[Episode 114163] [Episode 114163]Yugi Moto stared in horror as Seto Kaiba ripped the fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon card, the pride of Solomon Moto's deck, in half, laughing as if it were a joke. "Now no-one can stand against me in the Duelist world!" Kaiba said.
"Why you creep, I'll.....!" Joey said, taking a step towards Kaiba and the unconscious Solomon, only to be stopped by Yugi.
"This is my fight now, Joey. My grandpa's honor must be avanged." Taking up his grandfather's dueling deck, he stepped up to the holographic arena. His Millennium Puzzle began to glow as the Spirit that dwelt within the ancient artifact merged its mind with the boy's. "It's time to duel, Kaiba." the transformed Yugi said, his voice dark and serious.
Seto laughed again. "Very well," he replied, "it shall be my pleasure to relieve you of your cards as well." The doors to the rest of the mansion closed behind them, sealing everyone inside the arena chamber.
Outside, unnoticed by anyone else, the two halves of the Blue Eyes White Dragon were swept up by the broom of a janitor.
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Location: Duelist Kingdom; Castle of Pegasus
Bakura, Mai, Joey, Tristan, Téa, Kaiba, and Yugi watched as Pegasus activated the dueling arena hidden within the floor of his chamber. Bandit Keith stood on the opposite balcony, a dark gleam in his eye.
"This is the moment you have all been awaiting!" one of the black-suited guards said. "A Duel Monsters game like no other! Seto Kaiba, Undisputed Intercontinental Champion, will face Maximillian Pegasus, creator of Duel Monsters and reigning monarch of the Duelist Kingdom."
Pegasus grinned, his Millennium Eye gleaming in the light surrounding the arena. "Shall we begin, Seto? I am anxious to see your Blue Eyes White Dragons in action for myself."
"Careful what you wish for, Pegasus. You just may get it." Kaiba drew his first card and lay it on the field. "I play Saagi the Dark Clown in Attack mode!" The jester-like monster materialized on the field, grinning like a madman.
"Quite impressive." Pegasus said. "But not impressive enough. I summon the Red Archery Girl!" A large clam shell appeared on the field, a bow-carrying mermaid curled up inside.
The duel was over rather quickly. After the defeat of Saagi, Kaiba bided his time until he had all three of his Blue-Eyes in his hand, then played them in the form of the Blue-Eyes Ultimate White Dragon. However, once Pegasus used his Dragon Capture Jar to seal it away, Kaiba was as good as defeated. Throughout the remainder of the match, Seto could not figure out how Pegasus knew every move he was going to make. It was over in a matter of minutes, and Seto's soul was drained from his body and locked away in a card. His body was then hauled away by Pegasus' guards.
"I hope that my next opponent is more challenging than that! Otherwise, this tournament will have been a complete waste of time!" An evil grin played over Pegasus's face as he held Kaiba's soul card in his hand.
Yugi was about to step up and confront Pegasus but, before he could, the doors flew open and a dark figure stood in the light coming from the adjoining room. "I challenge you, creator of Duel Monsters." the figure said, its voice as cold as ice.
"And who would you be?" Pegasus asked, somewhat annoyed.
"You may call me Shadow." the man said. "I have come to avenge those you have hurt and to prove my own worth as a Duelist."
"I do not remember inviting you here."
"That's because you didn't. I arrived here only this morning on my boat. Your guards must be dumb, Pegasus, if they'd let me walk around the island without a Dueling Glove or any Star Chips."
"How did you get in here without any Star Chips?"
"Simple. I found one of your Eliminators, knocked him out, then took the Chips I needed to get in here." Shadow stepped from the doorway, revealing himself to be a young man clothed entirely in black from his zipped-up leather jacket and gloves down to his jeans and polished steel-toed boots.
His hair was as black as coal, and his deep brown eyes seemed to hold the darkness of every soul on Earth within them.
A guard stood up. "Mr. Pegasus, sir, if you want me to remove this trespasser from the island, I will."
Pegasus smiled. "No; if he can get here and gain entry to the castle without my knowing it, he must be very clever. A Duelist such as that would be a most welcome challenge, indeed." Then, turning to Shadow, he said, "Very well. I accept."
Shadow walked around the arena, stepped onto the platform, then let it raise him to the level of the holo-grid. "Then prepare to lose, Pegasus. You will never match my power."
The billionaire Duelist smirked. "We'll see about that." he replied as he laid his Lesser Dragon on the field. I cannot read his mind, he thought. He may have developed a telepathic block. No matter. He still won't be able to defeat me.
"So, you've discovered that my mind is closed to you. That is my secret, Pegasus, and you will only learn it if you win." Shadow placed his own card on the reader. "I summon the Ninja Of Darkness in Attack Mode." A black-clothed ninja appeared on the playing field with a sword slung over his back, a silver tiger embroidered on his chest, and a hood/mask combo that covered his entire face save for his eyes. His Attack Power read 2900 and Defense read 2600.
Pegasus looked shocked. "I've never seen that card before! Where did you get it?"
"As I said, you will learn my secrets if you win. Now, silence so I can defeat you in peace." Then, to his monster, "Ninja Of Darkness, Fire Jutsu Attack!" The Ninja concentrated for a second, then clasped its hands together as if in prayer, the index and middle fingers of each meeting. Flames began to swirl around the field before converging on the Lesser Dragon, reducing it to atoms.
Pegasus growled as his Life Points went down to 1450. "How dare you, you insolent swine? I am the greatest Duelist of all time! There is no one that can defeat me!" He placed his Doppleganger on the reader. "Doppleganger, transform into the Ninja Of Darkness!"
Shadow watched as the creature copied his Ninja perfectly, right down to the Attack and Defense power. Sighing, he said, "I thought you would be a great challenge, Pegasus. Now I see you are only a great fool! I summon the Red-Eyes Black Dragon in Attack mode!" The huge dragon materialized on the field, at which Pegasus smiled.
"I thought you said you were going to beat me! A Red Eyes, powerful as it may be, is no match for my Doppleganger after it has copied your Ninja! Fire Jutsu Attack!" The magical flames appeared again, this time aimed at the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. But, even after they impacted, the beast stood unscathed and Pegasus' Life Points went down by one hundred. "How is that possible? You played no Magic or Trap cards! You can't be stronger! YOU can't!!!"
"Look at the power of my Dragon." Pegasus checked the monitor and saw that the Red Eyes before him had an Attack level of 3000 and a Defense level of 2500. "A Red-Eyes Black Dragon that's naturally as strong as a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Seems impossible, doesn't it?"
Back in the arena, Pegasus was sweating bullets. He trapped me! Somehow, he knew what I had in my hand and he sent the Ninja out to trick me into transforming Doppleganger! Now he's going to take me down with that Red-Eyes!
"No, I won't wipe you out yet. I want to make you suffer as you've made Yugi, Kaiba and all the others suffer, Pegasus!"
I'll have to act fast. He can read my mind, but he most likely won't be able to counter my ultimate plan. "I play the Red Archery Girl!"
Shadow laid another card on the field. "I play one card face-down to end my turn.
Pegasus laid down his Steel Guardian card. I need to buy some time. I had planned on using my Thousand-Eyes Restrict on Yugi, though I may end up having to use it to beat him. But it's worth it. He's even better than Yugi. I don't know where he got his cards, but they will be mine, along with whoever made them for him. "I also play two cards face-down to end my turn."
"Now, Pegasus, meet your end! I summon Lord OF Dragons and equip him with the Magic card, Flute Of Summoning Dragon! Come to the filed, my final Red-Eyes Black Dragons!" Two more Red-Eyes appeared, nearly filling up Shadow's half of the playing field. "And combine them with the magic of the Polymerization card to create....." Pegasus and the spectators, Bandit Keith included, watched in a mixture of awe and shock as a black light enveloped the dragons before seeming to draw them together into one being. The creature that appeared had three heads, six arms, three tails and six wings. "....the Red Eyes Ultimate Black Dragon!"
Yugi pointed at the monitor on the side of the arena. "It's Attack power is 6000 and Defense is 5500! This beast is even stronger than Kaiba's Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon!"
"No!" Pegasus screamed. "It cannot end like this!"
Shadow smirked again. "Oh, but it can, Pegasus. First, I use Raigeki and Giant Trunade to eliminate your monsters and face-dowm cards. Now, I attack your Life Points directly! Red Eyes Ultimate Black Dragon, OBLITERATE!!!!!!!!"
"I would say that the duel was well-fought on your part, Pegasus," Shadow said, gathering his deck and climbing down from the arena, "but I'm not a liar."
Pegasus, still in shock from his loss, replied, "Very well. The prize money is yours. Take it and go."
"Give the prize money to the blonde boy over there. His sister needs it more than I do. While you're at it, release the souls of Solomon Moto and the Kaiba brothers."
Pegasus snapped his fingers and the three prisoners appeared before the Duelists, alive as they ever were. "It is done." Then one of his aids presented Joey with a briefcase. "The money is in there. Take it and get off my island." With that, he left the room, the guards following behind.
Sensing his chance, Bakura slipped away from the others and followed Pegasus to his private chambers.
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A few hours later, as the Duelists and the newly-freed captives headed down to where Shadow had hidden his boat, Yugi stepped up to the warrior and spoke. "I must say, sir, that you are a truly exceptional Duelist. I've never seen cards with that kind of power before. Where did you get them?"
"I didn't get them anywhere, kid." Shadow said. "I made them."
"But that's impossible. Only Pegasus knows how to make the Duel Monsters cards." Kaiba said.
"Pegasus does it with the power of his Millennium Eye. I do it with this." Shadow unzipped his jacket to reveal three triangles imbedded in the center of an armored breastplate. They were arranged in a pattern which made it seem like a fourth was in the center. "This is called the Triforce. I found it by accident years ago while I was studying the ruins of Sumaria."
"You're an archaeologist?" Solomon asked.
"Yes. One of my colleagues was an acquaintance of yours. Arthur Hawkins, I believe his name was. At the time, I laughed at his theory of the Pharoahs playing Duel Monsters. But now, after what I've seen, I take it all back."
Solomon had a quizzical look on his face. "How did you find it?" he asked.
"I was excavating a hidden crypt with my team when it happened. It was in the middle of the night, and I was stricken with insomnia. So, I decided to continue digging alone for a while. After a few hours, I had uncovered enough of the door to open it. However, there was a warning inscribed in the stone. If he who enters this sacred place is in search of knowledge, he may pass unharmed. But if he seeks the secrets of the Great One for his own gain, the power within will destroy him. I had never paid attention to that sort of thing before, and I wasn't going to start then, either." He looked down at the symbol. "Despite the power this thing gives me, it's also a great curse at times. I wish now that I had heeded the warning.
"I broke the seal on the crypt and went inside. There was a single stone coffin in the middle of the room. I used a prybar to get the lid off, but I found no human remains. All there was was this breastplate. I don't know why, but I was compelled to put it on. The instant I did, something above the door began to glow. The next thing I was aware of, these triangles flew out of the wall and imbedded themselves in the breastplate, which now seemed a part of me. I wasn't sure what happened, but I knew I could not let my team see it. So I replaced the lid on the coffin, shut the crypt doors and waited for them to awaken, careful to hide the artifacts from them.
"When they rose the next morning, I said I had uncovered the door and found that someone had already broken the seal. We all went in together, but, naturally, we found nothing. The official reports said that grave robbers had already pilfered anything of value from the crypt, and that we had gone on to dig elsewhere. The next day, we struck it rich. We hit the tomb of one of the greatest Sumarian kings to ever live. Gold, silver, rubies, diamonds, sapphires; every possible valuable jewel, gem, and metal was in there. It took us nearly a year to categorize, date, catelog, and prepare each piece to be moved to a museum. It was the greatest find of my life. It seemed that, already, the power I found in that secret crypt was working for me."
"Just what kind of power does that thing have, anyway?" Joey asked, clutching the briefcase tightly.
"For one thing, it kept Pegasus from reading my mind. It also used its own power to ride Pegasus's magic back to him. From what I saw, he had a rather peculiar surprise in store for you, Yugi." Then, looking at their surroundings, "My boat isn't too far from here. We will cast off and head back for the mainland, then I will tell you the rest of what you wish to know as we dine."
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"So tell us," Solomon said as he munched on a filet of salmon, "how does that artifact enable you to create Duel Monsters cards?"
Shadow looked out a porthole as he spoke. "I'm not entirely sure. Most of the legends about this thing are vague at best. Near as I can figure, it works with the power of my soul and, to a small extent, bends reality to my will. If someone like Yugi had found it, the Triforce probably would have turned out cards of Light, such as Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons or Téa's Shining Friendship. But, since I found it, it created these." He withdrew several cards the likes of which none had ever seen. "You saw my Dragons and the Ninja of Darkness earlier. But here are some cards that even shocked me when I saw them."
He pointed to something that looked like a crimson-colored gargoyle with ram-like horns, reptillian wings, and a mischievous look in its face. "This is the Demon Sorcerer. I'm not sure why it was made, but it could easily go head-to-head with your Dark Magician, Yugi."
Then Shadow pulled out a card with a skeleton mounted atop a skeletal horse and carrying an ivory-white lance. "That's the Skull Rider. It's one of my weaker cards, but if I use it with the right magic cards, it's quite formidable."
Next to be revealed was a card emblazoned with a spider which had a red hourglass symbol on its oversized abdomen. "That was the first card ever made for me by the Triforce; the Black Widow. I don't really use it too much, though."
"Why not?" Joey asked. "Its attack power is 2700. That'd be enough for me to use it all the time."
"Normally, that'd do it for me too," Shadow replied, blushing slightly, "but I'm somewhat of an arachnophobe." Clearing his throat and pulling out another card, he said, "This is the latest card I made. It was about a year ago. I was sitting in my den, looking through my deck, and this one suddenly materialized out of the Triforce." He produced a card that had a warrior decked out in black armor on it. "It's called the Shadow Knight. A few days later, all of my magic cards appeared.
"I've got Dragon Nails for my Red-Eyes, the Throwing Star for the Ninja Of Darkness, Spider's Web for the Black Widow, Dark Spellbook for the Demon Sorcerer, the Knight has the Shadow Sword, and my Skull Rider has the Bone Shield. These are all I've ever needed to win my duels. It's just gotten too easy lately." Then, as if it were an afterthought, "Oh, Yugi, I found some things which I believe belong to you."
Out of his pocket came the three missing Exodia cards. "Where did you find them?" Yugi said, removing the two recovered by Joey from his pocket.
"Oddly enough, I found them while fishing a few days ago as I was on my way to the island. I had cast my net out to see what I could grab, and when I pulled it in a little while later, there were these three cards in the bottom of it. I knew there was only one Duelist out this way who had Exodia. I figured I'd meet you in the castle, so I kept them for you." As he went to give the cards to their proper owner, however, Yugi pushed them away.
"I have found that while Exodia is powerful, I don't need him to win. Kuribo did exceptionally well against Kaiba the last time I dueled him outside the castle, and my other cards have served me more than adequately since I lost Exodia. You have helped to free my grandfather and Mokuba. I believe you have earned them." He placed the final two cards into Shadow's hands. At once, they and the Triforce became bathed in a golden light. When it cleared, the Exodia pieces were still there, but they had taken on a much darker hue, the face had an almost evil look to it, and the power of each piece had increased substantially.
"Just like the other times...." Shadow said.
"What other times?" Solomon implored.
"There is one other thing I have to tell you. Shortly after I found the Triforce, I was drawn to Egypt. I met a mysterious man there, Shadi, who bears the Millennium Key. When he saw what I had, he told me all he knew of the legend.
"The Triforce was the power that had been used to create the Millennium Items. After that, it was sealed away in the Sumarian crypt where I found it. Before it was locked away, however, it guardian, the Pharoah who controlled the Dark Magician, created the last Item, the Millenium Puzzle that he wore until his death, and one final creature; the Millennium Dragon. It was somewhat weaker than the other Dragon-type monsters, but it reflected his pure soul. It was, accoridng to the legend, a dragon made of pure light-energy. When Pegasus recreated Duel Monsters, Shadi was his guide to the Pharoah's tomb. He showed Pegasus carvings of the Pharoah's most powerful monsters, including the Millenium Dragon. Immediately entranced with it, Pegasus started painting the image fot the card right away. Shadi later acquired it and held it in the chamber with the other Millenium Items." There were other monsters in those cravings, as well, he thought, but I should keep that information under my hat until necessary. Who knows what would happen is someone like Kaiba gained control of the three Egyptian God cards?
"When the Guardian of the Millennium Items gave it to me, it transformed into my first Red-Eyes Black Dragon, and its power jumped up to match a Blue-Eyes." He held up one of his Dragons. "This is the one. Deep down, below the darkness my own power infused it with, I can still feel the soul of the Millennium Dragon. This one," he held up another, "was a normal Red Eyes I bought off a dealer in China. The second I touched it, it instantly increased in power." Shadow then pulled out his final Red Eyes. "And this was the fourth Blue Eyes White Dragon."
Everyone stared in shock. "But, how????? The pieces were swept up by the janitor! I saw it on my security monitors!" Kaiba exclaimed.
"I was the janitor, Seto." Shadow replied. "I wanted to spy on you to see your Dueling style before I challenged you, and a janitor is rather inconspicuous. When I saw the halves of that ultra-rare monster, I recovered them hoping that I could repair the card. I repaired it with the Triforce, but, as with the Millenium Dragon, I transformed it into a Red Eyes Black Dragon." Then, looking at Solomon, "I know this card means a lot to you. Do you wish to have it back?"
Solomon, however, shook his head. "No; the man who gave it to me was a dear friend indeed, but apparently the card has chosen you. What kind of a person would I be if I wished to covet it for myself? It was meant as a symbol of friendship, and I would be honored if you would keep it and consider me your friend."
"And the same goes for me and Exodia." Yugi said, smiling.
Shadow, for the first time that day, also smiled. "You people are all right." With that, they went back to their meal.
Bakura, being noticed only by Shadow, reached into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the smooth, golden form of the Millenium Eye.
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(Posted Sat, 28 Aug 2004 09:12)
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