Chapter Text
It had been a while since Judai had gone to Den city. It had been a while since he was even in Japan, actually, but he tended to visit places like Domino where duelists gravitate or just visit his friends whenever he did. He hadn’t even known Den city had a large population of duelists until Sho told him their pro league would be held there this year.
When he arrived he found out why; the large screen near the city centre showing duels was hard to miss. Glancing at his watch, he figured he had some time to kill so he bought a hot dog from a nearby stand (well, a hot dog and a sausage for Pharaoh, which had gotten him a weird look from the guy working there but he shrugged it off) and settled down to watch the duels.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he was watching – some kind of TV show? It looked realistic enough, but the duelists had strange names like ‘Blue Angel’ and rode around on flying surfboards.
“I set Trickstar Lilybell and Trickstar Candina in the link markers. Appear, link two Trickstar Holly Angel!”
That was new.
“You’ve discovered Link VRAINS, huh?” A familiar voice came from behind him. Judai turned to see Edo, trying to hide his identity from the public with sunglasses and an oversized hoodie.
“Is that what I’m watching?”
“You didn’t know? It’s really big in Den City.” Judai’s face stayed blank, prompting a sigh from Edo. “I’ll tell you about it on the way back to my hotel room?”
-
Staying at a five-star hotel was not what Judai expected to do in the near future, but Edo insisted he ‘needed a shower’ and ‘couldn’t go to the league looking like that’, so he was forced to clean himself up while Edo looked after Pharaoh.
It wasn’t like he was dirty. A little scruffy maybe, but he cleaned himself in rivers whenever he could and if not there were always showers in gyms and cheap hotels. But he did admit that Edo’s shower was very nice and he may have spent longer in it than he should have.
When he came out, Edo was restraining Pharaoh from scratching up the fancy furniture and there were some bright blue cards on the bed.
“Are these link monsters?” He asked as Pharaoh was shoved into his arms. The cat immediately settled down, pawing at his chest as he absent-mindedly pet him.
“Yeah, they were released a few months ago. They only work on Sol-Tech duel disks though, since they’re so big in Link Vrains.” Edo handed him one of the monsters - ‘Xtra Hero Wonder Driver’. “This one’s for you.”
“Thanks,” He said, reading its effect. It was decent, but his duel disk was a Kaiba Corp one so he couldn’t use it “You’re here for the pro league, right? Why do you have link monsters when you won’t be able to use them?”
“I do use them.” His friend rummaged around in one of his suitcases, pulling out what looked like a duel disk without the long part you put your cards on and a bracelet with a screen attached. He tossed him the broken duel disk. “Do you want to try out Link VRAINS?”
Judai had some time to kill, and Edo seemed really enthusiastic about all this, so he put the link monster in his extra deck and agreed.
“Into the VRAINS!”
-
It felt like he had teleported. One moment he was in the hotel room with an unconscious Edo who had just showed him how to enter the VRAINS, the next he was at some kind of character creation screen. Apparently the default option was just what he already looked like, so he inputted his own name and continued into the virtual reality system.
The scene changed again. This time he was in a city surrounded by people’s avatars. Dismissing the tutorial, he set about looking for Edo. He didn’t have to look for long, since he was soon approached by someone wearing a dark-coloured hero costume with silver hair and a tattered scarf. He’d clearly put more thought into his avatar than Judai had.
“Hey Edo.” He grinned.
“I thought you had to pay for the non-human avatars.” Edo gestured to something behind him, and it was then Judai realised he had Yubel’s wings. Well, his wings. Their wings. A quick check of his profile showed he also had dual-coloured eyes, fangs, and his fingernails weren’t quite claws but were pointier than usual.
Ever since he and Yubel had fused this form felt more comfortable, but Yubel’s parts weren’t visible to most people since they’re a duel spirit so he just looked like Judai in most dimensions. Turns out he’d forgotten to switch back to human-looking when he got back to this dimension – it was a good job no-one had been around who could see spirits or he would have accidentally scared the heck out of them.
Hopefully he could still change back into his human form in this world. Ignoring the weird look from Edo, he shut his eyes and focused inward. His two souls responded, and suddenly Judai and Yubel were two separate entities. Judai took over, and Yubel retreated back into their card.
Edo blinked at the change in his appearance, but didn’t bring it up.
“So how do we speed duel?” Judai asked, looking around at all the people dueling like he’d seen when he first encountered Link VRAINS.
With some coaching by Edo, he eventually managed to summon his D-board and they found a safe-looking place to practise in. He’d thought it would be similar to flying, but as soon as he entered the stream of data he was blown off the board and fell flat on his face.
Edo laughed at him. Yubel laughed at him. He was not having a good time.
“Ughh...” He groaned, rolling over on the floor “You make it look easy.”
“You tried once. Come on, you’re making us look bad.” Yubel couldn’t hide the fondness in their voice as they appeared as a spirit next to him.
No, that wasn’t right.
Judai looked down at his duel disk to see Yubel staring back: corporeal, tiny, and standing on top of it.
“You look adorable,” He said to them.
“Get back on the D-Board.”
With a huff, Judai climbed back onto the board and tried to steady himself. It took a few tries, but eventually he managed to find his balance and move up to where Edo had been waiting.
“Finally got the hang of it?” Edo asked, and after a confirmation he readied his duel disk.
“It’s been a while since we dueled. I was winning 2-1, right?” The D-board was getting easier to control now, and he was actually looking forward to this duel. The last duel he fought just for fun was… against Yugi? No, there were a few after that but not many; he hadn’t had a good challenge in a while.
“We both know that first duel doesn’t count.” Edo drew his opening hand, and Judai did the same.
“Duel!”
“I summon Destiny HERO – Drilldark in attack position, and use its effect to special summon Destiny HERO - Drawhand from my hand. Because Drawhand was summoned by a Destiny Hero, we both get to draw a card.” They both drew a card from their decks. “Appear, the circuit that leads to my destiny!” Judai watched as something appeared in the air in front of them, and Edo sped off, his two monsters following. Drilldark and Drawhand turned into streams of something digital-looking and flew into the bottom left and right pointers of it. “Appear, link two Xtra HERO Cross Crusader.”
A black and red monster appeared, and Judai grinned. “That’s a link monster? Cool!”
“Just wait until you see what it can do! I use Cross Crusader’s effect to special summon a Destiny HERO from my graveyard.” Drilldark appeared again “Unfortunately, I can only use its effect once per turn, but I can do this: I fuse my Drilldark with Destiny HERO – Celestial in my hand to form Destiny HERO – Dangerous, then I set a card and end my turn.”
“Not bad,” Yubel commented “He got a fusion monster and a link monster out on the first turn. Of course, if he thinks they’ll stick around with only 1600 and 2000 attack points he’s got another thing coming.”
“He’s a pro for a reason.” Judai drew a card. “I’m sure he has something planned.”
“In the next standby phase after it’s sent to the graveyard, Drawhand is resurrected and we both draw another card.” Drawhand appeared in attack position.
Judai had gone from 4 to 6 cards in his hand before he’d even played anything. Sure Edo’s opening play had been good, but it was a mistake to give him 2 extra cards.
“I activate polymerization, fusing Elemental HEROs Burstinatrix and Avian in my hand to make Elemental HERO Flame Wingman! Then I activate fusion recovery to add polymerization and Burstinatrix back to my hand, and activate polymerization again to...” He glanced down at his duel disk and tried to play the card again, even flipping it upside-down at one point “It’s not working.”
“You can only summon monsters from the extra deck into the extra monster zone or a zone a link monster points to,” Edo explained after letting him struggle for a few more moments.
“Oh.”
“You get used to it. Oh, also you don’t have a main phase 2 and everyone has an individual skill they can use.”
“What’s my skill?”
“Dunno.”
“I guess I’ll have to figure it out as I go then.” Judai glanced at the cards in his hand, now having to rethink his strategy. “Time for plan B.”
He did not have a plan B.
“I set a card, then Flame Wingman attacks Cross Crusader. Flame shoot!”
Edo’s life points shot down to 1900, but he didn’t flinch. “I activate my trap: Destiny Signal! This lets me special summon Destiny HERO – Dreamer from my deck.”
“I set a card and end my turn.”
“My turn; I draw! I activate foolish burial to send Destiny HERO – Malicious to my graveyard, then Dangerous attacks Flame Wingman!”
That wasn’t right. Flame wingman had 2100 attack, but Dangerous only had 2000.
“I use Dangerous’ effect. I can discard a card and send a Destiny HERO from my deck to the graveyard to have all my Destiny HEROs gain 200 attack for each Destiny HERO in my graveyard.”
Dreamer originally had 0 attack so was left in defence mode, but the other 2 monsters gained 1000 attack. Flame Wingman didn’t stand a chance.
“I activate Hero Barrier to negate your attack!”
“But you can’t block this next attack. Go, Drawhand!”
Judai had to catch his balance on the D-board as his monster was blown to pieces and his life points fell. He was fine; it was only 500 damage.
He was out of his depth. Honestly he had began to doubt it was possible - especially when it came to dueling - considering how much he’d seen, but there was no alternate dimension where speed duels were favoured over the usual ones, and he’d certainly never flew around on a surfboard before.
“My turn! Draw!”
Despite all this, he was having fun.
“I summon Elemental HERO Stratos and use its effect to add Elemental HERO Sparkman to my hand. Then I fuse Stratos with Burstinatrix in my hand to make Elemental HERO Great Tornado!” A green hero surrounded by wind descended onto the field. “When he’s fusion summoned he halves the attack and defence of all monsters you control! Downburst!”
The attack increase from Dangerous wore off at the end of Edo’s last turn, and his hand was empty so he couldn’t use its effect again, leaving Dangerous with just 1000 attack.
“Great Tornado attacks Dangerous!”
A massive gale of wind struck Edo’s monster, blowing Edo himself back as his life points fell to just 100.
“Not bad - I was starting to think you’d lost your touch.”
“Me? Never. Just a slow start, that’s all. Now show me how you come back from that!”
“If you insist.” Edo slowed down on his D-board to fly side-by-side with Judai as he drew his card “I activate my skill: Destiny’s Grave! This lets me send one Destiny HERO from my deck to the graveyard for every 1000 point difference between our life points.”
“He’s sending a lot of monsters to his graveyard,” Yubel commented, echoing Judai’s thoughts. He knew better than to underestimate Edo.
“I then summon Destiny HERO – Fear Monger. Appear, the circuit that leads to my destiny!”
Here it comes.
Edo’s 3 monsters flew into the circuit that he summoned, and from it emerged a new hero.
“Xtra HERO Dread Decimator! He gains 100 attack for each hero monster in my graveyard with a different name, along with any hero monsters he points to!”
“It’s a good job he’s not pointing to any,” Judai pointed out, immediately eating his words when Dread Decimator’s attack rose to 3600.
“I activate Malicious’ effect from my graveyard. I banish it to special summon a copy of it from my deck.” And of course it was summoned so Dread Decimator was pointing to it. It gained 1000 attack, putting it at 1800. Dread Decimator lost 100 attack from the banished monster.
“Go, Dread Decimator! Dark burst!”
Dread Decimator raised its gun, shooting rapidly at Great Tornado. The force of the impact slammed into him, and he had to summon Yubel’s wings to steady himself so he didn’t fall off the board. His life points fell to 1800.
“Sorry Judai, but this is the end.” Edo smirked as he raised his hand to declare his attack.
“I play my spell – the flute of summoning kuriboh!”
With a sharp trill Winged Kuriboh appeared to block the attack, and Judai made sure to thank his partner as he was sent to the graveyard. This duel wasn’t over yet.
“My turn! I draw!”
He drew the exact card he needed.
“I summon Sparkman, then activate miracle fusion to banish him and Flame Wingman from my graveyard to summon Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman!”
As the spell activated Shining Flare Wingman descended onto the field, its glow piercing the surroundings – so much so that Edo had to shield his eyes. It shone even brighter as its effect caused its attack to rise up and up to a comfortable 3700.
“Shining Flare Wingman attacks Dread Decimator-”
That wasn’t Shining Flare Wingman’s light.
The pure white surrounding them writhed, twisting and curling around his monster’s attack and firing itself at Edo. The attack was already declared he couldn’t stop it he-
A scream ripped itself from his throat as Shining Flare Wingman’s effect activated and the light of destruction tore through Edo.