, all of that took a backseat to dueling. For Roy, Duel Monsters wasn't just a card game - it was a way of life.
"I'll play one more card face-down and end my turn." Roy's opponent said. He inserted the card into his Duel Disk, and a hologram of a four foot-long facedown appeared in front of him, behind his Monster. His Life Points stood at 2100.
Roy drew a card, adding it to the other 3 in his hand.
"OK, Culstin," he said, "you and your Dark Blade better watch, 'cuz Roy-boy's got a plan!"
"Oh, really?" Culstin replied, smirking a cocky smirk. "Well, by all means, Roy, let's see it!"
"OK!" Roy agreed, placing a card on his Duel Disk. "First, I play Magnet Circle LV2, so now I can Special Summon a Level 2 Machine from my hand. And since I only have one such Monster in my hand... Bokoichi the Freightening Car, come on out in Attack Mode!"
Roy placed the card on his Duel Disk, and the unmistakeable sound of a train engine blared over the field. A round stretch of train tracks appeared around Roy, and on it sat a red freight car with some sort of a face sculpted into one end of the car. The small caboose rolled around the tracks, then stopped between Roy and his opponent's Dark Blade. Steam poured from a small smokestack mounted atop the locomotive. (500/500)
"Then," Roy said, switching cards on his disk, "I'll sacrifice Bokoichi in order to summon my Blowback Dragon! Attack Mode!"
With a toot, Bokoichi and its tracks vanished, and a much larger Machine rose up in its place. It resembled a mechanical dragon, made of blue-and-silver metal, but where its arms and head should have been there was instead a large groove, settled into which was a huge red laser pistol with a steel lower jaw attached to the bottom of the barrel. The jaw swung open, and a mechanical roar echoed from the Machine's mouth, along with a hissing cloud of steam. Several lights flashed to life over the creature's body as it whirred to life. (2300/1200)
"Now, I'll use Blowback Dragon's effect." Roy said, pointing at Culstin's face-down card. "I have a 2-in-3 chance of it blowing away your face-down card. Blowback Dragon, take aim!"
The Blowback Dragon swiveled its massive gun of a head and aimed it at Culstin's face-down card. A small red crosshair shaped like an 'X' appeared on the card. Then, two larger ones shaped like 'O's appeared on the ground on either side of the card. Blowback Dragon's head swiveled from side to side as the crosshairs scanned over the field, eventually choosing their targets and stopping.
Roy frowned - the smaller crosshair had stopped on the 'X,' but the larger one had stopped on the ground a few feet to the left of the card.
A beeping noise emitted from the Blowback Dragon, which seemed confused as to which crosshair to aim at. After a moment's hesitation, it aimed at the ground exactly in between the crosshairs and fired. A blob of shimmering blue plasma blasted from its barrel and zipped across the field, smashing into the pavement and exploding fantastically, but also harmlessly.
"...OK." Roy said, scratching his head. "Time for Plan B... Blowback Dragon, attack his Dark Blade! Plasma Pulse Blast!"
Blowback Dragon swiveled its massive head around and aimed it at Dark Blade. Several vents around the gun blowed with blue light; blue and white sparks crackled at the tip of the Dragon's snout...
"I activate my face-down card!" Culstin said, his face-down card flipping over. "Union of Opposing Souls!"
The face-down card lifted and revealed itself...
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j89/Soul_of_the_Phoenix/Union.jpg
"This Trap Card allows me to Special Summon a Union Monster from my hand and instantly attach it to a Unionize-able Monster on the field." Culstin explained. "And luckily for me, I just happen to have such a Monster right here: Kiryu, in Attack Mode!"
Culstin slapped the card down, and a huge dragon appeared beside Dark Blade. (2000/1000) At least thirty feet in length, the reddish-orange creature's segmented body combined with its long, beaklike snout made it look very familiar to Roy...
"Whoa." he said. "Somebody call Samus Aran - the Space Pirates are attacking!"
Culstin rolled his eyes.
Blowback Dragon's weapon fired, jettisoning a blob of glowing red energy at Dark Blade. But before it could hit, Dark Blade sheathed his swords, and then jumped up onto Kiryu's back. (1800/1500) , (2000/1000) - (2700/2400)
Dark Blade kicked Kiryu in the side; the Union Dragon responded with a furious roar and a blast of red flames that consumed the plasma - and then the Blowback Dragon itself. The Machine's silver body quickly turned a bright red, and then yellow; sparks began to fly from it, and then smoke and flames, until the Incinerated Machine finally shorted out and exploded in a blast of slag and scrap metal. Roy's Life Points dipped to 2300.
"Crap..." Roy muttered, sliding his last card into his Duel Disk. "I'll set a card face-down and end my turn.
A large face-down card appeared in front of Roy.
Culstin drew.
"Mystical Space Typhoon." he said nonchalantly.
"Damn it!" Roy cursed as a fierce wind blew across the field, flipping over his face-down Weapon Change and blowing it to bits.
"You never were any good at bluffing, Roy." Culstin said cockily. "Now, Yamikiryu Blade, attack him directly! Dragon Sword Swoop!"
Kiryu lifted its head and flapped its wings, lifting off the ground and circling high over the field, gaining altitude until it was at least a hundred feet up. The Dragon seemed to hang there, suspended for a moment, before looping through the air and diving at Roy. Like a meteor, a fiery aura surrounded the Union's bodies as it plunged to Earth, sword held forward like a joust, leaving Roy barely a second to react - all he had time for was a single, rushed thought:
'This... is gonna hurt...'
KER-FWOOOM!
With a mighty roar, the dragonic projectile slammed down on Roy with the force of a hundred pounds of TNT going off, sending up a great cloud of dust and smoke. When the cloud finally dispersed, a holographic crater 30 feet wide and fifteen feet deep is all that remained; at the bottom lay a battered, beaten Roy, his clothes and hair scorched black, and his Life Points at zero.
"Game, set, and match." Culstin said, walking up to Roy with a cocky grin on his face as the holograms vanished and the Duel Disks shut down, leaving neither Roy nor the blacktop he'd been standing on looking as much as scratched from the conflict.
Roy groaned and pushed himself up into a sitting position, his body swaying a little as it always did.
"WhoOOooaaaaa..." Roy said, almost sounding delirious from the attack. "Man... I'm gonna be feeling that for months!"
"Ah, don't be dramatic - you'll bounce back." Culstin replied, pulling the skinnier boy to his feet. "Speaking of bouncing, lunch is almost over. I'm gonna go get a burger. You coming?"
"Nah, I already ate." Roy replied.
"A bag of honey mustard pretzels doesn't count as lunch, dude."
"But I had a side dish, too...!"
"Which was...?"
"A... Mr. Goodbar?"
Culstin shook his head.
"Whatever,man." he said. "Your body, not mine. I'll catch ya later."
"OK."
As Culstin walked away, Roy heard a slow clapping from behind him.
"Another triumphant victory for Roy Budokai..." a sarcastic female voice said.
Roy rolled his eyes and turned around.
"Gimme a break, Amalia," he said flatly, "you know I haven't been having any luck since I stopped using my old deck..."
"Then why did you ever stop using it?" Amalia responded in a playfully snobbish voice.
Roy opened his mouth to answer, but he knew she was right - Amalia Lucetius was probably Roy's best friend, but that didn't stop her from busting his chops at every possible opportunity, usually by outsmarting him with almost no difficulty whatsoever, and today was no different.
"I... wanted... to experiment?" Roy replied sheepishly.
"Experiment?" Amalia echoed, her sparkling blue eyes narrowing at Roy in mock-disappointment. "Experiment in what, losing?"
"NO." Roy snapped back, causing Amalia to giggle. "I wanted to try a different deck because my old one was getting... well... old..."
"Oh, Roy..." she said, shaking her head at him like a big sister may do to her naive little brother. "Roy, Roy, Roy... Haven't you ever heard the saying 'Why change a good thing?'?"
"Yeah..." Roy responded slowly.
"And...?"
"...OK, OK,fine. Starting tomorrow, I'll bring the old deck back. At least it can't do any worse than the last three..."
"That's better." Amalia said matter-of-factly, taking him by the hand andleading him towards the school. "Now come on, let's go to lunch."
"Awwwwww...!" Roy whined as she led him away. "But I said I already ate!"
"Well you're gonna eat again." Amalia insisted, dragging him by the hand. You're too skinny - just look at how weak you are! You're being outmuscled by a 110-pound girl!"
Roy rolled his eyes, letting himself be pulled towards the cafeteria - he knew that when it came to Amalia, resistance was futile...
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Many people, when asked if they believe in alternate universes or parallel dimensions, would answer without giving the topic much thought. After all, such a question would indeed be complex, with serious scientific, religious, and philosophical viewpoints to take into consideration, all to answer a question that likely would not concern most people to begin with anyway.
So most people would either not understand, or if they did, care that in the exact location of Roy's and Amalia's high school, but on a parallel plane, there stood a landmark: a mirror of dull, silvery glass, etched with rings and runes, like heiroglyphs of a long-forgotten language. This mirror sat on a pedestal atop a staircase, facing a slab of flat, white stone, which had a single symbol engraved upon its center. That engraving was of three triangles - one on top of the other two - with a fourth triangle at their center.
The Triforce.
The mirror and the white obelisk stood on parched, sandy earth, its sickly brown-black color reflecting its inability to support any form of life. Surrounding the monument was a massive ring of seats resembling a dismal grey duplicate of the Roman Colloseum, and surrounding all of that was a dreary black fog, which hung unmovingly beneath a clouded, pink and orange sky resembling an eternal sunset.
But this sunset was not one any human would call beautiful: It was a cold and eerie curtain that hung like an executioner's axe over the land, waiting to fall at any time.
As barren and desolate as the twilit landscape was, however, this was not the reason no creatures lived there. The reason for the utter lack of life was because he frequently visited this place...
The tall, sinister figure looked up at the mirror to his left, and then to the stone pillar on his right.
He raised one of his clawed hands and waved it over the obelisk.
The two triangles on top of the engraving lit up with a white light around their edges, their interiors filling with a powerful golden light.
The lower triangle, however, only glowed very dimly, its edges only becoming a dull yellow; its inside flickering faintly.
The tall figure lowered his hand and narrowed his eyes - as dull as the third triangle was, it was still brighter than the last time he had seen it...
'I knew it - my divination was correct.' the figure thought. 'The third Triforce bearer will soon unite with the first two...'
The figure turned away from the monument.
"When all three bearers of the Triforce are united," the figure mused, "the doorway between the Realms of Light and Twilight will be opened once more... And when that happens..."
A deep, guttural chuckle escaped the figure's lips.
"The time finally draws near." he said, pure malice in his voice. "It is so close, I can almost taste it..."
The figure held out his arms, the thick sleeves wrapping them billowing briefly in the wind, and then, with a faint zipping noise, he simply vanished. The only indications he'd ever been there were the glowing of the emblem on the pillar, and the square pixels of pure shadow he'd left upon disappearing...
The first step is always the hardest, they say - let's see if things get any easier from here on out.
Next time, Amalia and a friend have a friendly duel, and there's some more filler stuff to get out of the way, along with the introduction of a main character... Butwill the newcomer turn out to be a friend or a foe?
Find out next time, in a chapter called "Turbo Mecha Overlord."
Don't miss it, or else!