Yu-Gi-Oh!: Return of the Arcadia Movement [Chapter 11 up~][-PG13-]

[Merci]

Return of the Arcadia Movement

[spoiler=Info]
RotAM is a roleplay, sequel to a failed one, that managed to make it through to the very end, and also ended up as determining the whole characterverse of both me and TheFinalFan. One day, I made the decision to convert it into a fanfic, which wasn't as easy as it appeared to be at first.

I've worked on this project for months now, slowly sharpening it with each passing day. It was started by Exowolf and continued by other helpful users.

The total, edited compression of the roleplay ended up at 395 pages in total.

I'll have to warn you, it's a sequel as well as converted RP, so expect a lot As-You-Knows as well as constant changes of POV (I've managed to balance them out to the best of my ability though) along with suddenly-cut card games. Hopefully though you can still understand the gist of it >.<

Since it's pretty much already finished, I can just copy-paste each chapter each day or two, therefore 'daily updates'. There's around twenty chapters in total, so...
[/spoiler]
 

Occurring one year after the Sky Signers were defeated and the world was saved, Akiza is now running for mayor, and five people have been granted Signer marks.

But things aren't as idyllic as they appear, as the revived Arcadia Movement seems to be making its move at last, after many years of rebuilding and preparation.

Many lives will be affected, and nobody will come out unscathed. Taking place over the course of two long days, this is a story about psychics, cyborgs, romance, despair, and most of all - card games.

[spoiler=Prologue]

Light shone down upon a lone man.

It was a very specific man that the light had chosen to shine upon, one with a large stature, black hair and a three-piece suit, wearing a stern expression and possessing eyes that told of experience and despair, an undeniable seriousness to them. His appearance was such that nobody dared to crack a joke while near him, as he seemed like the kind of person who always took life seriously, never with time to chat or play around.

“Mr. Years, we are glad to have you with us,” a voice greeted him.

His name was Vinedi Years, or at least that was the name everybody knew him by. To him, it was still a somewhat unfamiliar name, but he knew he had to get used to it. And this man, Vinedi, was running to be the mayor of New Domino City. People knew him as a radical anti-dueling politician, a man who had come up with a great explanation on how the highly-advanced technology that the legendary Seto Kaiba had used for dueling could be used for the benefit of the world instead.

He argued about the highly realistic holographic projections, the Duel Disks, the Duel Runners, and everything in-between also happening to relate with card games. And when faced with such arguments, one can’t help but feel a little guilty that they had been using such amazing technology for something as simple as card games, while people who could’ve needed the technology starved away.

In other words, card games were obstructing world peace.

It was common knowledge to all the people that becoming mayor was only a stepping stone to him. After he becomes mayor, he would only rise to even more important statuses and save billions of lives from death all over the globe in the process. Some believed he was even capable of preventing global warming.

It should’ve been an easy win for Vinedi Years, to garner everyone’s support.

Unfortunately, his opponent was the one woman he hadn’t been expecting to face, Akiza Izinski. The probability of such an event was so low that he hadn’t even considered it, but somehow he had ended up competing with the former Black Rose Witch herself. She refuted his arguments, pointed out flaws and questionable acts, the main one of which being that why would the Arcadia Movement of all things sponsor his election?

He had been worried at first, that somebody might figure it out, but fortunately, everyone failed.

Were they insightful, they would notice that his appearance was but a mask, created with psychic powers enhanced from residing within the belly of darkness for a disturbingly long amount of time, and that underneath his appearance was a hawk face, reddish hair, and insane grin.

Were they smart, they would realize that the birth certificate and everything else that supposedly acknowledged the existence of a man called ‘Vinedi Years’, was forged. Absolutely fake. Meaning such a man didn’t exist.

Were they actually intelligent enough to bother, they would be shocked to find out that the very name of Vinedi Years itself was but an anagram. By switching its letters around, the result would come up with something very, very interesting.

Like the character Jonah from Christian tales, he emerged from the belly of a gigantic creature and survived be it a whale or a lizard, which must mean that something must have chosen him.

But the one thing that truly encouraged him was an egg-shaped mark that had burned itself onto his arm the day he was released from Ccarayhua, a mark he understood the very moment he laid his eyes on it.

It was a sign that he had been chosen, a sign that his ideals were truly divine.

He looked up at the sky, the sun shining down on him. People surrounded him, trying to get interviews, but for moment he disregarded them. So for once in a lifetime, even the Crimson Dragon itself supported his goals. The god Quetzalcoatl had chosen him.

However, his once-beloved Black Rose Witch stood in his way, and so he was forced to use the knowledge he had obtained from Ccarayhua's stomach to good use. A plan that involved many of their previous subjects, a plan that would slowly execute over two days.

It was a risky plan, but if it succeeded, hypothetically Vinedi Years would gain control of the entire world, and a perfect world would be born. It was a little unnecessary just to surpass Akiza Izinski, but when there was potential, there was an undying desire to achieve it.

In the end, nothing shall stop him from achieving his goals.

Nothing at all.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Chapter 1: Reminiscence]

It was a beautiful day in New Domino City.

People were heading home. Duelists were playing their cards against each other on the streets as onlookers watched the realistic holograms battle, all well aware of the slow afternoon sun above them.

But unbeknownst to them all, a dark shadow was creeping over the city, a dark shadow that would change everything they had ever known. . . . forever.

A teenager relaxed underneath a tree near the entrance to the main Duel Academy building. Although he may not look like it at first, he was the son of former duel king Jack Atlas and reporter Carlietta Carmine-Atlas, as well as the older brother of the newborn Victoria.

The holidays had finally kicked in the day before, which meant no more exams, no more homework, no more studying, and no more school. It seemed to be kind of missing the point by relaxing near the Duel Academy, but since it was over there weren’t many people around, allowing him to relax in peace. He was sitting right in front of the slowly setting sun. Since the holidays were over, he could now just sit back and relax.

His name was Damian Atlas, and he was no ordinary teenager.

It all began when he accidentally fell off a ferry while on a trip to France. He should’ve died, and he did in fact die. So why was he still alive? Well, that was because a powerful entity called Aslla Piscu, part of dark gods from the underworld known only as the Earthbound Immortals, revived him and made him do its bidding. He was transformed into a ‘Dark Signer’, something similar to a zombie. That should’ve been the end of it, but it became much more complicated when-

Suddenly, a dark shadow blocked out his vision of the sun, and all hope of relaxing faded away as he realized what, or rather who it was. His eyes quickly adjusted to reveal a maroon-haired, golden-eyed girl with spiky hair, magenta Duel Academy uniform, and a smile.

“Dami-kun~” Izumi Fudo cooed, knowing that he hated it when she called him that. “You remember what today is, right?”

“Come on, Izzy, I keep telling you not to call me that!” Damian protested.

“Dami-kun~”

Damian mentally cringed at this pet name being repeated right after he had asked her not to. She hadn’t ever stopped teasing him about it when she had found out how much it annoyed him.

“So, what day is it?”

Er. Damian really thought hard, still lying against the tree. The sun set a little lower, and a single ray of light hit his eyes.

Everything would’ve run its course had that girl not exist. Back then, she had been something of a psychic Duel Runner transformer cyborg called AKI-24-18-7, created by the Arcadia Movement among many others. Against all odds, the automaton was struck by a lightning bolt and gained sentience, before proceeding to try and escape the movement. She just so happened to meet Damian, who saved her from them, and after a short time they developed a strong bond.

Then an ancient Dark Signer called Zarkus trashed her, and that’s when things started getting complicated. The AKI was partially biological, so that allowed the Earthbound Immortals to turn her into a rather strange Dark Signer zombie thing unlike any other.

Long story short, the zombielike Dark Signers teamed up with an old generation of heroes, stormed the floating fortress of the Sky Signers, and after a desperate duel between Zarkus, Yusei, and Proximus against the brutal and insane Oyuki, the world was finally saved.

During the climax, the mystical Crimson Dragon had appeared and restored all the Dark Signers back to normal, and that was the end of it. There had been deaths, people who can never be brought back to life, and there had been even more scars, but the important thing was that the world had been saved.

…all this happened within the course of less than a week.

It’s a wonder that the two of them had remained sane.

“Ah! Of course!” He said, snapping his fingers as he finally figured it out. “It’s the day we first met, right?”

“Yep! Today is the anniversary of that day you saved me!” Izzy exclaimed, delighted that he actually figured it out for once.

As she said those words, however, she started to reminisce about that gloomy night and emotions that weren’t so positive began to creep up towards her mind. But then she shook her head and smiled again, quickly reaching into her satchel and whipping out two tickets, as well as what looked like a reservation.

“So tonight, I’ve decided that we will have our fifth date!” She declared, punching the air with her fist, and against the sun she looked as if she had tried to punch the shining light.

Damian sighed, since he knew that there was no arguing with her. He got up from the tree and looked at her in the eyes, although his thoughts were elsewhere.

I still wonder how this is supposed to feel normal. I mean, she started out life as a robot!

But I met you as a Dark Signer, Izzy playfully countered into his mind.

Damian mentally scolded himself for forgetting that his girlfriend wasn't just a Signer and a cyborg, but also psychic, where she happened to also possess the power of telepathy.

“I really should find a way to make myself remember stuff better,” he muttered to himself. “Anyway, what's the time?”

“We have a few hours to go home and get ready to go out.”

Izzy whipped out some keys before unlocking her ride, which looked like a futuristic jeep with a black and flame paintjob, several additions onto the dash, and an open-topped back compartment with some sort of stand. It was called the Duelhog.

“Well, I'm heading home,” she said. “See you in a few hours, Dami-kun!”

She blew a kiss and drove off on the futuristic jeep before Damian could protest.

He sighed, and went to his Duel Runner close by, before climbing into it. Then he drove off towards home, passing by a billboard for Akiza Fudo, which had the slogan ‘Being Mayor Needs a Woman's Touch. Vote Fudo for Mayor!’

Good old Aki, he thought, smiling. She'll win, no doubt, and beat that Vinedi Years guy. That is of course, unless someone recalls her past self as the Black Rose Witch. Ha ha.

 

------------

Meanwhile, Izumi's sister, Yuki Fudo, had been spying on them from behind another tree.
The pale-skinned, snowy-haired girl had worked so hard for Izzy get to this point, and she wasn't about to let Damian ruin it.

As she psychically watched over Izzy’s mind, she ended up accidentally glancing into the past, her own former past.

She flashed back to her own memory, where she was torturing both her mother and her future sister inside of some sort of castle, cackling insanely from behind a mask…

But those days were long over. She was no longer the cold-hearted leader of the Sky Signers, and she had changed. Izzy had helped to heal her formally-scarred face at the cost of having her hair permanently bluish-white. Her excuse was that she had been stuck in a hospital with a serious illness but had survived, at the cost of her hair.

And so far, everyone just believed it.

Her cell suddenly began to ring, and she answered it before the couple near her noticed. It was Damian’s mother, Carly.

“Hi, Mrs. Atlas!” Yuki greeted onto the phone, quietly distancing herself from the duo so that she could talk in peace. Carly seemed to be talking excitedly for some reason. “You want me to take care of Vicky tonight? Okay, but what for?”

Carly then lowered her voice and whispered something into the phone, still excited.

“YOU AND MR. ATLAS ARE DOING WHAT?!?!?” Yuki screeched, causing several passersby to stare at the overreacting Signer. “Yes ma'am. I'll be there at seven.”

I have to tell Izzy and Damian that—

And then she realized that they just left.

She panicked, drawing even more attention to herself.

 

------------

Damian finally arrived home, a large mansion, before entering it.

He passed by his parents and his baby sister but he just ignored them. He went up to his room and wondered for a moment about what he was going to wear, finding it difficult since most of his clothes were all still in the laundry. As he inspected all the remaining clothes in his possession, he realized that the only clothes he had left were cosplaying outfits.
Me and my small wardrobe, he thought to himself.

He looked at them all; Bunny, Dog, Skunk, Egyptian Sorcerer, Pirate Ninja Zom-

“Maybe I should cut down on the cosplay- ooooooh! This one might be good!”

He then took out one that he liked and put it on. It was a cool leather outfit, a cosplay of what the original King of Games Yugi Mutou had worn decades ago. He also added a red jacket he had found among the many cosplaying outfits on top; just to make him look more original and not like a ripoff.

“Eh, best I can do,” he muttered, and waited for the time being.

Then he heard three motorcycles pull into his family's mansion's drive. One of them was his father, Jack Atlas, the former Duel King, who now had a mustache, and maybe it was just his imagination but he seemed to have less hair than usual, as if he was starting to go bald. The two with him were a laid-back Crow and a less-spiky Yusei. Together, they formed the former Team 5D’s, winners of the World Racing Grand Prix and part of the Signers’ previous generation.

They all looked a bit older, and walked into the mansion, before collapsing in the various sofas and futons in the common room.

Carly, carrying a baby Victoria, who looked as much like her mother as Damian looked like his father, asked, “So how was micromanaging the movie?”

“TERRIBLE!!!” All three of them yelled.

Damian ignored them, and continued to dial from upstairs. He dialed, and then heard some sort of political answering machine message on the Fudo residence machine. This was the thirteenth time the house phone had replied to him this way.

He decided he wasn’t ever going to call the house number ever again and was about to dial Izzy's cell when he received a message from her.

It said ‘Yuki phoned me just now. Go talk to your father.’

Huh?

He put the mobile down, wondering why he had to do this, and headed downstairs to his father.
When he got downstairs, his attention was suddenly caught by the television, which was on the news channel. A female news reporter was talking on it.

“In America, many duelists have been found dead,” she said. “Researchers have discovered a connection between all the ‘victims’, believing that they had all displayed some form of psychic powers at one point in their life. Indeed, one of the victims was the winner of the Lotus Tournament, Arca, who once claimed at one point that he had them. There is no obvious sign for the cause of death, but many witnesses claim to have last seen them dueling a man in dark clothes.”

She stressed those last four words, as if she was trying to make it a warning.

“Officials are still looking into the matter, and the public have been advised not to accept any duel offers from strangers, especially any man in dark clothes. The deaths number into the hundreds, and many people are heartbroken and panicking by these deaths…”

She paused for a moment to clear her throat. Damian then got bored and left the television on by itself, before beginning to think to himself.

Recently, the Dragon mark of the Tail, a Signer mark, had materialized onto his arm. When it had, he had been a little bothered, but he was sure it didn’t mean much. At around that same time, the Left Wing had appeared on Izzy’s arm and the Right Wing on Yuki’s arm. Probably just the good ol’ Crimson Dragon trying to play a prank on everyone, just to freak them all out.

At least, he hoped so.

He looked around to see where his dad might be, and heard voices coming from one of the rooms. He walked there, and opened the door, not knowing what to expect.

Jack, Yusei, and Crow were still complaining about what has been going on at the movie filming when Damian came in.

“Ni-tan!” The baby Victoria exclaimed.

Vicky, who seemed more like a one-year-old toddler instead of a two-month-old infant, was a bit bigger than normal, and much smarter. She was apparently conceived while Carly was a Dark Signer a year ago, so that might have influenced her development a bit.

“Hey, Damian,” the legendary Yusei greeted him.

“Hi, Mr. Fudo. What's up?” Damian said. He sat down.

“Exhausting. If taking care of two teenage girls isn't bad enough, you have to deal with people who think that Akiza and I had a relationship during the Dark Signer crisis,” Yusei said, shaking his head for a bit in horror at what they’ve done.

“They also believe Misty and I had a romantic relationship, that Akiza really did accidentally killed Carly's little brother, and that I’m really from Tops,” Jack breathed out, facepalming.

“And they made me black! Not meaning to sound racist here, but I'm not black!” Crow added.
Carly, Vicky, and even Damian laughed at the frustration of the three ‘Old Signers’ at the media.

“Most media can't tell a Kuriboh from a Sangan,” Damian joked, before deciding to try calling Izzy. He took out his phone and dialed.

As he was waiting for Izzy to pick up, Jack mentioned, “Oh yeah, Carly and I are going out to Le Jerri Bean for dinner and going to go see Waking the Dragons tonight.”

Damian suddenly knew what Izzy meant. His parents were going on a double date, with their own son and Izzy.

“Oh, great. A double date?! Just what I didn’t want, Dad.” Damian said, sighing. “Can’t I have a normal date with Izzy for once?”

“Well, son,” Jack began, looking into his son's eyes. “Time to learn a valuable lesson; you can't always get what you want...”

For the next few minutes, Jack, Yusei, and Crow began to sing a song that was as old as the twenties. Damian looked on in horror, trying to think of how he will get out of this one… then he suddenly had a thought as he remembered what he had seen on the television.

Yes! A good story could keep Carly really busy!

He quickly ran up to his mum and spoke to her, “Mum, I think you might have too much work to go on a date. I mean, you've got all those mysterious deaths in America to cover…”

 

---------------

Meanwhile, not too far away from where Damian was, a guy called Zachariah Kishimoto dueled for his life.

He was scared out of his wits. He had seen the news. He knew what the fate of all before him had been. They had ended up dead, hundreds of them.

Darkness swirled all around him, cackling, too thick for him to see his surroundings. He had just been walking on the street when a man in dark clothes had appeared and offered to duel him. Of course, he had the sense to turn him down and tried to run away, but darkness had completely blocked his way. He was trapped, forced to duel for his life, and the fact that he was a psychic duelist didn’t seem to be helping him for once in his entire pitiful existence.

“Turn end,” the man said calmly.

“Who are you?! Why are you doing this?!” His opponent cried.

He was desperate, hanging on by just a few life points (Zack LP: 300), and he didn’t know what would happen if he lost. He had, however, managed to inflict 2000 points of damage onto the man out of luck, which helped things (Unknown LP: 2000).

The man didn’t answer him.

He closed his eyes, prayed to whatever god was out there, and drew his card from his deck. And he was relieved.

“YES!” Zack exclaimed. “I activate the effect of the Continuous Spell card Call of the Mummy! It allows me to Special Summon one Zombie once per turn so long as I control no monsters! And that monster is Vampire Lord!”

Then, on the field appeared a group of bats which then assembled themselves into a well-garmented pale-skinned figure. It grinned, revealing its bloodied fangs that gave away that it was a vampire, a Vampire Lord (ATK 2000).

It glared at its opponent, a monster that sat on a throne and merely observed everything. Much like the Vampire Lord, it was well-garmented, but it looked more like a demon than a vampire, and it was called none other than Dark One Alpha, a title Zack had never heard of before. (ATK 2450)

“You said earlier that Alpha cannot be targeted by attacks, right?” He pointed out, however, refusing to lose here. “Then time to meet your maker! Vampire Lord, attack directly!”

The Vampire Lord darted forward, passing by Alpha who did nothing to stop it from attacking its controller, and it suddenly revealed long sharp claws on its hands. The psychic duelist, scared as he was, used his powers to try and make the attack physical enough to kill the man and hopefully clear out the darkness that threatened to engulf him.

But just as the claws reached its target, the eyes of Alpha flashed red and-

Suddenly Zack felt five sharp claws stab into his chest, although they had clearly stabbed into the man instead.

He gasped for air and collapsed onto the ground, multiple fountains of blood erupting from his chest. The pain was unbearable and the color drained from his face, but he managed to glance at his Duel Disk for just a split second, which displayed his Life Points (Zack LP: 0).

In other words, he had somehow lost. But why…?

The holograms - if you could still call them holograms - disappeared and the man took a few steps forward. The darkness began to fade away, but unfortunately so was what little life poor Zack held onto.

And to think I was so close, when that invitation came… I could have joined the Arcadia Movement and…

“Dark One Alpha redirects all Direct Damage dealt to me,” the man explained, but by now that information was probably useless. He knelt down and stared at the dying psychic. “You know, all of my victims had died painlessly before you, but you’re too eager for your own good. In other words, you killed yourself.”

The tone sounded sympathetic, but then after that he seemed to suppress a chuckle, as if he found all of this amusing.

“Let me tell you something not the media or any other pathetic pest will ever know,” he said, his voice lowering to a whisper. “I am Judgment, and I will crush the Arcadia Movement.”

With that, death overtook the poor psychic duelist.
 

------------

Elsewhere, a young man looked at a photo he contained in his wallet.

Within it was Damian, Izzy, and himself.

This man had a certain air about himself. He had once been a Sky Signer, enemy of the Dark Signers that Damian had ended up as the previous year, before dying and returning as both, a Sky and a Dark Signer, also known as Chaos Signers. Not only that, but he discovered during the previous year that Damian was his cousin, among other things.

A lot of things had happened in the previous year, but it wasn’t going to happen again. In a day or so, DJ had decided that he would hold an anniversary of the events of the previous year, a cheerful party to lift everyone’s spirits.

But a few weeks ago the Mark of the Left Claw, a Signer mark, had appeared on his left arm. These were magical marks that the Crimson Dragon granted to a select group of chosen ones, corresponding to a particular dragon they owned.

Six marks and six dragons, to be exact. These chosen ones would then go on to save the world from some kind of threat.

He was a little freaked when it materialized, but tried not to think about it. He had to stay calm.
His name was DJ Kaiba, the engineer of Kaiba Corporation. He really wanted to see the two of them, his friends, but he had to focus on the corporation. He was its rightful heir, after all.
Calm down, he thought to himself. Stop stressing about all this.

He put his wallet away and took a deep breath, before entering the Kaiba Corporation building lobby. He walked towards the director, who either hadn’t noticed him or was just ignoring him.
“Whadayya want this time, kiddo?” The director asked, bored.

DJ was used to him being this way, but his tone seemed to insult his pride this time. His fists curled up into a ball.

“I, as the rightful heir of Kaiba Corporation, hereby ask that you give me total control over this company!” He demanded, his tone shocking the director and making him stumble for a moment.

DJ didn’t give him a chance to regain his composure.

“You turned it back into a weapons manufacturer, just like what my grandfather Gozaburou Kaiba had done many decades ago!”

“B- b- but it makes better business than card games!” The director said, trying to defend himself.

“Unacceptable! I shall return this company to its former glory, therefore I am now claiming my right as heir, do you understand?”

For a moment, there was only silence between the two of them. Actually, DJ was feeling kind of nervous but he successfully managed to not show it, and as he had intended the director was scared out of his wits. The director stared at him, possibly loathing him but DJ didn’t care.

“Fine,” the director said, his tone having a sharp note to it. DJ said nothing, but raised an eyebrow and took a step forward, forcing the director to take a step back in response. “Sir.”


 

------------

Meanwhile, Yuki had walked all the way to a café placed right in front of the Kaiba Corporation building, and sat there. She was expecting her friend DJ to come along.

As she waited, she noted the Signer mark that had been on her body for a while now, the mark of the Right Wing. It might have meant something, but she tried not to let it bother her, just like Izzy and Damian.

But still, I have to wonder…why would the Crimson Dragon choose me of all people? Me, the masked woman who-

When DJ had walked out, he had walked out with a scowl. She couldn’t tell whether what had happened inside was a good thing or a bad thing but it didn’t really matter. For a moment, DJ disregarded the café as he exited, but then he caught a glimpse of her sitting and ran over.

“Oh, hey, Yuki!” He called, and then took a seat with her on the table.

As soon as he sat down, a Duel Runner suddenly passed by them inappropriately. The reckless driving irritated DJ a bit, and then the Runner took a U-turn back to their direction, but this time parking near them. The driver jumped off the Runner and took off his helmet, revealing himself to be Nick, a friend of theirs that they hadn’t seen in a while. He used to be both Dark Signer and Sky Signer, a Chaos Signer just like DJ, and had been instrumental in saving the world.

“Hey, you guys!” He said.

Nearby, a guy sat at the table next to them. He was pretending to read the newspaper, but in actuality he was eavesdropping on them.

Two of them are Signers, he thought to himself, examining their bodies and spotting marks on two of them.

Originally, he was only stalking one, whose name was Yuki as he had discovered, but now another had appeared.

The three of them, one female and two males, two Signers, had a small friendly chat about nothing in particular, but the guys didn’t order anything. He noticed the female Signer pick up a cup of coffee, and she was about to sip it when he accidentally lost control and suddenly an invisible force knocked it out of her hands, making it fall to the ground and shatter.

Dammit, he scolded himself.

Luckily, the female Yuki disregarded it and after a few more minutes one of the guys got up. Suddenly, he recognized who it was, DJ Kaiba, the heir to the Kaiba Corporation. He should’ve been more attentive, but it was an interesting turn of events.

“Well, see ya later, Yuki!" DJ said, getting up.

His mood had improved and he was back to his normal self again for the time being. He would focus on Kaiba Corporation later. He pulled out his cell phone, intending to call his cousin and talk to him about stuff-

"Wait, DJ-kun!" Yuki said, and glomped him. It was supposed to be a friendly glomp, but DJ’s skin slowly turned blue. He struggled to get her off but she was too powerful. The lack of air began to kill him.

“C- c- ca- can’t- br- breathe!” DJ choked out.

“Uh, do you want me to help get that person off?” Nick offered, clueless as to what to do.
Yuki looked up at Nick and said sweetly, “If you lay a finger on either one of us, I'll freeze your blood!”

“Fine…” Nick then glanced at Yuki and realized something. “Just curious, but have we met before?”

Yuki released DJ and looked at Nick, before starting to chuckle. Nick didn’t understand about what was so funny.

“You really don't recognize me, do you?” She replied, before clearing her voice, making it a bit raspier, and adjusts the bangs over her face.

“Remember me, wretch?!?” She mockingly yelled, causing Nick to have flashes back to when he served a masked queen of ice in a flying castle. Yuki continued to giggle as Nick just sat there in shock.

“Are you okay, Nick?” Her voice asked in a normal and affectionate tone, a stark contrast to her tone when Yuki Fudo was Lady Kuroyukihime, leader of the destructive Sky Signers.

“Give the guy a break, Yuki…” DJ muttered, sighing.

He remembered about how the Skybound Immortal Apus had used him. Even now, he still found it hard to compare the Yuki now to the terrifying masked woman.

Suddenly, his cellphone began to ring. He picked it up and answered.

“Hello? Yes, good. I’ll be there. Glad to see you understand. Thank you, goodbye.”

And with that, he hung up satisfactorily. He looked at the two of them and grinned.

“Yuki, I really have to go now. Those guys have finally decided to accept me as CEO! Awesome, huh?!”

And before Yuki could glomp him again, he quickly ran off to the Kaiba Corporation building nearby, and slipped inside.

 

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DJ Kaiba is a Signer. He is about to be appointed CEO for whatever reason, and is now entering the building.

The spy’s name was Suiko, and he sent the text from his phone to the Arcadia Movement. It should’ve been obvious from the start that his identity was that of DJ Kaiba, a particular person that the Arcadia Movement have had their eyes on for a while now.

Among their many plots was to take over Kaiba Corporation, and obviously DJ would be involved. Suiko himself had seen the clones.

The text message from Suiko successfully arrived. The Arcadia Movement had been preparing for this as soon as they had heard that DJ was going to make himself CEO, and so they had stationed psychic agents within the Kaiba Corporation building waiting for his return.

As soon as he entered the building, he was knocked unconscious and dragged down into a secret trapdoor placed within. The accountant had been bribed not to say anything.

It just so happened that within this trapdoor was a laboratory. Small, but sufficient enough to complete an experimental operation within approximately five minutes.

------------

The last Signer and her friend hung around for only a little while longer.

The female Signer, Yuki, was trying to coax the male Nick into waking up but he had passed out. Apparently, the knowledge that she had been the leader of some variant of the Signers called the Sky Signers had broken him down into that. After they had all gone, he got up from his chair. The information he had gained from them was interesting, and he knew he would have to report all this as well later on.

After a few minutes of walking, he had arrived at an abandoned street in New Domino City, and decided to reflect on the information he had gained.

“That plan of Years better work out,” Suiko muttered. “These people are ridiculous, no matter whether or not we’re psychic duelists…”

As soon as he had said the words ‘Psychic Duelists’, a shroud of darkness encircled the area around him. For a moment, it took him off-guard and he nearly dropped in deck in surprise. All of a sudden a man walked out of the darkness. Suiko’s senses were enhanced thanks to his psychic abilities, and he was able to discern the man despite the darkness. He wore dark clothes.

“Did you just say ‘Psychic Duelist’?” The man asked, slightly amused.

His voice had a certain tone about it.

Through ordinary hearing it sounded normal, but through Suiko’s enhanced hearing he was able to recognize a strange certainty about the voice, as if every tiny tone was chosen. It was an indescribable feeling, but his voice was unnatural. And his eyes, Suiko looked into his eyes and saw millenniums, an unspeakable ancientness. But despite all this, he didn’t seem to be very afraid.

“I knew you were coming,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully.

He didn’t know what to expect of this man. He was not a Signer, nor was he a Psychic Duelist, but he was definitely not normal. The Arcadia Movement had failed to explain the disappearances of the psychic duelists, but with the mentions of the ‘man in dark clothes’, he suspected that it was something along these lines.

“You’re the one who had killed all those psychics in America, weren’t you?”

“Indeed,” the man confirmed.

He advanced forward a little bit, before a black Duel Disk suddenly appeared on his arm. It looked like an old KaibaCorp model, probably four or five decades old, but it looked to be in perfect condition, as if it had been fished straight out of that time.

“Do you know how rare it is for me to catch an Arcadia Movement agent alone and vulnerable? It is very hard, very hard indeed. I had to go about killing off Psychic Duelists everywhere, mainly America. I thought the Arcadia Movement operated in America, but apparently not. A misconception.”

He paused for a moment.

“Luckily, though, the lack of Psychic Duelists will heavily weaken the Arcadia Movement. Stupid barrier they’ve put up prevents me from entering straight into their headquarters, which I’ve now discovered, but I can always siege it.”

Suiko absorbed all of this information, and activated his Duel Disk. He didn’t know how the man had been able to guess he was part of the Arcadia Movement, but-

Well, guess what?! I won’t be going down as easily as those American idiots! Suiko screamed out telepathically.

The man seemed amused as the voice echoed in his mind, but Suiko could only feel horror as their minds touched. This man was alive, but, he was also dead. Like a Dark Signer.

“I can see that, you seem stronger, and I’d personally rank you as a Class Five Telepath. I’d expect nothing less from one of those movement’s agents,” he stated.

So he knows about the movement’s grading system too, huh…? Suiko thought to himself, genuinely surprised that the man had accurately guessed his ranking as a telepath.

“Obviously! I'll start!”

He drew his sixth card and looked at his hand.

“I'll activate the field spell card Fathomless Abyss!”

The scenery of darkness changed, and both duelists found themselves floating in the middle of a very dark place, the only thing that could be seen being a few bubbles that searched its way to the surface, and in the background one could see big creatures that were swimming around the field.

“Welcome to the abyss!” Suiko declared, convinced that he would be the first to defeat this man. “Now I will set one monster in face-down Defense Position!”

A card appeared face-down, turned sideways, in front of Suiko. "Then I'll set two cards face-down, and end my turn!" Two more cards appeared face-down, and then it was the man’s turn.

The man smirked as he drew his card.

“You have no idea what you’re in for,” he warned, unperturbed by the abyss they were now within, and then drew his own card. The game had already been determined.

“Actually, I've been taking a leave day today, so I’m completely open!” Carly said.

Damian's spirits sunk as he saw that there was no way to get his parents to not go out tonight, to not go out on a double date with their own son. That sucked, it was also pretty embarrassing, for the both of them.

“D'oh! Fine…” He said, and walked away.

He muttered random cursing under his breath as he walked out of the room, before getting the idea to call Izzy. So he dialed in the number.

 

------------

Meanwhile, Izzy was getting ready for her date, which was now a double date with Damian's parents, when she heard a Duel Runner pull into the Fudo residence driveway.

I bet Dad's home with his friends, she thought to herself as she went downstairs to go greet the new arrivals.

But when she got down, the door was suddenly broken down by a powerful force, and a masked man wrapped in a dark robe walked in.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 2: Masked Seahorse]
“You will come with me,” the masked man demanded. Somehow, it was oddly familiar to her, but also heavily twisted and distorted to such an extent that she couldn’t quite recognize whoever should’ve been behind that mask.

Although the window had shattered, for some reason no sound had come from it. She suspected the cause was psychic powers, and that could only mean one thing.

“The AKI Prime project has begun. It is now time for you to return to the Arcadia Movement,” he informed her.

Izumi was a bit startled at the sudden appearance of the masked man, and his mention of the AKI Prime project -whatever that was - terrified her, and especially Arcadia Movement. Despite this, though, her flinch was momentary, and she looked at the intruder with a puzzled expression on her face, trying her hardest to seem like a ditzy high-school broad.

“Umm, like, I don't know what you are, like, talking about,” she responded in a somewhat-faked valley girl accent.

“Yeah right,” the masked man said sarcastically. “I know who you are. Duel me, and if you win, I will leave you alone. But if I win, you shall come with me.”

At that moment, Izzy’s phone began to ring on a desk near them, but before she could pick it up, the masked man pointed at it and it flew into his hand. Telekinesis. He answered the phone.

“Your girlfriend here has, ah, business to attend to,” and with that, he crushed it with his hands and let the pieces drop to the floor.

Despite the loss of her phone, she grinned and replied sweetly, “Let me just get my Duel Disk.”

Then the entire wall behind the masked man broke open as a pink and white Duel Runner sped through. In one swift motion, parts of the Duel Runner opened up and shifted around Izzy, encasing her in a metal shell. The Duel Runner continued to transform into a robotic mecha suit.

“You want me-” Izzy began, now in an upgraded exoskeleton of her former cyborg body, much larger than the original and twice as fast. “…well here I am!”

 

-------------

“Your girlfriend here has, ah, business to attend to,” the phone said, before the sound of a crunching and then a lost signal.

Damian panicked at the reply, and he used the tracking function on his phone to see if Izzy was at her house. It took an entire minute to load, which irritated him greatly. As soon as it was confirmed, though, he quickly ran outside and jumped onto his Duel Runner.
“Something must be wrong…” He muttered to himself, and drove off.

-------------

Izzy grunted as Cyber Dragon cut through her Gigaplant, which smashed near her. (Izzy LP: 3800)

Dammit! She thought to herself, having finally realized the identity of the masked man.
He’s somehow a Psychic Duelist! But how? He doesn't have a speck of talent in him…unless he's being controlled! Gotta find that controller…

She reached into the masked man's mind with her telepathic Psychic powers, searching for the presence behind his current actions…

Izzy saw in his mind that he was now half cyborg and that his memories had been replaced by fake ones, thinking that he had been a servant to the Arcadia Movement since he was born. However, his old memories, the memories of his old self remained, but heavily dormant at the back of his mind.

Dammit. What now?

"You end?" The masked man then asked, unaware of Izumi’s probing his mind.

"I end by setting two face-down cards," Izzy reluctantly accepted.

As soon as she did, Damian suddenly drove in through the wall and parked besides Izzy. The house was a complete mess. "Damian?! What are you doing here?!"

"Save the chit-chat,” the masked man said, but he took the time to glance at their newcomer. “You are next.”

 

-------------

A man walked off the arena, another defeated opponent behind him, with his Life Points at zero.

This was all getting way too easy.

The man’s name was Zarkus, and he had a long history behind him. Like Damian, Izzy, and he had been a Dark Signer. But unlike them, he had been something different.

A century ago, during the 1940’s, he had delved into researching the darkness, and needless to say the result had been his transformation into a Dark Signer. He had originally worked solo, but he had somehow managed to become the leader of the Dark Signers when he came across the previous one by chance, Shinato, and defeated him in a duel.

Things apparently escalated after that, and now here he was. Zarkus Syuren, mortal, after a hundred years of life.

“Life is getting boring… I need to find something interesting,” he muttered, jumping onto his Duel Runner. But where to begin...?

He began to drive onward for a short while, not sure where he was heading. He was just roaming around the city, looking to see if he could find something interesting- and stopped.
He began to hear a faint motor that was getting louder and louder. He hadn’t noticed for a while, but he was able to notice in the end. He was being followed. Yet despite that, he saw nothing. He heard the noise get as loud as it could get, but he saw no sort of vehicle near him.
Until he looked up.

Then he saw a black hovercycle landing near him, and a strangely-dressed woman stepped off of the machine. She had a black bodysuit with a helmet that covered her head save for her lower face and her long, flowing red hair. She looked at Zarkus through two glowing red eyeslots.

“Hello, Zarkus,” she purred, in a somewhat mechanical voice.
“Who are you?” Zarkus asked, on his guard.

“Oh, haven’t you heard of me?”

The first thing that crossed his mind were reports of a dangerous, and illegal form of dueling, involving customized vehicles and souped-up holographic projectors to make the game very fast and very real. And this woman was one of the best, the infamous "Black Knight", champion of the underground, and illegal Duel Racing games.

“Hold on, you’re that Black Knight, aren’t you? What do you want from me?” He asked, still on guard.

“Correct. At least, that’s what the local media have dubbed me, and I am here to offer you an invitation.”

She threw a card to Zarkus, who caught it. It seemed to be a blank Duel Monsters card.

“Plug that into your Duel Runner at eighteen-hundred hours tonight,” she continued, getting back onto her hovercycle. Zarkus notices some sort of weapon-like device where her right arm should be.

“See you tonight, Zarkus Syuren.”

And then the vehicle jetted away.

 

-------------

Izzy took the full brunt of the attack as one of her ace combos was obliterated and Cyber Dragon attacked her directly. (Izzy LP: 1000) The exoskeleton she was in had taken real damage due to the masked man’s Psychic powers, but her body was still safe inside, albeit a bit jostled.

“So, Damian,” the masked man said, despite his earlier comment about no chit-chat. “How do you feel knowing your girlfriend will come with me?”

“What?! Why?!” Damian demanded, clenching his fists.

He had no idea what was going on, and the two of them seemed too busy and absorbed in their duel to explain to him. “Why were you two dueling and why are you taking her?! Who are you anyway?!”

“Humph, I should have picked a stronger opponent. This is way too easy!” The masked man mocked Izzy, ignoring Damian. Maybe he was just insane. “I lay a face-down and end.”

“Well, if you think that this is all I have, think again!” Izzy retorted as she drew.

A strategy had formed in her mind, and in a swift move she played just two cards and used their effects. Two monsters were now on the field, their Levels equaling eight, and everything was now set.

“…and with this, now I can Synchro Summon my Signer Dragon!”

The Left Wing mark on Izzy's right arm started to glow through the metal onto her mecha suit's right arm. Then she chanted.
 

“Nature's children engulfing the entire world! Snow-white flower, set into bloom! Synchro Summon! Appear now, White Rose Dragon!”

As Izzy chanted, her two monsters had turned into rings and stars, which then aligned themselves with each other into a line before being covered within a beam of light. When the light had faded away, a beautiful dragon covered in white roses was in its place, just as its name suggested. (ATK 2400).

As it appeared, the masked man suddenly felt a strange presence appear into his head as a glowing red mark appeared on his right arm. He was confused, his mind slightly hazy. The presence of the mark wanted him to abandon his original strategy and aim for something completely different...

“Impressive,” the masked man admitted, wincing a little.

“And I'm not done yet!” Izzy retorted. “I activate my Dragon's effect! Unlike my mother's Dragon, which destroys monsters at the cost of Plants, mine supports and protects them! I now Special Summon Rosebush Knight from my Graveyard in Attack Mode!”

Setting her cards into activation one by one, a rosy knight wielding sword reappeared (ATK 2000).

“Now I activate the last card in my hand, Reap and Sow, so I’ll send Botanical Girl, Botanical Lion, Jerry Beans Man, Lord Poison, Gigantic Cephalotus, and Hedge Guard to the Graveyard to draw six cards!”

Six cards from Izzy’s deck then flew into the grave, before she drew six more from the top. “My Rosebush Knight also gains 200 ATK and DEF for each Plant-type monster in the Graveyard! I’ll set three face-down cards, and then attack your Cyber Dragon, DJ!”

Suddenly Rosebush Knight grew bigger as six red roses bloomed on its body, accompanied by three more red roses already placed, appearing now much more powerful than the mechanical dragon that opposed it. (3800 ATK)

“I’m afraid your attack won’t make it through! Trap card activate, Negate Attack!” The man countered, signaling for one of his facedowns to reveal itself, and a vortex stopped the knight from slashing apart the Cyber Dragon.

“Who's DJ anyway?” He asked.

“You honestly don't remember, do you?” Izzy sounded glum as her hopes were dashed. “…I end my turn.”

DJ. The name seemed somewhat important, and familiar, to the masked man. DJ. The name rang in his head, but he tried to ignore it. DJ. Ignore it ignore it ignore it, and continue the duel to ignore it ignore it ignore it. DJ.

“Now it’s my turn! Draw!”

The masked man drew a card from his deck.

“I summon Ancient Gear Synchron!” He said, and a gear-like being appeared out of nowhere (ATK 300). “Now, the Level of my Tuner monster Ancient Gear Synchron is three, and the Level of my Cyber Dragon is five. Therefore, I tune them up together!”

As soon as he had said those last four words, his arm lit up suddenly with a light. But it wasn’t his arm; it was coming from the Left Claw mark on it! Damian’s and Izzy’s marks also began to glow. This were indicating that another Signer dragon was about to be summoned.
 

“Shine, and illuminate this blind world! Let your light judge the fate of all darkness! Synchro Summon! Descend now, Shine Dragon!”

As the masked man chanted, the Ancient Gear Synchron split into three separate gears which began to circle around the Cyber Dragon, which was starting to become transparent. Within the transparent Cyber Dragon five metal cores could be seen. The gears were closer to the Cyber Dragon with each spin.

When they were close enough, a bright light engulfed them all, and when it had faded away, in the place of the two monsters earlier instead was a purple dragon, with bright orb-like objects lining its spine from top to bottom. It roared a loud metallic roar, although with the strange added sound effect of tinkling. (ATK 3000)

The masked man seemed dazed by the monster that he had now summoned, and confused by the Signer mark that had showed itself on his arm. Something was at the back of his head, trying to break out. But no, he refused to give in.

“I activate the continuous spell card Ability Cancel!!” He declared, and activated a card from his hand. “Now, no monsters can use their effects starting next turn, as long as I pay five hundred Life Points per turn. Shine Dragon, now destroy her White Rose Dragon!”

The order, he couldn’t really tell why, but it seemed wrong somehow, as if he was forcing a living being to kill its sibling. Still, the purple dragon opened its mouth and let forth a broad beam of light and destruction, connecting with Izzy’s Signer Dragon, and obliterating it. The beam kept going until it reached Izumi herself, amplified by his psychic powers. It hit her mecha exoskeleton, wrecking it even more. (Izzy LP: 300)

“I lay a face-down and end my turn.”

“My turn! Draw!”

Izzy drew her next card, and then executed her move straightaway.

“I activate up the continuous trap card Phony Synthesis, which allows me to remove Plant monsters from my graveyard whose total Level is equal to or greater than a non-Plant in my grave, and Special Summon it as a Plant! I’ll remove my Lonefire Blossom, Botanical Girl, and Jerry Beans Man from the Graveyard to Special Summon my White Rose Dragon back!”
A gigantic white rose suddenly bloomed from the ground in front of Izzy, and then the rose morphed back into the beautiful White Rose Dragon, her Signer Dragon (ATK 2300).

“Next, I will activate Raigeki Break, destroying your Ability Cancel by discarding Elemental Hero Knospe! Now my monsters get their abilities back!”

A lightning suddenly struck the spell card the masked man had earlier activated.

“Then, my White Rose Dragon will Special Summon Botanical Lion from my Graveyard (ATK 1600), while I will Normal Summon Phoenixian Seed, which I will Tribute to Special Summon Phoenixian Cluster Amaryllis (ATK 2200)! Furthermore, my Botanical Lion gets 300 ATK for each other Plant on the field (ATK 2500)!”

The masked man took a step back as Izzy’s field suddenly and quickly filled with loads of Plant monsters. He had pretty much no way of countering.

“Now, my plants, attack!” Izzy commanded.

“Not so fast,” the masked man stated, in one last futile attempt to protect himself. “While Shine Dragon is on the field, you cannot enter your Battle Phase without discarding a card first!”
“That’s easy enough.”

Izzy discarded the final card in her card, and then her plant monsters sprung into action. They swarmed all over his Signer Dragon, destroying it, before heading towards him directly.
He turned around and tried to escape but the plants quickly caught up to him and slammed him against the wall, knocking him out, and making his mask fall off.

(Masked Man LP: 0)

The proof was there. Izzy and Damian could see it was true that DJ was half cyborg. His body had been enhanced and reinforced with hastily-implanted metal and wires that had allowed him to use Psychic powers.

Izzy got out of her protective mecha suit and ran over to DJ, motioning for Damian to call an ambulance while she started to heal him. She had perfected her healing skills so that they didn't take such a toll on the person so as to shorten their lifespan, and slowly but surely, he began to heal despite the mechanical parts that were now permanently fused with him.
Once the ambulance arrived, DJ was placed onto a stretcher and hauled away.

Izzy looked at Damian, who looked ready to go out, and gave him a pained look. They would have to tell Yuki about this.

 

-------------

A little while later, DJ suddenly woke up.

At first, he thought he had woken up back in his room, but instead, oddly enough, he was lying within a white room, a white room inside a hospital. He glanced at his arm, but for some reason the Sky Signer mark, the mark of Apus, had disappeared. In its place was a Signer mark, the mark of the Left Claw. His body felt really heavy, as if it was half made of metal-

A girl was sitting on his bedside. She had pale skin, blue-white hair, and was holding his hand. It suddenly registered into his mind that she appeared strikingly similar to Lady Oyuki, the Leader.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, DJ-kun,” She sweetly replied, smiling at him.
The tone was similar. It was definitely her. Though this was the first time he had seen her without wearing her mask. What’s going on here?

“O- O- Oyuki-sama!” DJ exclaimed, baffled. Was she in disguise? What was she doing here? Her sweet tone was confusing. “Wha- wha- what’s going on?!”

"Huh?" Oyuki said, confused by this harmless exclamation. She also seemed defeated that her cute little greeting was thrashed, before becoming eerily quiet for a moment as she thought to herself. DJ gulped.

“You lazy wretch, get up!” She commanded him in a harsh tone.

DJ panicked and quickly tried to push his body and get up, as per her order. But when he tried, a flash of pain suddenly went through his body, and to his surprise Lady Oyuki set him back down onto the bed, a sincere look in her eyes.

“DJ-kun, all of that was over a year ago now,” she said. Wait. What. “I’m no longer Lady Oyuki. Now I’m just Yuki Fudo, your best friend.”

This time it was DJ’s turn to go quiet. Was she serious? He began thinking to himself. His body did feel a little off, a little older, bigger, stronger, with mechanical parts too…but that was impossible. He started to panic. This and that, and everything-

At that moment, the doctor walked in.

“Thank you, Ms. Fudo, for visiting but visiting time’s over and Mr. Kaiba here needs his rest,” the doctor said.

“But-”

“Do you want him to recover or not?”

Yuki sighed and gave up. She started to weep as she got up, and the doctor escorted her out of the room with DJ silently watching.

Then the events of the past year started to come flooding back into his mind….!

He quickly became aware and pulled himself out of the bed, before heading towards the door. What he had done just now was utterly dumb, but that short moment of memory loss was gone, as he remembered everything now.

Even that short amount of time as the masked man.

He was going to run after her, and tell her everything was alright-

The door creaked open.

A strange woman walked into the room.

She had a slim body with reddish parts of armor attached to it, violet circuitry running through her skin. Her pink hair was cut short, and her eyes were also of a pinkish color. Her expression seemed bored, the same way a human might be bored of homework.

“Executing orders,” she intoned.

You know, she kinda looks like an AKI—
DJ caught on too late.

The woman disappeared, before reappearing behind him and smashing something metallic – her fists? – onto his back.

The next thing he knew, there was only darkness.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 3: Smooth Date]

Izzy came downstairs in a somewhat tight, somewhat formal Asian-style dress with her hair clipped back, yet some of it still spiked up. Damian noticed that she had on, of all things, makeup, and overall looked absolutely stunning.

“Shall we go?” She asked Damian, who wore a shocked expression and had the same look in his eyes that a deer in the headlights would. He gulped.

“Alright,” he said, blushing a bit. His Yugi-esque outfit and red jacket on top was absolutely no match for match for that. “Nice outfit, and nice is an understatement.”

Izzy smiled, and replied, “Thank you, but we need to hurry.”

She tapped her watch, which said that their dinner reservations would end in fifteen minutes. And the restaurant itself was twenty minutes away…!

“If it helps, I found this turbo chip on the floor.” Damian mentioned, wondering if it was the right time to say it.

Fourteen minutes later, Jack and Carly were standing outside of the restaurant, waiting for their son and his companion to arrive, when they heard a distant revving of engines get closer and closer...

The Duelhog shot out from an alley, boosted ridiculously by that unknown turbo chip, and parallel-parked in front of the couple in one swift motion. Apparently the chip had balancing installed into it as well, and such a chip should’ve been at a price of over a million credits. Why would it be lying around?

Izzy hopped out from the driver's seat while Damian, who looked like he was about to have a heart attack, stumbled out of shotgun. They four rushed into the restaurant just as the maitre'd was about to cancel their reservations.

“Here, everyone!” Damian said, gathering his bearings.

Carly and Jack gave their son a hug before sitting at their table, luckily a little far from Damian and Izzy for either couple to intrude on the other. Jack had on a tux, while Carly was in a black dress and had her contacts in instead of her usual glasses.

A few minutes into the evening, with salad being served, Izzy asked Damian, “Do you know why I chose this little restaurant out of all of the five-star dining places in New Domino?”
Damian thought for a bit.

“Not really. Why?” He asked.

"Look over there, out the window." Izzy motioned to an alley across the street. It seemed familiar.

“RIIIIIIIIGHT. It’s the one that's nearest to the place where we met.” He said, looking back at Izzy, and smiling.

"Even better, that back alley is the one we met in,” Izzy corrected, and then imitated her old robotic voice; “I can’t believe it was only a year ago that I was a foot taller and you were a Dark Signer.”

She chuckled at her imitation.

While the two of them made it sound light, it had actually been a bit more complicated than that. It had been a stormy night, and both Damian and Izzy were escaping from something. Damian had escaped from the Chaos Signer Nick, who didn’t choose to pursue him for some reason. Izzy didn’t have that luck, however, and she was being pursued by multiple androids on motorcycles sent by the Arcadia Movement.

Their encounter was that of luck, and Damian struck a deal, if he helped her, then she would join his team. But of course, she hadn’t been fooled and identified him as a Dark Signer straightaway. Damian saved her anyway, by destroying the three androids with his powers.

“I can't believe we have come so far from that,” she sighed, looking dreamily out of the window into the night air.

“Neither can I. For both of us…”

He started feel bad about himself as he recalled the events only a day or so later. He had caused the poor robot to break down when he turned his back on her during his shadow duel with Nick, within the Hummingbird Tower. He couldn’t forget the way she had cried tears of blood, of that strange black liquid.

 

---------------

Zarkus walked out of his house and got on his Duel Runner.
“Why would the Crimson Dragon choose me? An ex-Dark Signer...?” He asked himself, thinking about the Head mark on his arm.
Zarkus was passing through the redlight district and heading to an old parking deck, according to the card he had played a few minutes ago. He pulled in to see several crews working on what looked like cars, but were outfitted with Solid Vision holoprojectors.

“Welcome to the Deck Zone,” A familiar voice purred from behind him. He turned to see the Black Knight on her hovercycle, ready to race.

“Hello again,” Zarkus said, on guard. “What do you want this time?”

He turned to see that a pit crew was modifying his Duel Runner, changing the software, adding what looked like extra holoprojectors, and…armor?

“Isn't it obvious?” the Black Knight asked. “You're going to Duel Race with us tonight, whether you want to or not.”

Well, damn. This can’t be good.

He grabbed his deck. “I guess I don’t have a choice about this, huh?”

“You really don't,” she replied, driving her hovercycle out of the parking deck. Several other vehicles were also exiting the deck-come-garage.

“Now follow me. The race is about to start.”

Zarkus pulled up alongside some tough-looking Hispanic drivers in a converted Mustang at the starting line while a techie went out to explain the rules.

“Welcome to Duel Racing!” The techie yelled over the din of the engines.

“Other than the fact that you are in a race, and this is a Battle Royale, this is just like a normal duel. First one to the finish line wins, and, if you run out of Life Points, your vehicle shuts down. And if the cops are on your tail, just keep going. Good luck!”

The race was starting.

“Ladies first,” Zarkus offered, drawing five cards.

Ugh...

Zarkus's mark had started to glow again, causing him pain. Still, he tried not to let it disturb his dueling.

 

---------------

Meanwhile, Yuki was at the Atlas household babysitting Vicky.

Normally, a two-month-old baby wouldn't be a problem, but Vicky was now the physical equivalent of a year old, the mental equivalent of a five-year-old, and the psychological equivalent of an angsty, emo, and brooding fifteen-year-old.

In other words, she was no ordinary baby girl.

“Vicky, get back here!” Yuki Fudo cried out throughout the mansion, looking for the only baby girl in New Domino who wore black.

It didn’t help about she was worried sick about DJ.

“I wonder if our child would be like Vicky…” she muttered without thinking. Then she blushed as she realized what she had just said.

“Eh- eh- eh, our…?! I- I mean…”

 

---------------

A man had left his bike and was walking on the streets of New Domino, eating a hotdog he had bought from the little street booth. To him, being a normal human sure had its good sides. As an immortal, he had been unable to eat, so all the tasty and delicious foods had turned to dust in his mouth.

Although he hated that he still had to shave his beard and mustache every now and then, and also the fact that he looked like eighteen years old when he was actually twenty-six years old. This was a painful thing to explain to his fans and others. He had to make up some story why he looked so young or just run away from all the interviews somehow.

Saizen, a former Dark Signer like the others sat on a bench right next to a park. He was also a famous duelist, well known in the dueling world, having won a quite a number of tournaments himself.

Now then, what to do? Saizen asked himself.

He took a deep breath of the fresh air from the park, which was a perfect place to escape traffic fumes and other annoying things a healthy citizen might want to get rid of. He contemplated things in his head, drumming the bench with his hands. What to do? It was a question that kept on bugging him.

Finally, the famous duelist decided to take out his phone.

“That guy wouldn't mind if I called him,” Saizen muttered. “He shouldn't have anything special going on today.”

He then went over to his contact list. It was alphabetically ordered, so he scrolled over to the very last name on the screen, where it read 'Zarkus Syuren'.

At the very least, he shouldn't be that busy.

He pushed a button with the green phone picture on it and started to wait, the phone next to his ear listening to the beeps and waiting the guy on the other side to answer. Little did he know just how busy Zarkus actually was.

 

---------------

After dinner, Izzy and Damian headed to the theater to see the movie Rise of a Champion, which reenacted the events pertaining to the Fortune Cup decades ago. Badly.

The film received enough mixed reviews that the makers decided to go on with making a sequel about the Dark Signers, but Jack, Yusei, and Crow, who were appalled at how terribly they portrayed the events of the Fortune Cup, had stepped in to micromanage the movie. Still, Damian and Izzy for one hadn't seen the movie yet.

“This movie's gonna be good, I hope,” Damian said, holding Izzy's hand as they sat down. He then realized something, let go of her hand, and ran out of the theater. “Forgot the snacks!”
DJ suddenly appeared out of nowhere and went up to Damian as he ran out.

“Hey, Damian,” he said. “How’s the date goin’?”

“Huh? DJ…?” Damian asked, running off to the lobby.

He was too busy getting the snacks to wonder why and how he was out of the hospital, and quickly got the snacks for him and Izzy as a couple for the movie. He then turned around to-

Suddenly, DJ grabbed him, and shoved him onto the floor.

"Why'd you do that?!” Damian said, before realizing something as his eyes contacted with his cousin’s. Their eyes had the same color, sure, but this guy’s eyes seemed more aggressive. So there could only be one explanation.

“Hold on, you can't be DJ! He’s in the hospital!” Damian shouted out.

Damian was still holding the snacks landed on the floor. He got back up and wiped a hot dog and some rice off his face. He looked at the impostor pretending to be DJ.

“Who are you?!”

“I’m DJ.”

“AS IF!!!”

“Guess there’s no need to pretend, huh? I’m his clone, created to take over Kaiba Corporation. Call me Kasey.”

The clone laughed out. Damian looked around, wondering why nobody had noticed, and suddenly realized that Kasey had knocked them all unconscious while he was preoccupied with getting the snacks.

“You know, DJ is stronger than he lets on, but he always kind of bottles it all up. I, however, am a different story.”

Kasey then prepared a fist.

 

---------------

“Well, maybe he is busy after all,” Saizen muttered as he got bored of listening to the never ending beeps of his phone, shutting it before stuffing it back to his pocket.

“He'll call me back later. Now then, what to do?”

He then noticed a movie theater on the other side of the street. Maybe there would be something worth watching there? Saizen walked over the street, through the motor way and almost got himself ran over. He pretended not to notice, and entered the cinema.

The walls had posters of the recent movies, one of which was ‘Rise of a Champion’. None of which interested him, but then something caught his eye. By his feet were multiple people, unconscious, with more unconscious people all around the cinema. Strange.

He double-checked, and then saw a few familiar people there. There was that hummingbird kid Damian, and that Chaos kid, what was his name again? Oh right.

DJ.

Saizen didn't know whether it would be smart to go and say hello because he still couldn't be sure if they had forgiven him yet or not for his actions.

Well I actually have nothing to lose in this, Saizen thought fast in his head and walked towards his two former acquaintances.

“It’s been almost a year. Long time no see, you two, huh?” Saizen asked them.

“Huh?” DJ stammered.

He appeared interrupted, with a raised fist that looked as if it had been getting ready to knock out Damian. He also looked at him with a face of unfamiliarity. Saizen noted it.
This isn't the same DJ I fought year back, he concluded.

Saizen didn't have his Dark Signer powers anymore, but that didn't mean he would be able to do nothing. He ran towards the DJ-looking guy before he could do like knocking both of them out the same way he had done with the rest of the people in the lobby. With all his body weight, he threw the impostor down to the floor.

Damn, that guy was heavy.

“This would’ve been so much easier a year ago,” he said sadly in regret, trying to keep the guy down.

All of a sudden, an invisible force pushed Saizen up into the air, and off the impostor, who then retreated to the end of the lobby. After that, he took out a card from his pocket called ‘Rorschach Warrior’, which proceeded to materialize into an murky thing that for some reason looked like the world-

It attacked him, and a split second later Saizen found himself thrown into the air, before hitting a wall. He groaned at the pain, his chest hurt but he doubted that any of his bones had been broken. He stumbled a bit, getting back to his feet to face the summoned monster.

So DJ’s impostor had psychic powers. Great.

“There are people in here. Why don’t we take it outside?” Saizen offered, using a threatening tone to his opponent.

“Nah. Rorschach Warrior, KILL HIM-”

Before the unclear monster could attack, all of a sudden another familiar person by the name of Nick barged into the cinema.

Ah, just great... more people from the past, Saizen thought halfheartedly.

“I saw everything,” Nick stated, and he gestured to the entrance, which was entirely made of glass. Then he pointed at the impostor with a serious look. “You’re not DJ. Who are-”

Before he could finish his epic saving entry, the Rorschach Warrior that had been chasing Damian around changed its target, lunging at him, before knocking him away with amazing force.

Maybe I should thank him later anyway, Saizen thought.

The impostor DJ laughed crazily before running away from the scene.

 

---------------

Kasey had summoned a second Rorschach Warrior which he had used to fight Damian while the first took care of Saizen. Luckily, when Nick appeared, he had taken the opportunity to run back into the theater screen where his girlfriend Izzy was.

He ran in and told Izzy everything.

Unfortunately, Damian had lost Izzy at ‘attack’ due to her laughing so hard at Damian's appearance with the food all over him...

...and they were subsequently kicked out of the theater scant moments later. Their parents unfortunately were in another theater that wouldn’t be ending for another hour or so.

“So what did you want to say?” Izzy asked Damian.

Damian went red in the face.

“I said, as I got the snacks, some random clone called Kasey came up pretending to be DJ, his original, and attacked me. He threw me on the floor causing all the snacks to land on me, hence how I look. When I find him I'll make him pay for ruining my favorite outfit, even if it is just a cosplay outfit. Anyway, now we've also been banned, you little—”

He cut himself off as he saw Izzy's eyes watering.

“Fine then!” she yelled at him as she got up and started to walk away. “If that's the way you feel about me, then go get your nonspecific revenge!”

“Izzy, no! I didn't mean it like that! Please…”

This is worse than when LittleKuriboh and Safty had an Annulment, he randomly thought, falling to his knees while ignoring the laughs and curious glances of the passersby.

Izzy looked back at her boyfriend and sighed, before deciding to give the poor guy a break.
Damian was eating the last of the snacks he had bought, drowning his sorrows in high-fructose corn syrup, when the Duelhog pulled up in front of him, where she hopped out and offered a hand to help him up from the curb.

“We still have eighty-seven minutes and thirty-four- now thirty-two seconds until the movie ends,” she said. “Want to go somewhere?”

Damian wiped away a tear and tried to wipe away what was left of the mess on his clothes and in his hair. He sniffed.

“Alright, um, how about the park? The one with the color lights fountain with the Blue Eyes Statue?” He suggested.

Nick's chest was bleeding from the attack.

“Why do I end up getting hurt every time I stumble upon something unexpected?” He asked himself, before turning to a familiar face. “So why are you here, Saizen?”

Saizen turned to face Nick, who had addressed him.

“I'm living a normal life these days, you know. I just happened to appear to wrong place at the wrong time,” Saizen replied, reminiscing about his previous experiences.

“You sure bring back memories. How have you been the past year?”

The Shadow Duel he had dueled with him and killed him. He felt a pain in his chest as he remembered Nick's Skybound smashing his chest.

Nick managed to get up, toughing his damaged chest, and pulled a card from his deck.
“I feel as if something is coming, something big, and that this is just the calm before the storm...”

Then he saw Izzy and Damian walking out of the movie room.

“I thought you’d be here with Damian, Izumi,” Saizen said, walking to them calling Izzy with her real name as he had gotten familiar with and bringing back worse, unwanted memories to Izzy's mind.

“It can't be- you can't be here- not now-” She stammered in disbelief.

“Huh?” Damian was wiping his eyes since something, maybe juice, had fallen into them.
“I watched you die!” She finally got out.

“In that final duel between Zarkus, Yusei, and Proximus against Oyuki, you were knocked out of the collapsing castle and fell into the portal to the Underworld before it had been sealed,” she explained. “I was barely conscious, but I saw you fall. And you had been defeated earlier on by Zarkus, which I witnessed too.”

She looked at the man who had caused a lot of chaos among the Dark Signers, among them all, with his fruitless path to immortality and power.

“So how, Saizen? How are you still alive after dying three times…?!”

“I don't really remember about how I was given a new life, but I guess the gods were gracious to me,” Saizen replied to Izzy, scratching his head.

He thought hard about the moments of his revival, but didn’t manage to get any memories out to remember. Izzy's eyes and face seemed like she would thinking ‘why the hell would the gods be gracious to you' as she thought of the ruthless, mad Saizen year back with his desire of becoming a god, killing even his former teammates.

“But no hard feelings, right? I'm a normal human these days. A changed man, should we say,” he said, showing a smile and trying to seem innocent. Badly.

Then both he and Izzy turned to Damian, who was still covered in food.

“What? Will you please stop staring at my hai— I mean, at my clothes and the mess? It wasn't my fault, okay?”

Izzy handed Damian a towel, starting to get annoyed.

“Thanks, Izzy,” Damian chirped as he wiped everything off, leaving mere stains and sticky hair. He also smelt delicious. If it had been daytime, birds might have randomly attack him.

“The strong scent of fat right now just appears so strong from you… go wash yourself, weakling,” Saizen commented, slipping a bit. He still had his own self somewhere within, apparently.

“Nyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!!!!”

Damian held himself back from hitting Saizen. “Weakling?! I'll show you weakling!!!”
He finally lashed out, about to punch Saizen right on the nose, but his designated opponent didn’t notice. Saizen turned to face Izzy again, accidentally dodging the fist Damian had thrown at him, and then the fist hit the parked metal vehicle.

He failed to dent it. Instead, he had a broken fist.

“I thought I saw DJ back there, but it seems it wasn't him. Is he still out there somewhere?” Saizen asked Izzy.

“Let's cut to the chase,” Izzy flatly declared, now serious of a sudden. “What do you want?”
“Hey, just because I happened to want to say 'hi' doesn't mean I would have something to plan to make you go through even more trouble!” Saizen defended himself.

A year ago, he had been pure evil, and had done scratches to a lot of people’s hearts with his insanity. It’s only natural there was suspicion all around him. Nobody believed he could change.

“Izzy…!” Nick called out weakly, trying to crawl over to her. He had cuts and bruises all over his body, which had gotten worse during their conversation.

“If you haven't noticed, I'm lying on the ground bleeding. Please, heal me…?”

He knew that she had psychic powers, knowing that she was capable of healing his wounds. The minute she heard him, she rushed over and bent down.

"Are you okay?” She asked, and starting the healing process. Nick's injuries started to fade and his body started to repair itself.

Saizen watched the healing wounds.

“So you still have those abilities, Izumi? For a robot, you sure are something,” he remarked.
Izzy was still as attractive as back then, a beautiful woman, although technically it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since she was a robot, meaning all that effort put into her beauty had been wasted.

When Saizen had said ‘robot’, Izzy’s berserk button was pressed, and she got up from Nick. One could very nearly see actual flames being formed from her anger.

“For the last time,”

Damian started to back away as she started.

"I'M A CYBORG!!!!!!" Izzy screamed out to him, psychologically throwing him half a block with her mere glance, before bending over again to work on Nick.

"ImsorryIllrememberitnow,” Saizen squeaked out, trying to sound as polite as possible.
Suddenly, the DJ clone Kasey appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Damian.

“You were a fool to think I had ran away,” he mocked them. “I need to complete my mission.”

And before Damian could reply, he punched him in the gut.

Just as Nick's wounds were finished healing over, Izzy heard Damian cry out as he was punched. Damian fainted from the punch, quivering as he lay on the floor, feeling cold. Still mad, she ran towards the mysterious figure.

“Get away from my BOYFRIEND!!!” She yelled out, pissed.

Then she sent a powerful telekinetic force at him with her mind, intending to grind him into the nearest wall. But then she suddenly felt an opposite force oppose and overpower her own psychic powers, before the force was turned the other way and threw Izzy onto the ground, ruining her Asian dress.

"W- who are you?" She gasped out. How could anyone overpower her in telekinesis…?

Saizen was also dragged down to the ground, while Nick was still recovering from the Rorschach Warrior’s attack.

I wonder why he hasn’t returned my call yet, Saizen thought randomly, referring to Zarkus.

 

---------------

It was around fifteen minutes into the race, and the eight competitors were now down to three.
Zarkus and the Black Knight were duking it out, with the only other survivor defending himself with a Labyrinth Wall. But things weren't going well for Zarkus, who only had a face-down monster and two face-downs. On the other hand, the Black Knight had swarmed the field with three Dark Valkyria, all with their effects, and all with the ability and effect to destroy any facedown he set. (all ATK 2100)

And it was about to get even worse.

“Now I overlay my three Level Four Dark Valkyria!”

“Over-what?!” Zarkus asked. His Head Signer mark began to glow.
 

“Frozen hearts call forth a blackened pulse! Spread the eternal corruption! Xyz Summon! Finalize, Verz Ouroboros!”

As she chanted, the scenery warped for a moment into that of outer space, and the three Dark Valkyria monsters turned into three separate orbs of dark energy as the Black Knight stacked her three monsters on top of each other, before slapping a space-themed card on top.

Suddenly, there was a beam of light and a familiar armored ice dragon, Trishula the Dragon of the Ice Barrier had appeared, shocking Zarkus. What was that Synchro monster doing there?

The three orbs then began to circle around Trishula, and with each round they got closer, and closer, and closer until at last they made contact with the dragon. As soon as they did, a dark energy began to envelop the dragon, consuming it, corrupting it, until at last Trishula had transformed into something different, something black and parasitic and in a way futuristic too. (ATK 2750)

Afterwards, the three orbs cut contact with it and began to dance around it. They remained that way. Zarkus had no idea what it meant, this ‘Xyz’ monster. What was an Xyz monster anyway?

“Turn end,” the Black Knight finished. “In my next turn, this duel will be over!”

“This isn't looking good. Draw!” Zarkus drew a card from his deck, and looked at it. “Finally, a chance to win! I summon Rose, Warrior of Revenge and flip summon my Gellenduo! Now, Synchro Su-”

“Not so fast, Zarkus…” the Black Knight replied slyly as she flipped up a Trap Card, depicting two singing men. “I activate Discord, preventing you from summoning Synchro Monsters!”
But Zarkus was prepared for something like that to happen. He hadn’t lived a century to learn nothing, after all…!

“I activate the quick-play Spell Card, Trap Stun! This card negates all Trap cards until the end of my turn! Now, Synchro Summon!”

Zarkus shut his eyes, and he started chanting subconsciously, but out loud. His Head mark started to glow once again.
 

“Shining light, pave my way to victory! Synchro Summon! Show yourself, the light of my soul, Light End Dragon!”

As he chanted, the Rose, Warrior of Revenge suddenly turned into four red glowing orbs which began to spin around, and the Gellenduo into four yellow ones that began to circle around the former four orbs. The four orbs that were once Gellenduo were closer to the orbs spinning on each other with each round, and when Zarkus declared the monster name, a light engulfed all eight orbs.

The light slowly faded, and once it did, in the place of the orbs was now a serpentine white dragon with four angelic wings (ATK 2600).

“Light End Dragon, attack Verz Ouroboros!” Zarkus commanded, and the angelic dragon shot towards the Golem.

But Zarkus wasn’t done yet.

“I activate its effect! It allows me to drop your Verz’s ATK by a thousand and five hundred points, at the cost of dropping my own dragon’s ATK by five hundred!”

The eyes of the Light End Dragon suddenly flashed, and it and its opponent suddenly shrunk a little in size. The corrupted dragon had shrunk lower. The Black Knight took some heavy damage as her Xyz monster was destroyed. (Black Knight LP: 1250)

“Do you end?” She asked, gasping at the pain.

“During my Main Phase Two, I activate another Spell card, Synchronized Burn, which inflicts 200 damage times by the total Level of all monsters I control!”

A flame then shot out of the Light End Dragon he controlled, and it hit her head on.
“It’s over!”

Before the Black Knight could reply, flames hit the hovercycle hard, causing it to crash onto the asphalt and tumble away for a few blocks. Zarkus then pulled over to see if the Black Knight had survived.

(Black Knight LP: 0)

Zarkus had just started to look through the wreckage when he heard the sirens of Sector Security coming his way. He saw the Black Knight in a relatively good state, but that she was unconscious and her armor and mask were cracked. He placed her behind him on his Duel Runner as he left the wreckage to burn.

Zarkus rode off, waiting for her to wake up.

“Things just get weirder and weirder…” He muttered to himself.

Zarkus drove along the highway, not really knowing where to go or what to do now that this mysterious young woman was unconscious behind him.

 

---------------

Vicky suddenly started to cry as Yuki had just finished putting her to bed. The white-haired cursed to herself and raged as she went back in and tried to calm the baby down.

The baby’s cries then erupted into a full fit of screaming, as if it were in pain.

 

---------------

“Well, I look like DJ,” Kasey said, grinning at Izzy’s stupidity. “And I was able to stop your assault, so maybe I’m psychic! Maybe, just maybe I’m DJ's clone, maybe I’m Kasey! Who knew?!”

“But what are you after!?” Izzy shouted at him, confused and anguished due to her unconscious boyfriend.

Her answer came from behind in the form of a sharp blow to her shoulder, causing her to collapse.

“AKI Unit 28-26-8 reporting, sir,” a mechanical voice chirped.

It was an AKI unit, semi-conscious Duel Runner cyborgs that Izzy used to be a member of before she had been struck by lightning and gained sentience.

“I’m just following the Arcadia Movement’s orders,” Kasey said anyway, shrugging.

He grabbed Izzy and hauled her onto his Runner, with neither Nick, Saizen, nor Damian able to help her. Then he tore off her dress, revealing her bare body as well as parts of her cybernetic body, including a small emergency button. He pressed it, and the cyborg’s cyber parts were shut down straightaway, forcing her to go into ‘hibernation mode’.

For the time being, she wouldn’t be able to wake up.

 

---------------

Zarkus pulled into the garage of his house in Satellite, his ‘house’ actually being the Dark Signer base he had managed a year ago, which in turn used to be a Sector Security base itself. Mayor Dawson had personally given Zarkus the keys to the place in the congratulations ceremony a week after the ragtag team of Signers and Dark Signers had saved the city, as well as the world. He had been using the place as a bachelor pad ever since.

He dragged the Black Knight into his house, and laid her onto his couch. Eh, hope she wakes up soon, I suppose.

He turned, but then his right arm burned as he heard the Black Knight stir.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a purple mark, a purple Mark of the Wing. Somehow, it was a Signer mark, but it was purple. As she sat up, the mechanical mask she wore cracked and shattered, revealing dark-green roots to her blood-red hair and strange circuitry around her eyes where the robotic eyes of her mask connected.

Her eyes opened revealing a deep royal purple surrounded by the trademark black sclera of a Dark Signer. This woman was actually both Signer and Dark Signer. Somehow, she was a Chaos Signer, just like Zarkus and three others used to be.

“Wait, what?” He breathed out, turning back to her. “What's going on here?”

Zarkus walked towards the girl, confused.

The ‘Black Knight’ grabbed at her face, and then quickly inspected her armor.

“Shoot!” She exclaimed in a voice that sounded a bit higher-pitched and a bit less synthesized than before as she started to activate hidden buttons on her armor, shedding most of it until she was left with her arm appendage and a tight skinsuit. Interestingly, she now looked a few years younger than she initially appeared, and had much smaller cleavage than she did with the armor on.

She began to work with some sort of diagnostic program on the device on her right arm, not paying Zarkus any attention, which got him annoyed.

“Who are you, seriously?” Zarkus walked closer to the Black Knight “I’m curious. And why do you have that black sclera, which only Dark Signers have…?”

The Chaos Signer formerly known as the Black Knight, sighed as she looked like she was going to let something heavy off of her chest.

"My name is Victoria Atlas, daughter of Jack Atlas and Carly Carmine," she stated as matter of fact. “I come from fifteen years in the future, and I'm here to change the past.”

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 4: Perishing Distress]
Kasey started driving towards the Arcadia Movement with the hibernating Izzy behind them, a smug grin on his face.

“This was almost too easy,” he laughed out, now almost to the headquarters.

“Approaching Arcadia Movement HQ,” the AKI stated.

“I can learn to like these bots,” Kasey commented with a grin.

They arrived at the building, which was large, larger than the previous one had been and built to prevent another incident like the Earthbound Immortals tearing down the whole structure. Arcadia Movement members walked about, some wearing purple robes and some wearing science coats. This was where he had been born.

“How did your mission go, Casey-002?” A man asked, but he didn’t have to.
It was Professor McSheer, the one assigned to oversee his missions, and he had already noted the unconscious Izzy.

“Hah! Told the higher-ups you could bring back our rogue AKI 24-18-7!”

Kasey flashed a smile at the scientist chosen to supervise him. He was feeling glad to be complimented. Of course, Professor McSheer saw him only as a tool, but even a tool could feel happy when appreciated.….still, there were some things a tool couldn’t do. Things that the existence of his original self, DJ Kaiba, prevented him from doing.

He handed the unconscious Izzy over to the scientist before walking over to the elevator.

 

----------------

The next thing she knew, she was in a tube next to the real DJ, who was in a comma. When she tried to resist, the mysterious captives gave DJ an electric shock that let Izzy see his bones, frightening her into submission.

The scientists stuck needles into Izzy, pulling out some of her ‘blood’ and putting it in test tubes. They whispered quietly to each other as they inspected it. They then did the same on DJ, before testing his heart and brain. His heart rates were stable but so far his brain was mostly inactive.

Izzy wasn't exactly having the best of nights now that she was being experimented on by her former masters.

But she couldn't do anything. The Arcadia Movement placed a special mental inhibitor on her neck that not only prevented any voluntary movement, but also dulled her psychic abilities to a minimum. In other words, she was helpless at the hands of her captors.

Then they pressed a button- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHHHEEEELLPPPP HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHURTSHHHHHHHH DDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMIIII IIIIAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNHHHHHHKUUUUNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!?!
?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!

 

----------------

Saizen had seen the fake DJ take and capture Izzy, and as soon as the psychic pressure had disappeared, he had run to his bike a few hundred meters away and rode after them. He had assumed she would be taken to the Arcadia Movement base, and thanks to one bigmouthed agent of them he had battled against a couple days ago, he knew were the building was.

He had quickly arrived at the headquarters, and wondered how he should proceed.

Straightforward would be more like me, but then again if I would pretend to be... Ah, like that would ever work... got to go with plan A then…

Still calculating, he left his bike and got his deck ready in his Duel Disk. He entered the building.

Finding himself in the entrance hall, the first thing he saw a guard trembling in pain and holding onto his stomach with a black eye. Someone else had come here too. Someone else that was also on a rescue trip. Saizen walked over to him.

“Excuse me, but wh-”

“I don't have a keycard anymore, please don't hurt me more! Your friend took it and went through the door, so please don't hurt me!” The guard begged before Saizen had even finished his question.

“A friend?” He asked the guard, and suddenly a hopeful spark appeared in the guard's face.

“You’re not with him? That's great, you can help us! If you really aren’t going for the girl who had arrived just n-”

“So she WAS brought here, huh? Now where is she held? Could you tell me?” Saizen asked, smiling a bit, and took a hold of the guard's jacket's collar before banging his head against the floor. That felt good.

“Or do I have to force it out of ya?”

“…The thirty-fourth floor, sir…” The guard gasped out, and Saizen loosed his collar.

“Thank you.”

Saizen then knocked him out with a blow to the face before taking out his keycard, allowing him to access the elevators. Then he ran over to it, entered, and pushed the number '34'.

I'm coming, Izumi. This is payment for being a good servant back then. Those few minutes as leader before being replaced by Zarkus, and, ah, now I'm just recollecting memories again.

The elevator went up through the first twenty floors quickly enough, though it slowed down with each passing floor. The thirtieth floor went by.

31^st…

32^nd…

33^rd-

Then the doors to the thirty-fourth floor opened, allowing Saizen to enter the floor, and he ran out.

Saizen looked to the other head of the long corridor. The whole corridors walls were actually the armored glass doors of the many and many laboratories and experimental rooms in the right and left side of the corridor from the very start he was standing to the very end of it, except for the elevator and stairway on the both end of it.

She's here somewhere, Saizen thought in his head and started walking forward checking his right and left when he got next to a new room.

There were white-suited men in every room and it seemed that they were all experimenting on things and solving mathematical equations. Saizen didn’t care. The professors and researchers didn't notice him as he ran about, their eyes glued on their experiments and statistic-papers. Saizen continued running, checking throughout the whole floor for a sign of where Izumi might be.

“Stop right there, intruder!” He heard someone shout and as he glared in front of him, there was a white-suited professor pointing his finger at him.

“What is your purpose here?!”

The other professors turned their heads from their work as they heard the professor shout, and as they did they noticed the intruder Saizen.

“None of your business! I'm here to save an acquaintance of mine. Now please step aside!” Saizen ordered him. He had searched almost the entire floor and still hadn't found Izzy yet. Just my luck. I'll have to deal with this guy first before I continue...

“You're not going anywhere!” The man retorted.

He reached out to grab a Duel Disk lying on a metal cart nearby, before attaching it to his wrist. A deck had already been prepared within it, ready for use.

“Your little intrusion will be stopped, by me, Professor McSheer!” He continuedd, and activated his disk.

The two armored glass doors opened near behind him, the doors alone were enough the block the way back in the narrow corridor, giving Saizen no other choice but duel his way pass the guy in front of him.

“Fine then," Saizen murmured and activated his own disk.

"DUEL!" They both declared.

Meanwhile, all around them, the other scientists had suddenly begun running about, screaming about some kind of ‘escapee experimental aki whatever’, and someone who looked like DJ was running all around the laboratory shattering glass and dumping trashbins.

Neither duelist noticed him.

 

---------------

Yuki was exhausted to finally have Vicky asleep in her crib, and was watching late-night TV when she heard the doorbell. She had a tired look in her eyes, worrying about DJ, who was presumably still in the hospital.

He had forgotten about her.

Damn it. All her plans gone to waste.

After everything they had gone through together, everything Yuki had strived for, now she had to start right back on Square One.

All due to the Arcadia Movement turning him into some sort of cyborg, the same movement that had kidnapped her and tortured her for years to the point of insanity. That moment when she had managed to escape them, that was the moment when she had been granted power as a Sky Signer, that was the moment she had donned the mask, and that was the moment she had lost belief in humanity…

She had changed since then, but why? Why did that damned Arcadia Movement continue to torture her, even now when everything should’ve been dropped…?!

She broke down, collapsing to the floor, and cried.

Why? Why him, of all people…!?

After a short while had passed, Yuki stumbled into the living room and crashed onto the couch with a pained expression, exhausted and still thinking about DJ. Her whole body was drenched with sweat and her face soaked entirely wet, having run out of tears to cry out.

“Hope you get well soon, DJ-kun…” she muttered, hugging the couch before dozing off.

 

---------------

The scientists were planning on disposing of DJ’s life. After all, he was going to be replaced by Kasey, who would proceed to take control over Kaiba Corporation and merge it with the Arcadia Movement, so it wouldn’t make any difference.

Casey-003, Kasey’s brother, had been spying on his original and the scientists. He was allowed to roam around the building freely, though not allowed to exit it. Kasey had been the one raised to replace DJ, and Casey-003 was just a spare.

He couldn’t let this continue. Although he knew it was pointless, he didn’t want his original to die. He could feel their link, he had his same memories and emotions.

He had to save DJ.

And he knew how.

“The experimental AKI Prime is trying to escape the building!!!” He yelled out.

Without even thinking of who had shouted that, all the scientists suddenly went into a panic and ran out the room. Casey-003 didn’t know much about this ‘AKI Prime’, but what he did know was that they treated it with special care unlike any other project. Their reaction was expected, and once they were all gone, he ran over to his original.

He stroked the glass for a bit, gazing at his original, and comparing his appearance to the reflection on the glass. Apart from the difference in clothing, they looked exactly alike.

Using his mind, he shattered the glass, and the body of the unconscious DJ fell out. He grabbed it before it could fall to the floor, and began to drag it away.

No alarms activated. In the laboratory, there luckily weren’t any for some reason.

Even so, there wouldn’t be much time until the two of them were discovered. The clone had to act fast. Looking around, he saw the solution. A chute used to dispose of the trash, leading to a back alley in New Domino. Nobody would think of looking for him there.

He dragged DJ over to it, but paused before he dumped the body in. They were thirty-four stories up in the air. He definitely wouldn’t survive the fall down the chute. Looking around for a way to solve this problem, he decided to run around and collect all the trashbins within the laboratory, collecting them all one by one by the chute.

Once the clone had collected enough, he smiled as he looked at his original.

“Hey, come back and save me from this place later on, alright?” He requested to his original, hoping that he was in there somewhere and would be able to hear him.

“Please.”

Then he heaved up DJ’s body and placed him into a trashbin, before lifting all the bins up with telekinesis, and then finally dumping them all into the chute at once.

 

---------------

The man laughed as yet another psychic duelist fell before him. Since that Suiko guy, he hadn’t had any luck finding anymore Arcadia Movement agents, but the fact remained that he was killing off all the candidates before they could join. Hundreds had fallen and died in the past day alone.

He stopped laughing.

“Show yourself,” he said.

A man with slightly long black hair and what looked to be heavy metal clothes appeared out of nowhere, removing his Darkness Approaches spell card and placing it back into his deckbox.

"I'm outta practice," a voice mused. The newcomer sighed.

“Used to be the great Caleb, strolling into bank vaults without a soul noticing until the bills started disappearin’…”

“So, Caleb, you wouldn’t have to worry for you are not out of practice,” the man reassured him. “Had I not had the ability to sense life energies, you would have gone by me unnoticed and unscathed. I guess you spying on me?”

The man then turned to face this Caleb, and a dark Duel Disk appeared on his left arm.

“To make yourself invisible is quite a feat, and I see that you managed to hide your own smell and footsteps too. Nothing short of Arcadia Movement training.”

“Smartass bastard, aren'tcha?” Caleb spat out, not bothering to confirm the man. “Let’s just settle this now, eh?”

Then he removed his sweatshirt to reveal a contraction similar yet different to a Duel Disk, there being a disk hub attached to his chest, containing his deck and leaving both arms free for the bladed card platform, which he held like a guitar.

This was a Duel Coat, not commonly used by people.

The Duel Coat ejected five cards into his hand, along with one more to start the turn. One advantage to Duel Coats was that they ejected the cards automatically, instead of having the player manually draw them.

“I play a monster in defense, three facedowns, and end my turn!”

The dark man tilted his head, seeming intrigued by Caleb’s Duel Coat.

Then he drew his own card.


 

---------------

DJ woke up in the garbage.

Disorientated, he pulled himself out and looked around. Not too far away, he could see the KaibaCorp building towering into the sky, luckily appearing not too far away. He ran towards it. As he had expected, the Duel Runner lay nearby, with the keys still in it, counting himself really lucky that some random guy hadn’t tried to steal it. Or maybe they had just been afraid to steal something parked in front of the very headquarters of one of the most famous companies in the world.

He climbed onto the Duel Runner and drove back to his home, which took shorter than the journey to the building on foot.

When he had arrived at his home, he was surprised to see Damian, mysteriously placed on its doorstep, sleeping. The keys for his Duel Runner also doubled for his home and he unlocked the door and opened it, along with his garage. After having put his Duel Runner into it, he carried Damian inside and threw him onto a sofa.

DJ himself felt like he had already had a long day, and collapsed on a sofa opposite Damian’s. For a moment, he felt like he was forgetting something. Something important.

But he was too sleepy to remember and slipped into dreams, having forgotten that Izzy was being tortured and was now currently in mortal danger.

 

-------------

Izzy was wide awake in the Arcadia Movement's surgery chamber, suffering in agony, with nothing around that could possibly perish her distress.

They were now modifying her cybernetic implants, making them harder, better, faster, and stronger, while encasing what they had completed in a special composite nanosuit that would act as a second skin, amplifying the cybernetics while protecting her vulnerable insides.

And she was screaming during the entire process.

The person who was once Izumi Fudo had no idea what was happening to her. She saw various mechanical arms puncturing her skin and messing around with something underneath while they had this rubbery goo coating her body. It had almost completely reached her neck when they stopped. The encasing equipment retracted while the various mechanical arms turned away.

For a moment, she thought they were done. Then four larger mechanical arms with circular saws lowered and began positioning themselves over her lower arms and legs. She opened her mouth to continue screaming.

The saws had chopped off her lower arms and legs, but she didn't feel anything as the nanobots swarmed over the stumps, now infecting her bloodstream, making it easier for them to repair her vitals. Four new mechanical arms swapped places with the previous ones, lowering new arms and legs for her to use. Her second skin was black with maroon parts, while these were completely black, except for a device on her left arm which faintly looked like a Duel Disk. The mechanical arms and legs attached to the stumps were quickly uplinked to the rest of the body.

The second skin then continued to grow on its own, encasing her face and hair, giving her red hair a darker shade while adding black highlights. She could no longer move as pink circuitry glowed and activated on her body.

The young woman was frightened as she could no longer see, move, or feel.

She then felt a presence inside her mind, beckoning her to join with it.

To be a part of a greater community.

To no longer be alone, but have a purpose in life.

To achieve a wonderful perfect world, an utopia, an arcadia.

What was once Izzy felt all sense of her personality merge with this new presence as she accepted this wondrous new being into her.

The scientists monitoring their new conversion machine were talking amongst themselves as the last component, something that looked like a mechanical spine, attached itself to the cyborg's back, and a green light at the back of the neck started blinking. The scientists roared in excitement as they knew their new field commander was complete. They rushed down to the ‘cutting room floor’ to activate her. The slab she was on rotated to discharge her as the restraints disengaged. One of the scientists walked up to the cyborg and waved his hand in front of her closed eyes. She opened her eyes, revealing glowing golden eyes that stared into space.

"AKI Prime Unit Iota reporting, sir," she chirped in a voice that was reminiscent of her voice when she was AKI-24-18-7, yet she hadn't even moved her lips.

The scientists clapped and cheered some more at their success.

[/spoiler]
Chapters 5+ below.

Well, hope you enjoy!

[Aerion Brightflame]

Oh, I've read this whole thing before. How awesome.

I seem to remember this was one of the best pieces of fiction I had read, and I stayed up quite late reading through the whole thing.

So, yeah thats my comment so far. I will comment more when the story develops, becuase I think there were a few bits and bobs I didn't like. but i can't remember off the top of my head. But do keep posting them, its nice to catch up on things from the past.

[Merci]

[spoiler=Chapter 5: Torture]

DJ woke up in a cold sweat, and drove off to Kaiba Corporation, leaving the unconscious Damian by himself.

This time, he wasn’t ambushed and captured like the previous time. The accountant seemed surprised to see him, but stayed still, though she shook uncomfortably and guiltily for some reason.

Ignoring her, he went into the elevator. However, instead of pressing the floor buttons, he checked out the back wall, running his hands along it until he finally found the secret compartment and opened it. Within was a green button, which he then pressed.

The elevator shot up, heading higher and higher through the KaibaCorp headquarters, before suddenly taking…a left? Then it stopped, and the doors opened to reveal a secret vault. DJ walked in, and the elevator closed before horizontally moving away back into the proper shaft where elevators belong to.

This secret vault was where prototypes were developed, safe from the intrusion and theft of rival companies. Some of the prototypes here were of rusting Duel Disks, no doubt created by the legendary Seto Kaiba. Others were of powerful weapons of mass destruction that he’d rather stay from, weapons developed during the eras while KaibaCorp had been a weapons manufacturer.

There was only one thing he had his attention on.

The Duel Racer, his planned successor to the Duel Runner.

It was a little more advanced, and instead of twelve speed counters it had twenty-four. Also, it came with a specialized Speed World 3 that took the Speed Counters of the Turbo Duel. It had yet to be approved, but he was sure it would be someday. This prototype was the first thing that had popped up in his mind, and so far the only thing too.

He decided to take it out for a spin, and being a prototype, he would simply take it easy and would work out the perks. He pressed another button within the vault, where a metal wall proceeded to slide away and reveal glorious New Domino City from high up, winds going all around. He climbed onto the Duel Racer.

Then he drove forward, and launched himself out of the building, possibly from over thirty stories high up in the air. Naturally, it came crashing down.

As it approached the ground, DJ laughed gleefully and activated the wings, light metal wings not unlike that of an airplane that protruded from the motorcycle, before activating the turbines. Just before the Duel Racer hit, it shot itself high up into the air.

[i]“WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!”[/i]

It was a wonderful feeling. From here, he could see the entirety of New Domino City, able to see all the buildings, his house, the Atlas household, the Fudo household, and even the apartment where millionaire Vincent and Bebe lived in.

With the Duel Racer, Turbo Duels in the air - better to be called Airline Duels - were now possible. Although it was also highly risky and dangerous as the players could easily drop down into the ground…

Then again, they all play card games on motorcycles, so what difference could one simple addition allowing flight to this already ridiculously dangerous activity possibly make?

The first Airline Duel had been when Yusei had dueled against Z-one to save the future, but Yusei was probably too busy saving the world to enjoy the flying, and Z-one was simply a cold-hearted bastard to consider such exhilaration.

DJ had to admit something, though. He had stolen a bit of the designs from Crow’s Duel Runner and had improved upon it. If Crow hadn’t made the adjustment to his Duel Runner, the idea would’ve never occurred to him, so he guessed Crow deserved at least some of the credit for the idea. So far, this prototype Duel Racer could only fly for half an hour, and consumed a large amount of energy. He would have to make improvements on it later.

It actually had quite a few options already installed inside, including voice activation sequences and something that was similar to but not quite an ‘artificial intelligence’, a chatterbot.

A couple of people below looked up and pointed at the flying motorcycle in the air, staring wide-eyed at it. DJ waved back at them with a grin.

Then the Duel Racer passed by an oddly familiar building…

That’s when he remembered.

Photo to director to CEO to café to glomp to phone call to KaibaCorp to kidnap to masked man to Izzy to duel to hospital to memory loss to cyborg attack to Arcadia Movement to experiments to Izzy to trash to Duel Racer...

[i]I had forgotten all that…!?[/i]

Slapping himself, he looked at the familiar building he was now flying around. It was definitely the Arcadia Movement headquarters, he vaguely remembered it as such.

Without bothering to think of a plan, he turned the Duel Racer to the window and broke right through it. He shut his eyes, afraid that the glass would have damaged him, but luckily he had somehow managed to avoid the shards of glass. The Duel Racer had survived too.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“DJ Kaiba, you are to cease and desist immediately, or I will be forced to take further action.” [/color][/font]

His relief faded away.

“O Holy Zaborg the Thunder Monarch,” DJ muttered, looking at his friend, the one he had been planning to save.

Iota stared at the intruder, and recognized him as as DJ Kaiba, one of the Arcadia Movement's ‘subjects’, and moved towards him on her new legs. Her personality wasn't entirely robotic, as she seemed pleased at wanting to take further action.

“Ummm, Izzy? It’s me, DJ, your friend. Remember me?” DJ asked, though he already knew what the answer was.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“Izumi Demeter Fudo no longer exists,”[/color][/font] she confirmed for him. [font=courier][color=maroon]”I am AKI Prime Iota, and I will now incapacitate you in a [i]duel.[/i]”[/color][/font]

She said the last bit in a sly tone, wanting to duel DJ and win. Wanting to serve her masters. Wanting ever so much for the Arcadia Movement to succeed, and bring in a new world.

Because that was what she was programmed for.

Obedience.

“They did something to you, didn’t they? Come on, [i]Izzy[/i]. Remember me? Remember [i]Damian, Damian Atlas?![/i] And [i]last year!?”[/i] DJ stressed out, trying to make Iota see and remember, before sighing.

Iota was slightly amused at DJ’s words, but remained stoic. She also noticed that DJ Kaiba could be flung from the shattered window if he lost to her, and his death would make her masters very mad at her. She didn't want her masters to get mad at her.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“I remember. However, your efforts are futile as the personality of Izumi Demeter Fudo has been destroyed during the conversation,”[/color][/font] she replied, while mentally beckoning several nearby AKIs to block the window and provide a cushion for DJ Kaiba, who noticed several AKIs had entered the room and were now moving to secure the broken window.

The AKI Prime apparently had the ability to control the AKI cyborgs like servants.

The acronym ‘AKI’ instead stood for Autonomous Kinetic Intelligence, and as stated earlier, were Duel Runner cyborgs, and thanks to cloned brains of psychic duelists, these transformers also possessed psychic powers of their own. It had originally been a top-secret project, but somehow these AKIs had been demoted to mere soldiers.

Needless to say, AKI Primes themselves weren’t Duel Runner transformers.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“Now, I will make you a wager,”[/color][/font] she cooed slyly. [font=courier][color=maroon]“If I win, you have to submit yourself to the Arcadia Movement once again. If you win, I will let you go free.”[/color][/font]

She, of course, had been lying about that, and was actually getting more AKIs to surround the room and cut off all means of escape.

“Sure, whatever,” DJ replied, keeping his calm.

[b]“DUEL!”[/b]

Then, less than thirty seconds later,

[font=courier][color=maroon]"Now I will activate Emergency Teleport, Special Summoning Psychic Commander by paying eight hundred Life Points,"[/color][/font] Iota stated. (ATK 1400) [font=courier][color=maroon]"You lose." [/color][/font]

She grinned as she ordered her monsters to attack. Her three Psychic monsters lunged towards him, and when they did, his Life Points would be knocked down to zero, and chances are that something would happen to him, something bad.

DJ clicked a button on his Duel Disk and the Duel Racer system automatic turned on.

”Master DJ, what would you like me to do?” The Duel Racer asked.

“Duel Racer 001, engage emergency protocol 52-AS!” DJ said as quickly as he could.

“Yes sir,” the Duel Racer replied, and it quickly spun around and shot out of the window, accidentally knocking down a single AKI unit all the way down the building as it did so. “That was a close one, Master DJ.”

The Duel Racer had been implemented with a chatterbot program, allowing it to communicate in a humane kind of way, but it didn’t actually mean that it actually had feelings. DJ didn’t answer him.

“Master DJ?”

Izzy had been turned into that thing, that [i]AKI whatever Iota[/i], with no hint of ever being the same again.

“I AM SO GOING TO KILL THE ARCADIA MOVEMENT!” DJ screamed above New Domino City, but the wind currents swept his voice away so the city was unable to hear him.


[center]--------------------------[/center]


So far, Caleb had been able to hold his own from the dark man’s brutal strategies. But it was only because his Gusto deck pulled him through, and also only because he had a large amount of luck with him. Yet even so, his Life Points were at 300, while the man’s Life Points remained at 4000.

“I must praise you,” the man said. “Never before has a Duelist ever been able to hold me off for this long. But in the end, my victory is still assured.”

“You cocky bastard,” Caleb snorted. “I don’t suppose you have a name?”

“A name?” The man asked, slightly amused by this question, but he didn’t answer it, or at least not straightaway. “Turn end.”

“My turn, draw!” Caleb said, and drew his card.

He examined the field, and straightaway realized he had no other choice. In any other situation, he would’ve avoided the move he was going to make, but this was no ordinary situation. For once, his life hung on the line.

“I activate the eff’ of the Armored Axon Kicker in my hand! While I control a face-up Psychic, I can Normal Summon this card without tribute!” He declared, and then, on the field, a green-and-purple humanoid being appeared onto the field, and in place of a right arm it had a cannon instead. (ATK 2200)

“Now, I’ll tune my Krebons and Armored Axon Kicker together!”

As Caleb had said that last line, suddenly a mark began to glow on his arm, the Mark of the Foot. The presence of it shocked the man, and he took a step back. He simply stared at the mark, a mark of Crimson Dragon.

[center]“[i]The weak perish but the strong go on! Can ya keep up with the speed and power of this colossal brute?! [/i][b][i]Synchro Summon! Take off, Brawler Dragon!”[/i][/b][/center]

As he chanted, the Krebons had split into three glowing orbs of purple energy while the Armored Axon Kicker had turned into five rings also made out of purple energy. The orbs aligned themselves into a line and entered through the rings, also aligned. Then a beam of white energy engulfed them. When the light had faded away, in the place of the two monsters earlier was instead a clawless brown dragon that seemed to have metal armor equipped to it, most notably the ‘gauntlets’ it wore. (ATK 2800)

“What the-” the man began, but regained his composure. “Interesting. [b]You’re a Signer.”[/b]


[center]----------------------------------[/center]


Iota was seething at the fact that DJ had escaped her. Her masters wouldn't like this at all, and therefore she realized what must be done. She called for a nearby AKI.

[font=courier]"AKI Unit 24-12-6 reporting, Prime,"[/font] the AKI chirped, green with a red faceplate and blue eyes, saluted her commander.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“Mobilize all AKI Units within two miles of base, but leave forty percent behind for guard. He has to land somewhere. Oh, and bring Casey-003 here.”[/color][/font]

[font=courier]"Yes, Prime,"[/font] the subordinate AKI confirmed and ran off.

Not long after, somebody who looked like DJ walked in. A spare clone, designated Casey-003, wearing a purple robe.

“Yes?” He asked nervously.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“You know why you’re here. You let him escape,”[/color][/font] Iota told him, and smirked as he reacted in surprise. [font=courier][color=maroon] “Oh, you can’t fool me. I accessed the cameras and there’s quite clear footage of you rescuing that kid’s butt.”[/color][/font]

“So, Prime, that’s why they treat your kind with special care,” he retorted, and laughed faintly. “So, I guess you’re gonna throw me into that prison or someth-”

He was cut short as the AKI Prime suddenly disappeared, before reappearing right in front of him. She then reached out, and poked his face. Then strange tiny technological things ran over from her finger onto his face, reveling in it, [i]eating[/i] him inside and out.

“Y- you-…!!!”

[font=courier][color=maroon]“I am in need of an immediate partner, and you were at the top of the list,”[/color][/font] she stated. [font=courier][color=maroon]“Since you had helped him escape, you will help me bring him back. I have infected you with nanites, which will help accelerate the conversation process in time to retrieve your precious original.”[/color][/font]

Casey-003 was screaming in pain as Iota dragged him to a conversion room.[/color]


[center][color=maroon]---------------------------[/color][/center]


DJ and his Duel Racer had flown all the way to the remains of the Hummingbird Tower back in Satellite as it ran low on fuel. A year ago, he and Ucsip were partners and just like Izzy now, Ucsip had betrayed him. For some reason the arm where his mark used to be tingled and buzzed a bit. Knowing what that meant, he quickly drove away.

He suddenly saw a large group of Duel Runners heading towards the tower, all of which without any driver riding them, and swore. The Duel Racer was fast running out of fuel in air mode, and there was no way for him to outrun several dozen AKIs. Sure. But the Duel Racer also had a backup solar battery.

“Duel Racer 001, engage Solar Battery,” DJ said, swearing once more under his breath. He should’ve activated it earlier.

“Ten percent,” the Duel Racer chirped, their pursuers already getting close. He didn’t have enough time. “Twenty percent.”

Too slow.

Suddenly one of the Duel Runners charged up and slammed into DJ, knocking him off of his Duel Racer. As he got up, DJ realized that he was surrounded by AKIs, with no way of getting away. Iota walked up, but she was accompanied by another AKI Prime. This one had long, blonde hair with turquoise highlights, a golden-yellow with peach body, and aquamarine circuitry with deep indigo eyes. Her facial features were very similar to DJ's own, yet softer and more female.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“May I introduce my new sister, AKI Prime Gamma, formerly known as Casey-003, your [i]clone.[/i]”[/color][/font]

[font=courier][color=yellow]“Hello, [i]DJ,”[/i][/color][/font] Gamma replied in a mechanical, feminine version of DJ's voice to a horrified him.

“What do you crazy stalker yellow-butted carcasses want with me?!” DJ yelled angrily.

Suddenly, Kasey drove up. When he had heard the AKIs had been sent to find and capture him, he had decided to follow. He had heard everything Iota had just said.

“Hey hey hey!!!” He cried out as he heard what the AKI Prime Iota had just said. “I’m the clone here! Not this rip-off nobody!”

"Seventy percent," The Duel Racer whispered.

[font=courier][color=yellow]"Welcome to the party, Casey-002, or 'Kasey', as you have decided to distinguish yourself."[/color][/font] Gamma said, before walking over to Kasey. [font=courier][color=yellow]"I am one of your many, many back-up clones, or at least, I was before my new sister created me, AKI Prime Gamma."[/color][/font]

“Are all my clones evil?” DJ asked innocently, annoyed by all these clones.

He was also somewhat surprised at the amount of clones the Arcadia Movement had made of him. They had most likely been planning on stealing Kaiba Corporation, and had never planned on him regaining his memories after the masked man event.

Gamma didn't take this insult very kindly.

[font=courier][color=yellow]“You know, DJ, [i]I saved your life!”[/i][/color][/font] she declared angrily. [font=courier][color=yellow]“I had hoped you would be a little smarter in attacking the Arcadia Movement, and rescue me-”[/color][/font]

“Hah!” Kasey exclaimed, a bit in relief.

The spotlight-stealer clone AKI Prime Unit Gamma, Casey-003 and his backup clone, turned out to not be so perfectly evil after all.

“Apparently, I really [i]am[/i] the evilest DJ here!” He laughed out.

“85%” The Duel Racer whispered.

DJ didn’t think he had enough time and was running out of options. He was about to run away screaming like a little girl when his Duel Racer suddenly announced, “100%!”

He was a bit surprised that it had reached a 100% faster than he had expected, but turned and tried to sprint towards it as fast as he could. But he wasn’t fast enough. Gamma had pinned DJ down psychically, preventing him from possibly escaping.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“Resistance is futilem”[/color][/font] Iota stated from nearby, closing in on the captured DJ.

"I’m having a bad day," DJ muttered to himself, before suddenly deciding to do the most reckless non-card-game thing he had ever done in his life.

All of a sudden, with a burst of energy he kicked his converted clone Gamma in the neck, snapping it a little. He had a boost of strength from the hurried experiment that had converted him into that obedient cybernetic masked man.

Then he managed to do a roundabout kick towards Iota, in the face.

[i]Sorry, Izzy, [/i]he apologized to her in his mind.

[font=courier][color=maroon][i]YOU SHALL DIE, FOOL,[/i][/color][/font] She replied telepathically.



[center]-------------------------[/center]


“When my Brawler Dragon brawls with a monster with ATK higher than its own, I can upper its ATK by its enemy, at the cost of me takin’ the damage when everythin’ is all done and over!” Caleb explained.

Then he pointed at the man’s monster, Dark One Digamma, a large dark-colored mechanical cyborg that seemed to be made of a strange metallic substance, possibly of another realm entirely (ATK 3500).

“So I’ll be attacking your own Digamma!”

The Signer Dragon lunged forward at the cyborg, whose arm had suddenly transformed into a cannon. The cyborg pointed the cannon at the armored Dragon and shot a powerful beam of black energy at it, but the Brawler Dragon shielded itself with its gauntlets, deflecting the beam away into the darkness that surrounded them. An explosion could be heard nearby.

“So, what’s your story, Signer?” The man asked, intrigued, as their monsters battled.

“Joined the Movement, had doubts when this mark appeared on my arm, left it, then YOU little son-of-a-devil show up and try to blow up the hell outta me!” the Signer exclaimed.

The gauntlets of the Signer Dragon began to shine as it began to absorb the part of the laser that hadn’t been reflected, and as the gauntlet absorbed it the Brawler Dragon began to grow in size until it was as large as the cyborg.

Then, once more it lunged at Digamma, and before it could react the Brawler Dragon had taken a chunk out of its cybernetic head, before tossing it aside with its mouth (ATK 6300). The cyborg exploded soon afterwards, and the Brawler Dragon returned to its original size (ATK 2800).

The harmless chunk accidentally yet harmlessly hit Caleb’s head, and apparently that counted as damage. (Caleb LP: 100)

“I throw a facedown and end my turn!”

The man frowned. “Then that means you’re no longer a part of the Arcadia Movement,” he realized. “Your death will be useless to me.”

“Exactly, so lemme go and run along!”

“Nah,” the man replied, before drawing his card.

He grinned as he looked at the card. He looked at the card as if its effect was ‘when this card is activated, you win the duel’. For all Caleb knew, that might have been its actual effect, though he doubted it greatly.

“I’m afraid this duel is over. I activate the Ligh—”

“—Trap card, [i]Last Turn!”[/i] Caleb finished for him as his facedown opened up.

“When my Life Points are a thousand or lower, I can select a monster and then all other cards in our hands and field are sent away to the grave! Then ya’ will have to bring out another one of your f***ing monster from your Deck and it battles my monster! And THEN we’ll brawl in one final battle and the winner of the brawl wins the duel!”

“I know its effect already, Signer,” the man clarified, his frown deepening. “Very well, I send out my Dark One Omega!”

Then, on the field, what appeared to be a young dark corrupted fallen angel appeared on the field, with a dark serious look on it. (ATK 3000)

“Now, it will battle your Brawler Dragon!” He commanded, and the two monsters shot forward towards each other.

“I activate Brawler Dragon’s effect again, winning this duel!” Caleb declared, and the Brawler Dragon’s ATK increased by the fallen angel’s ATK, gaining size as it did. (ATK 5800) It pounced on the angel and easily overcame it, crushing it underneath its large weight.

[i]Tch, so it wasn’t a Once per Turn effect, [/i]the man thought to himself as his dark angel started to crumble into dust.

“But I refuse to lose! Not like this!” He declared, his fists wrapping up into balls.

“I activate the effect of the Dark One Alpha in my grave! When a monster I control is destroyed by battle and sent to the graveyard, by banishing it along with my Alpha, I can Special Summon Dark One Alpha Thanatos from my Deck!”

Before his angel could completely disappear, a black vortex suddenly appeared behind it, and an arm emerged, dragging the angel inside. An inhuman cry could be heard coming from within the vortex, before being replaced by a monstrous roar.

[center][i]“The unknown entity who was the very first to enter death’s realm, the first to learn its taste! [/i][b][i]Advent! Observe the new world, Dark One Alpha Thanatos!”[/i][/b][/center]

As the man chanted, a figure as large as a fully-grown elephant began to emerge from the vortex. It wasn't a shadow, but it had an uncertain shape. It was like a centaur, only with the lower body of a gigantic bear, wearing an outer skeleton that seemed to act as armor. In place of the higher body was a humanoid yet inhuman skeleton, with only faint traces of what it had been while it was still an entity. There was also the skull of a leviathan cut in half from the middle and the two pieces seemed to be a part of both sides of the bear body, and both half-skulls seemed to have a life of their own. It also had a large, serpentine tail.

The inhuman figure screeched out a cry, which sounded like an explosion combined with the sound of fire, rain, thunder, metal being grinded against one another, and a baby’s laughter. An evil baby’s laughter. (ATK 3500)

“Attack his Brawler Dragon, Alpha Thanatos!” The man commanded, and the unknown entity took a few steps forward with its enormous feet, slowly approaching the Brawler Dragon. As it did so, Caleb’s Signer mark glowed as a warning of danger. His Signer Mark was starting to annoy him greatly.

“The eff of my Brawler Dragon activates again!” Caleb countered, and as the gigantic Alpha Thanatos lunged forward, the Brawler Dragon pushed it back with greater strength due to its special gauntlets, and it was sent flying backwards, before turning into dust.

“No! I refuse to let you get away,” the man stated. “I activate the effect of my Alpha Thanatos. When a monster is destroyed by battle and sent to the grave, by paying any amount of Life Points, I can draw a card and revive a monster in my grave, and its ATK is equal to the amount paid. So come back, Dark One Omega.”

He drew a card as his Life Points decreased (Unknown LP: 1000), and then the dark fairy returned to the field. (ATK 1000).

“Now, Dark One Omega, attack his Brawler Dragon once more. Just keep on attacking!!!”

The dark fairy unleashed a beam of red cackling energy at the Brawler Dragon, but it just countered once more, destroying the fairy.

“Now I activate the effect of my other Alpha in my grave, and the Omega you just destroyed!” the man declared, now starting to get a little mad.

“When Omega is destroyed, by banishing a Dark One monster in my hand and grave, I can Special Summon Dark One Omega Akribis from my deck! And you already know Alpha’s effect by now, I trust?”

Caleb sighed. This guy was not gonna give up, was he?

Before his fairy could completely disappear again, the same black vortex suddenly appeared behind it, and an arm emerged, dragging the fairy inside, but not before it managed to puke out something that looked like an egg from its mouth.

[center][i]“The unknown entity who was the very last to enter existence, quite possibly the one to end it! [/i][b][i]Advent! Observe the old world, Dark One Omega Akribis!”[/i][/b][/center]

As he chanted, a crack suddenly appeared on the egg, before it suddenly exploded open. Then a dark humanoid creature disproportionate to the size of the egg emerged from it. It looked like the devil itself, with cold stone skin, a face of that of a snake with long tough horns and a large amount of old white hair behind it, with a long white lizard-like tail, extra appendages on its back that appeared to somehow be used as wings, and a stained, extremely bloodied scythe. (ATK 4000)

Then out of the vortex next to it emerged another Alpha Thanatos, the man not bothering with the chant a second time. (ATK 3500)

“Attack it,” he ordered, and the two primordial demons lunged at the Signer Dragon.

“Eff’ of Brawler,” Caleb replied, starting to get bored.
As the two powerful titans, Alpha Thanatos and Omega Akribis attacked the Brawler Dragon, it knocked them back with a swift slap from its gauntlets, before pouncing on the Omega Akribis first, biting its head off which caused it to turn into dust.

The colossal Alpha Thanatos tried to attack it from behind, but then the Brawler Dragon flew out of the way, before taking a U-turn back towards the dark primordial creature and slapping it with its left gauntlet, which was apparently strong enough to knock its skeletal head off. It collapsed and then also faded into dust a second time.
“Activate effect of Alpha Thanatos, reviving Digamma!” The man shouted out, and an aura appeared to further drain him of energy. (Unknown LP: 1)

A dark cyborg materialized from the ground. (ATK 999)

“Attack!”

The man obviously didn’t want to accept defeat.

The dark cyborg ran towards the Signer Dragon, but before it could even get close the Dragon swatted it aside, and it instantly broke down into pieces.

“Yeeeaaahh….that was all kinda pointless.” Caleb pointed out, yawning.

“You’re right,” the man admitted.

“So do I win?”

“Not a chance. When Digamma is destroyed by battle while my Life Points are less than 1000, I can Special Summon it to my field. In Defense.”

“Oh.”

With a flash of darkness, the black cyborg had then returned back to the field, this time kneeling down. (DEF 3000)

“Sooo….since it can’t battle…” Caleb realized.

“Correct, it’s a draw,” The man concluded. “You survive for now, Signer.”

He then took a step back, the darkness seeming as if it was fading away. The scenery was starting to grow clearer for Caleb, but as it did the man grew less and less clear. For a moment he wondered if he would ever meet him again. He hoped not.

“And good riddance to you too, mothaf**ka!” He shouted out at the disappearing darkness.

Then he turned around and whistled as he walked away, pretending as if that had never happened.


[center]-------------------[/center]


Meanwhile, back at the corridor on the 34[sup]th[/sup] floor, Saizen heard glass crashing from the back of the corridor, and looked over the professor's shoulder if he could something but the voice came from one the very last rooms so he couldn't see what was happening. McSheer took a radiophone from his belt.

“What's happening back there?” he said.

“The Kaiba-kid appeared, crashing inside from the window!” Saizen had heard someone say from the radio.

Was DJ alive after all? Or maybe this had been another doing of the fake DJ, but that wouldn't have made sense.

“How about Iota?” Saizen heard McSheer questioning again.

“A success. She has cornered the Kaiba boy at the hummingbird tower,” was the answer and McSheer put his phone back.

“What is this Iota you’re talking about?” Saizen asked McSheer.

"We made some upgrades to one of our cyborgs, but that's enough of that, prepare yourself!” He shouted at Saizen.

“Did you do something to Izumi?!” Saizen threw the question at him, wanting answers.

"So you were after [i]her[/i], huh?! I DRAW!" McSheer declared, not actually answering the question, and grinned as he looked as his drawn card.

“Now let me show you my true psychic powers!”

Despite his attitude, Saizen had already determined his prowess at dueling. The game itself had already been determined, and Professor McSheer was about to suffer.


[center]-------------------[/center]


Unfortunately, Gamma and Iota had quickly recovered, and they both pinned DJ back down to the ground, psychically paralyzed him. DJ could barely move, and then only to breathe.

[font=courier][color=maroon]“You're coming with us,”[/color][/font] Iota stated.

[font=courier][color=yellow]“And your little flying KaibaCorp prototype too,”[/color][/font] Gamma finished, showing DJ that the Duel Racer had been captured by the surrounding AKIs as well.

But all of a sudden, Nick’s Duel Runner appeared out of nowhere and it slammed onto an AKI Prime, Gamma. Nick wearing his helmet looked down at DJ.

“I thought you needed some help, so I-”

Iota took over for Gamma in keeping DJ captured while his savior's Duel Runner started shaking. He was suddenly flung off of the vehicle as it was lifted up into the air via telekinesis. A very angry-looking yellow AKI Prime stepped out of the indention she made into the ground and glared at Nick.

[font=courier][color=yellow]“My face!”[/color][/font] Gamma cried out, indicating a cut on her right cheek that was leaking some sort of black blood. [font=courier][color=yellow]“My lovely, beautiful face!”[/color][/font]

DJ cringed at his female lookalike’s voice and tone.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 6: Iota]

Damian finally began waking up. His vision was blurry, but he was able to get up after a while.

“My head…what…?”

He was suffering from mild amnesia after falling unconscious, so took him a while to remember everything, and he looked around.

He then felt a pain in his gut and heart.

He had a very bad feeling about this.

“Izzy, where are you…!?”

He jumped off a sofa he had been sleeping on, recognizing his surroundings as DJ’s house, and rushed outside where the Duelhog awaited him.

Without giving a thought as to how it could’ve ended up there, he went into it, and for once he was glad the Duel Academy had actually taught him something useful; how to drive. He then found a little radar device in it and set it to search for robotic humanoids. Knowing that Izzy is part robotic, it should be just her, when he saw the result, he almost died of shock. There should only be one result, but instead, there were many more. Many, many more.

Izzy must really be in danger…!

He drove as fast as he could to where the biggest source of these robotic things was at, pushing the Duelhog to maximum acceleration. The hummingbird tower was far, but distance meant nothing when it comes to Izzy.


[center]-------------------[/center]

“I have to say, I think you look better like that!”

Nick quickly swiped a card from DJ's Extra Deck, hoping that he had drawn a good card. He had.

“Protect us, Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem!”

A colossal machine suddenly appeared and punched Gamma into a crater, leaving a pile of broken machinery and oil.

At that moment DJ realized that Nick had been a psychic duelist too this whole time, something that had remained unknown up to now. Nick then held up two copies of the same card, Emergency Evacuation Device, and the two of them shot up into the air and far away from the AKIs.

Hopefully, neither would be found.


[center]------------------------[/center]


Iota detected a vehicle heading towards her current location.

She linked to the video feed of a nearby AKI unit to see who this intruder was. He was a blond-haired, blue-eyed teenager driving a vehicle… something deep inside Iota responded to that as most of the second skin pulled back from her face, leaving the facial circuitry behind.

Memories of this young man, Damian, surfaced in her mind as part of her tried to block out and stop this regression back to being Izzy.

Stop. Stop. Error. Stop. Stop. Stop. Error. Stop. Stop. Stop. Error. Stop. Ignore. Error. Error. Repair. Repair. Failure to Repair Error. Stop. Stop. Stop-

But the Izzy part of Iota, deep down inside, was busting through all of the brainwashing and reprogramming and making a connection, if only for a little while.

[color=maroon]“Damian...”[/color] Iota murmured sadly, in a humane tone.


[center]--------------------------[/center]


Gamma seemed like she was destroyed, but Nick hadn't factored in one thing.

Her nanobots.

They started multiplying and reconstructing the poor AKI Prime, rebuilding Gamma back into functionality, as if she had never gone up against that accursed Nicholas’s Duel Runner in the first place.

[color=yellow][font=courier]"AKI Prime Unit Gamma, fully repaired and functional,"[/font][/color] she reported to no one in particular.

Then,

[color=yellow][font=courier]"Error detected.”[/font][/color]

Curious at this error, the AKI Prime left the scene, just as a specific someone arrived….


[center]-------------------------------[/center]




I felt something odd going on there.

The Duelhog was arriving at its destination at a ridiculously fast speed, though he was pressing the breaks to try and stop it. He tried shouting out the window, despite the fact that his head could be torn off by the winds.

“IZZY! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

All of a sudden, the Duelhog was stopped, and when he looked down, saw that the entire vehicle was flying in midair. He tried to get out, but the doors wouldn't open.

Then he saw the crowd of what appeared to be Duel Runner cyborgs similar to what Izzy used to be part to reveal a strange figure walking towards him.

She had on this strange, almost rubbery material that was black and maroon with pink circuitry and black armor on her lower arms and legs. Her hair was also maroon, with black highlights, and somewhat spiky. But the face was that of Izumi Fudo, yet had the same pink circuitry on it.

The parts of Iota that used to be Izzy and the parts that were still Iota had neither won nor lost, but created something that was still Iota, but was much less robotic in nature.

[color=maroon]“Damian!”[/color] Iota cried out, with a slightly mechanical tone to her voice as she ran to the Duelhog, leapt into the air, and landed in the seat beside him, giving him a tender hug, but she wasn't warm like before.

Instead, she had a metallic coldness to her body.

“I-I-Izzy?! Wha- wha- what happened- to- you..!?”

Needless to say, Damian was on the verge of fainting from the shock. He pushed Izzy away, not liking to be hugged by what wasn't the Izzy he knew and loved.

[color=maroon]“I was well…upgraded, by the Arcadia Movement, into this,”[/color] she replied in a soft, sad tone, somewhat hurt.

Izzy/Iota then got up and twirled around slowly to show Damian what they did to her, slightly difficult due to being inside a vehicle.

[color=maroon]“They used me as the initial subject for their 'AKI Prime' project, since I used to be an AKI myself.”[/color]

She was now crying, as much as a cyborg could cry, cleaner fluids flowing through her face. She then sat back down and leaned into him.

[color=maroon]“You can't possibly imagine the horrible things they did to me!”[/color]

“No- I can’t- but, at least it's still you, on the inside…” He looked around. “Is there any way to restore you? To make you back to how you were? If not…”

He tapped his deck box nervously, but Iota shook her head.

[color=maroon]“For once in your life,"[/color] she dried her eyes. [color=maroon] “You have a problem that can't be solved by dueling.”[/color]

She then turned around and pointed at the metallic spinal device on her back.

[color=maroon]“This is the Arcadia Movement's mental uplink. They use this to control me, as well as amplify my psychic abilities, like I am doing now. This is my weak point, but it's surgically implanted into my spine. Remove it or destroy it, and I die.”[/color]

She then sighed, turning back to face him.

[color=maroon]“And it isn't fully 'me' inside. Part of what was once the Izumi Fudo you know and love has managed to surface and somehow integrated herself in my personality matrix. I'm no longer Izumi Fudo. I'm just AKI Prime Unit Iota....”[/color]

“No, Izzy…!”

Damian felt his heart staggering at hearing this.

“So she’s…”

He gritted his teeth, and looked down. A tear dropped, and he looked up again. Then at Iota, “NO! There must be a way to get her back! I won't give up! I WILL get her back, even if I have to DIE to accomplish this!”

His eyes were blazing, against the watery tears that now ran through his face.

“And I don't care what you say! Izzy is still alive in you, Iota! I won't allow the Arcadia Movement to do this! They've effectively destroyed the only thing I could have ever wanted since my days as a Dark Signer! And I aim to get her back!”

His arm burned with the claw mark and his eyes went red.

“When you leave as Iota, tell your 'Masters' this; I. AM. COMING!”

He calmed down a bit, and then looked back at her.

“It's a shame that they can control you, else I could've had you help me. Now please, Iota...” Damian gestured for her to leave, which she did, jumping out of the Duelhog.

He just wanted to be how he felt, alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

He clenched his fists and took out his deck. His Signer Dragon was trying to tell him something, but he ignored it. He threw his deck out of the Duelhog, into the air.

They were useless.

"What good are these to me now?!" He cried out.

A holographic screen suddenly popped up in front of him. The Duelhog was a futuristic vehicle, so it was only natural they’d have something like this installed. On the screen was DJ. As it worked both ways, he easily saw how distressed Damian appeared to be, and guessed what happened.

“What’s up? If you need help, I as the CEO of Kaiba Corporation can help you. I still have a score to settle with them too. They stole my prototype Duel Racer after all,” DJ reassured him through the screen, trying to cheer Damian up and sound comforting.

Damian shook his head.

“She's gone…” He murmured, tears falling across his face.

"Well, I having a pretty bad day and a bad day before that,” DJ said, understanding.

“First I decide to take control of Kaiba Corporation, but as soon as I’m appointed the CEO I’m captured by those Psychic jerks, and then I’m brainwashed and turned into a half-cyborg, before being forced to attack and try to capture Izzy. I failed, but I had hurt her. Then, after that I’m carried off into the hospital but with amnesia and I end up not even recognizing Yuki, who was upset at that. Suddenly, I’m kidnapped from the hospital, and placed in a tank where scientists experimented and tortured me. After that, I’m dumped in some back alley, and I end up sleeping the rest of the night, forgetting all about it. The next day at early morning, I decided to test my Duel Racer prototype, but end up finding out that my other best friend had been rebuilt. Then I dueled, and er, lost in less than half a minute. I escape all the way out to the hummingbird tower, but they all just had to follow me all the way there and capture me. I discover that I have a multitude of clones, I deliver a few blows that did absolutely nothing to stop them, Nick tries to be the hero and fails horribly, and now I have my cousin crying like a crybaby unable to do anything,” DJ summarized.

“Could two days get any worse than that?” He asked. “So are we going to save Izzy or not?”

Suddenly Damian felt Iota tap him on the shoulder. She was sitting beside him again, and he looked to see his deck floating in midair, completely reassembled.

[color=maroon]“Damian Atlas...”[/color] she started, [color=maroon]“You have no psychic abilities, though the converter back at headquarters can fix that in a jiffy, no ability to Shadow Duel, and no other superhuman characteristics.”[/color]

She thrust the deck into Damian's chest, and then gave him a deep hug as the nearby AKIs, who were mobilizing and leaving, had been ordered to ignore the events here.

[color=maroon]“Frankly, these cards are the only weapons you have. I would kiss you, but if I did, you would most likely be infected by the nanobots that manage my body.”[/color]

As she set the Duelhog back down on the ground, the nanobots that covered her face were creeping back on.

[color=maroon]“Now go, Damian! Go rally Sector Security! Go rally the Signers! Go rally the citizens against us!”[/color]

Iota cried as she turned her head away and left the vehicle, along with the other AKIs. Her lips fused together and her eyes reopened, the maroon and black mask now back on.

[color=maroon]“Please,”[/color] she murmured.

Damian’s Duelhog then fell onto the ground, where DJ revealed himself having hidden within the hummingbird tower. Since DJ had his sanity better than Damian did, and also since he was a better driver in the first place, he convinced Damian to let him drive the Duelhog instead.

“So we know of three available Signers, you, me, and Yuki. Izzy’s out of action, I guess,” DJ said, while driving. “I think we should gather the rest of the Signers. If we do, we may be able to stand a chance.”

Damian didn’t reply.

DJ missed the Duel Racer. That very short time they had spent as master and robot were fun. especially jumping out the window. DJ now liked jumping off high things for some reason. He looked at Damian and was tired of him being so sad.

If this kid frowns at me one more time, I’m going to pin him on the ground and punch him until he cracks a smile, he thought.

Damian stayed silent, and simply turned the radio on.

“...DJ...I feel like I have nothing left,” he said suddenly, surprising him. “The only thing that had ever truly mattered to me is Izzy, and the Arcadia Movement had taken that away too…”

“Well, when I had gone into a coma, I remembered all those sad and happy times of last year and those were all I had, and when I lost them as the masked man I felt like I lost myself,” DJ commented. “And besides, if you’re down, then I’m down…”


[center]---------------------[/center]


Meanwhile, Gamma was upset at Iota's mysterious malfunction and the loss of communication, although she herself had had some sort of malfunction, information which she withdrew from even her fellow new partner.

[color=yellow][font=courier]“Iota, explain yourself!”[/font][/color] she demanded in a stern voice. [color=yellow][font=courier]“HQ has been worried sick about you! What happened?”[/font][/color]

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I am in perfect operating condition,”[/font][/color] Iota replied, trying her best to sound like the Iota before the recent events.

[color=yellow][font=courier]“Good, because HQ has a new target for us to secure for conversion.”[/font][/color]

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Who?”[/font][/color]

[color=yellow][font=courier]“Yuki Kiryu Fudo.”[/font][/color]

Iota's heart skipped a beat.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 7: Hope Spot]

It was yet another beautiful morning in New Domino City, the sun rising high up into the sky, a beautiful morning that masked the events that had unfolded in the previous day or so. But it failed the mask them from the ones affected the most.

Damian still looked unhappy.

“DJ, the only thing that would cheer me up now is Izzy…” He murmured, a tiredness in his eyes. “She wanted Sector Security and the Signers and Neo Domino, so… DJ, you're leader of KaibaCorp now, right?”

“Well, duh. What were you thinking? Hmmm? I have the frikin’ famous Blue-Eyes White Dragon Jet under my control now! I just have to use the radio signals to call the people we need, and it’ll be done!” DJ proclaimed proudly.

“Well, I was also thinking,” Damian continued. “KaibaCorp controls Sector Security, so you can get them to rally, and also get a few of them to find the other Signers. I'll go get Yuki, and you can find everyone else.”

Damian parked outside the KaibaCorp Building and pretty much kicked him out of the Duelhog sadistically, improving his mood somewhat.

[i]I just kicked a Kaiba...[/i]


[center]--------------------------------------------[/center]


DJ walked to the super computer.

“Computer I want Sector Security to find all of the Signers and also get them all to rally against the Arcadia Movement, if you can. Also, get me a Frappacuino please.”

[font=courier]“Yes sir,”[/font] The computer answered, and automated several commands.

Now approximately seventy-five percent of Sector Security was now on their way to the Arcadia Movement with their decks ready and duel disks armed. The remaining forces began to locate and track down the remaining Signers.

“Also, remind me to kick Damian’s butt later on,” he added, reminding himself of the fact that he had just been kicked.

[font=courier]“Yes sir,”[/font] the computer answered.[/font]


[center][font=courier]--------------------------------------------[/font][/center]




Meanwhile, Damian was looking through his deck, which had some irregularities.

This wasn't his normal deck, but his Plant deck, and it seemed a bit too heavily reliant on Gigaplant. Then he saw a card that confirmed that this wasn't his deck. The card was White Rose Dragon.

Damian felt slightly warmer. [i]So, you really are still around, White Rose Dragon. And most of her Plants too.[/i]

Before he could drive off towards Yuki’s house, though, DJ suddenly appeared by the vehicle with a strange expression.

"Caffeine wears off fast!” He shouted to nobody in particular. “Need another Frappacuino!!!”

Damian pulled DJ back into the Duelhog, and they drove off towards Yuki’s place. When they arrived, they saw that the big hole in the house that both men had played a part in contributing was still there. He winced for a moment and glanced behind his soldier to see a zombified DJ raving on about Frappacuino.

Ignoring him, Damian went out.

“Yuki? Where are you?” He called out, entering the house through the hole. “I need your help!”

But Yuki wasn’t there.


[center]-------------------------------------------[/center]


Yuki had been at home, trying to enjoy her lunch, but she was worried sick. When she thought about DJ, she’d throw up whatever food she had

[i]Why isn’t the hospital answering my phone calls!?[/i] She mentally groaned.

She tried calling, but there had been no answer. She kept on calling, on and on and on, but still no answer. She wanted to check up on DJ’s status. She had to. She had decided to leave for the hospital as soon as she finished her lunch, which with her current state was going to be a herculean effort.

She then heard a voice in her head.

[i][color=maroon]Yuki…[/color][/i] it beckoned.

[i]Izzy?[/i] Yuki psychically replied. [i]Is that you?[/i]

[i][color=maroon]Yuki… [/color][/i]

Yuki suddenly got up, and looked around, trying to discover the source of the mental broadcasts of her ‘fraternal’ twin. She ran out of the house through the large hole that had been formed a day or so.

[i][color=maroon]Yuki… [/color][/i]

As of yet, nothing had been done to fix it. It was expensive after all, but Yusei had promised to fix it.

[i][color=maroon]Yuki… [/color][/i]

[i]Izzy, this isn't funny![/i] Yuki replied to what she thought was the seventeenth time her sister had called her name. She wondered across the street her home was on, before taking a left turn. She kept on walking, following the mental broadcasts, until she had ended up in a dark, abandoned building.

Yuki saw what she thought was her sister standing in the shadows of the building.

“Izzy!” She exclaimed, and was about to run over to her, before stopping. Something didn't feel right about this.

Suddenly, several lights from hidden AKIs flashed on, revealing to Yuki what her sister had become.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I'm so sorry, Yuki,”[/font][/color] Iota replied, activating her Duel Disk, before overriding Yuki's own Duel Disk, [color=maroon][font=courier]“…But I don't have any other choice.”[/font][/color]]


[center]--------------------------------------------[/center]




Damian felt that something was wrong.

“Oh, no! We might be too late!” He said suddenly to no one in particular.

He ran back into the Duelhog. He jumped into it, and as he did his Signer Mark began to glow. All of a sudden, Damian knew where to go. He drove off, DJ still muttering something about a Frappacuino. The Mark guided him towards an abandoned building. He jumped off, quickly ran out and into the building, and saw the two with their duel disks.

"IOTA!” He said. “Stop! Izzy's still in you, and this should help!”

He took out White Rose Dragon and showed it.

“Remember this card?” He also took out something he had aimed on giving Izzy after their date; a lovely little glass White Rose Dragon which he had made himself, albeit using internet tutorials to aid him, but still. The Dragon also had a glass Izzy, riding on top of it. Damian then turned to look at Yuki.

“Yuki! Don't lose! We need you!”

Yuki nodded at Damian, and drew her first card.

“I draw, and I play Black Ice Ocean!” She declared. The field transformed from behind a building to next to a building-shaped iceberg made of black ice. Away from the building face, several other icebergs that faintly resembled the New Domino skyline were floating along in a black sea.

“Next, I will Normal Summon Statue of Black Ice in Defense Mode!” A large effigy of a shield-bearer carved from the iceberg knelt in front of Yuki (DEF 2500).

“Now I can Special Summon a Pearl of Black Ice Token in Defense Mode!”

A black icy sphere formed in one of Yuki's Spell/Trap Card Zones (DEF 500).

"I end my turn."

Damian remembered Yuki using these cards against him when she was Oyuki during that massive duel a year ago. She couldn’t possibly lose, backed up by such power.

[color=maroon][font=courier]"I draw,"[/font][/color] Iota replied. [color=maroon][font=courier]"I Normal Summon Reinforced Human Psychic Borg in Attack Mode."[/font][/color]

As its name suggested, a Psychic humanoid cyborg appeared onto the field. (1500 ATK)

[color=maroon][font=courier]"Now I will attack your Pearl Token-”[/font][/color]

"I activate Black Ice - Blinding Blizzard from my hand!" Yuki countered.

A fierce snowstorm stopped Borg in his tracks. When it ceased, 2 more Pearls were on Yuki's side of the field.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I end my turn,”[/font][/color] Iota concluded. Damian also noticed that Iota wasn't putting any real effort into this duel, which might be an advantage to Yuki.

“Yuki! Come on!” Damian cheered on. “I don't think Izz- I mean Iota, is using her best cards! You can win this!”

Yuki drew her card, but unfortunately she also wasn’t in her best state of mind. This was wasting her time. She had to visit the hospital as soon as soon as soon as she had taken care of this ‘sister’ of hers.

“I Normal Summon Ice Blast Use Rice in Attack Mode!" She declared, and then an ice thing appeared in front of her. (800 ATK) “Next I will play Double Summon, allowing me to Normal Summon once again! So I’ll Normal Summon my Blizzard Dragon in Attack Mode!”

Then, in front of her next to the ice creature appeared a blue lizard-like creature with two ice scythes protruding out of its ‘arms’, which were longer than its legs. (1800 ATK)

“Yuki!!!” DJ called out, having recovered from the temporary fit of Frappacuino. He jumped out of the Duelhog and burst into the area.

[b]“DJ?!?!?!??!”[/b] Yuki cried out in surprise, heavily overjoyed. [b]“Y- y- you’re okay…?!!?”[/b]

“Well, it’s a long story, but-”

Before he could finish his sentence, the white-haired woman had jumped onto him, his arms wrapped around.

[i]I WAS WORRIED SICK ABOUT YOU!!![/i] A telepathic voice screamed into his mind, Yukki herself beginning to laugh a little hysterically. [i]The hospital wasn’t replying any of my phone calls, and both Izzy and Damian seemed off too…I think I know why now…[/i]

[i]Yeah, the Arcadia Movement,[/i] DJ replied. It was much easier having a telepathic conversation, since her arms were threatening to crush him.

[i]Those bastards. They’ll face my full wrath once I’m done taking care of my former sister….!!![/i]

Energized at DJ being okay, she got back up, newly determined.

“Then I activate my Statue's effect, giving me a fourth token!” And another Pearl Token, a black icy sphere suddenly appeared on the field (DEF 500). “Now then, I will Tune Rice with my Statue and two Pearl Tokens!”

Her Signer mark began to glow, as did Damian’s and DJ’s mark, signaling the summon of yet another Signer Dragon.


[center][i]“Chilling ice, engulf the entire world! Lowest temperature, rise up! Synchro Summon, appear now, Zero Kelvin Dragon!”[/i][/center]

As Yuki chanted, the Ice Blast Use Rice suddenly turned into three orbs of ice, and the Statue and two Pearl Tokens turned into four orbs of ice as well. The four orbs which were once the Statue and Tokens circled around the three icy orbs of the Rice, which floated in its place, and then a pillar of ice suddenly appeared and froze them all in place.

Then a crack suddenly formed on the pillar. And then another. The cracks started to widen, the pillar starting to shake, as if something was trapped inside.

And then it exploded, the fragments of the ice hitting the ground, revealing inside an ice-cold dragon. It had two black horns on its head, and its body looked as if it had been slumbering within ice and snow for thousands of years. Its arms were bony, and its tail was twice as long as its height, which was high. Most of all, its eyes resembled that of a cat’s eye, only blue and with black sclera. It roared a sound that sounded like glass crunching against each other. (ATK 2450)

“Now, Zero Kelvin Dragon, attack Human Psychic Borg!” Yuki commanded. The icy dragon then leapt forward, and crunched the humanoid borg between its sharp teeth. Its ice-cold breathe froze the borg as it crunched it, allowing it to be broken down more easily. (Iota LP: 3050)

“And Blizzard Dragon, attack directly!”

Then the lizard-like dragon lunged forward with its scythed arms and landed two hits on her (Iota LP: 1250). Chances are that if Iota hadn’t been a mechanical cyborg, she would’ve been sliced by the scythes.

“I end my turn by switching all of my Tokens to Defense Mode.”

“Great job, Yuki!” DJ cheered on. “Keep it up! Woohoo!”

She blushed, further encouraged to win the duel. There’s no way she’d be losing to her sister now.

“Oh yeah, I’m holding a party tomorrow,” he added randomly. He was the sort of guy to do that.

“Sounds fun!” Yuki replied, eager to go once she was done with all of this.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I draw,”[/font][/color] Iota replied, ignoring DJ’s entrance and the heartfelt event afterwards. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel envious. She and Damian never had the potential to be like them, having been a cyborg all along, from her creation up to now.

Her body shook in envy, and in anger.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I play Lightning Vortex, allowing me to discard a card to destroy all monsters on your side of the field.”[/font][/color]

Yuki took a few bruises from the sudden lightning storm destroying all of her monsters. DJ suddenly began to worry, as did Damian.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Next I will activate Psy-Station, letting me pay 500 Life Points to give my Psychic Snail an extra 300 ATK, bringing it up to 2200 ATK."[/font][/color]

The Snail on her side of the field suddenly slightly grew in size, while her Life Points decreased even lower. (Iota LP: 750)

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now I will play Psychic Sword, giving my Psychic Snail 2000 ATK, and thus bringing it all the way up to 4200 ATK.”[/font][/color]

Then, all of a sudden a strange device appearing to be made of rock appeared in the hands of the Psychic Snail, which was by the way humanoid. At first, it seemed to serve no purpose, but then a sort of lightsaber-esque energy erupted from it. (ATK 4200)

Iota, somehow, shed a tear through her mask-like covering over her face. She hesitated, but then again, it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that Yuki got to go away free while she was trapped like this.

[color=maroon]“Psychic Snail...attack!”[/color]

At Iota’s command, the Psychic Snail charged at Yuki. DJ cried out inhumanly and tried to push her out of the way, take her place, but Damian held him back.

[i][b]“NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”[/b][/i]

Then it slashed at Yuki, and a big gash formed across her abdomen gushing blood. Damian and DJ looked on in horror, as did her Signer Dragon Zero Kelvin Dragon for a moment, before it disappeared.

(Yuki LP: 0)

The white-haired girl sobbed a bit, still standing. She stared down at her own blood-covered body, before turning to DJ. She knew her fate. She stumbled towards him, her arms desperately reaching out. Breaking free of Damian, he ran over to her-

Several AKIs with medical markings rushed over and pulled their bloodied mistress-to-be from DJ’s arms. He screamed out and tried to run over to her, but Iota stood in his way. With only Yuki on his mind, he lashed at her with his fists in anguish, but was blocked by a psychic barrier and knocked off his feet, before being telekinetically thrown away.

Iota looked at Damian in pity. She was crying through her second skin, and watched as her sister prepared for her journey, before following after them.

DJ quickly recovered, pushed Damian away with his enhanced strength, and tried to chase after them. However, he was blocked by his converted clone, Gamma.

[color=yellow]][font=courier]“As your clones, we all feel your love for her,”[/font][/color] she stated, somewhat annoyed. [color=yellow]][font=courier]“But if you continue, I shall end your life right here.”[/font][/color]

“GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!” DJ screamed at her, and lashed out at her the same way he had lashed out at Iota. Needless to say, he was blocked by a psychic barrier once again.

[color=yellow]][font=courier]“Well, perhaps if you submit to being infected by my nanites, I might let you see the soon-to-be Psi, hm?”[/font][/color]

“GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! SCREW YOU, [i]GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”[/i]

[color=yellow]][font=courier]“I had expected more from you, pesk,”[/font][/color] Gamma remarked, before telekinetically picking him up by his feet, and then throwing him all the way towards the other end of the abandoned building.

Then she turned around and left along with the other AKIs.


[center]----------------------------[/center]


Meanwhile, back at the thirty-fourth floor of the Arcadia Movement building…

"And when Mad Dread Dragon is destroyed, it decreases the ATK of your monster by 2800. If the monster's ATK goes to zero, which it did, it's destroyed and its original ATK is also inflicted to you as damage and in this case 1000, so that's 2400 damage in total!”

Saizen paused for a moment to let this sink in.

“I think I’ve won, Professor.” Saizen told him.

McSheer’s face had turned into a panicking one as the shockwave pushed him aside, knocking him down. Saizen started to run forward towards the corridor before the guys behind him would come after him.


[center]-----------------------------[/center]


[color=yellow]][font=courier]“Do not worry, sister,”[/font][/color] Gamma tried to comfort Iota outside. [color=yellow]][font=courier]“Soon, she will be your sister again. It was for the good of the Movement.”[/font][/color]

[color=maroon]][font=courier]“Don't you tell me what's for the good of the Movement!”[/font][/color] Iota yelled, looking distressed.

The ‘ambulance’ that the Arcadia Movement was going to use to transport Yuki back to HQ had arrived. Iota and Gamma hopped in while the AKIs shifted into vehicle form and escorted it.

An hour later, Iota was a bit depressed as she sat in a Repair Depot, getting checked out for any bugs while having a psychological evaluation.

“Everything okay, Iota?” the scientist asked at the end, checking the results.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Yes, Doctor,”[/font][/color] Iota replied hoping that the results would be sufficient.

“Well, it appears everything is in perfect working order, both physically and mentally,” the scientist replied. Iota internally breathed a sigh of relief.

[color=yellow][font=courier]“Thank you, Doctor.”[/font][/color]

"You're welcome," the scientist replied, trying not to make any skin contact with Iota.

Iota got up and began to leave the repair bay. Before she did, she caught a thought from one of the scientists by telepathy. [i]I think they might be finished with Yuki in the conversion room by now.[/i]

Iota decided to go there.

She ran into the conversion control room as she felt a new presence in the same community she had tapped into when she was finished becoming what she is.

The scientists in the control room were ecstatic as the slab rose to a vertical position. The newest AKI Prime had grey-white and light-blue as her color scheme, with indigo circuitry and light-blue armor. Her whitish-blue hair now had cerulean highlights, and her eyes, which had just opened, were turquoise.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"AKI Prime Unit Psi reporting,"[/font][/color] what was once Yuki Fudo intoned.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 8: Zero Percent Salvation]


As Saizen finally found the room where he had heard the noise, he recognized that there were no other people there than people cleaning up the place.

There was a broken window that went straight outside, over a hundred meters above the ground. The people were so concentrated on the papers, cleaning and other stuff, Saizen wondered if they had even remembered the duel at the corridor at all.

“What happened?” Saizen asked one of them, who was cleaning and placing things back to their right places. Fallen books back on their shelves and so on. He didn't even turn at Saizen.

“Iota left with the others, and went to pursue the Kaiba CEO,” he said, probably thinking he was speaking to a colleague.

“Izumi!? Oh, just great!” Saizen muttered and ran back into the corridor, biting his teeth together.

His body hurt here and there due to the duel he had earlier with that professor.



[center][font=courier][color=maroon]---------------------------[/color][/font][/center]


[font=courier]"INTRUDER ALERT!!! INTRUDER ALERT!!!"[/font] The PA system sounded as various alarms activated.

“I guess this would be a good time to test out Psi here,” one of the scientists in the room suggested as he undid the restraints, taking care not to touch Psi's skin.

“Furthermore,” another scientist continued. “…We need to do something we should’ve done to our beautiful creations a long time ago.”

He then mentioned for the three to stand in a row as a mechanical arm lowered to place a symbol on each of the AKI Primes. The symbols in question were their respective Greek Alphabet capital letters.

“Now go along, Psi,” the first scientist ordered. “Go get the bad guy.”

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Yes sir,”[/font][/color] she responded.

Iota wanted to say something to her sister, but Psi was out of the door before she could.



[center]--------------------------------[/center]


Saizen had been running along the halls, looking for an escape route, when he crossed paths with an odd woman, who appeared to have been expecting him. She had on an odd grayish rubbery material around her with indigo circuitry and light-blue armor. Her eyes were turquoise, and her hair – which seemed recognizable for some reason – was white.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Intruder identified,”[/font][/color] she stated coldly. [color=lightblue][font=courier] “Preparing to engage.”[/font][/color]

She raised her right arm, which activated a Duel Disk built into it.

[i]Great, another cyborg girl… [/i]

He knew he wouldn't be able to run or ride away from the psychic cyborg security lady, so he just activated his duel disk. His chest was still throbbing a little bit, as did the pain from the duel with that professor.

[i]How on earth am I going to get out of this situation?[/i] he thought to himself.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"Activating Duel Disk,"[/font][/color] Psi stated, commanding a couple of nearby AKIs to stay in standby just in case Saizen tried anything funny.

[i]Why are these rob-, er, cyborgs so beautiful in a way.[/i]

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"Acknowledge victory terms,"[/font][/color] Psi began as she drew her card, and then stopped. [color=lightblue][font=courier]"Upon my victory, you will cease and desist, accompany me to the conversion chamber, and proceed with conversion into an AKI Prime,” [/font][/color]

She paused for a moment.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Upon your victory, I will cease and desist and give you right-of-way. Acknowledge."[/font][/color]

“That's the very problem. You cyborgs are so nice-looking but you just have to blow to pieces? What did they call you, cyborg-girl? Epsilon? Gamma? Omicron?” Saizen asked her, mentioning the few Greek letters of the alphabet he happened to remember from his school times.

Having heard about ‘Iota’, he figured that this was one of them and should also have a Greek name.


[center]-----------------------[/center]


For a moment, Damian and Nick were silent. Damian had explained to Nick what had happened while DJ had ran straight for the Arcadia Movement, blindly, ignoring the Duelhog vehicle and not bothering to come up with a plan.

Damian, after explaining everything to Nick, fell to his knees.

“I've- I've failed you, Izzy… and Yuki…” He murmured, tears once more welling up in his eyes.

His hopes had been brought up for nothing, and in the end only despair awaited him. He got up, and knew what he had to do. He took out a device and pressed a button. After a few minutes, his Duel Runner appeared by itself automatically. Then he mounted it, before heading straight towards the Arcadia Movement headquarters.

He was going to destroy them all, so that he wouldn’t fail anybody else.

[i]Izzy, I will not let them leave you as their slave! I will save you and Yuki even if it costs me my life![/i]

Damian was now about halfway to the Arcadia Movement building. He still knew what he wanted to do, and was thinking of how to do it in his head.

The first step was getting into the Arcadia Movement's headquarters without being noticed, but he wasn't really sure how to do that…

Suddenly, a shadow materialized itself in front of him and he quickly stopped his Runner before he crashed into the shadow, or before it consumed him, or before whatever would’ve happened if he came into contact with it.

Colors then began to spread across the shadow until it looked like a man, clothed in dark garments.

A man that Damian recognized.

“You!” He said. [i]“Protheus!”[/i]

“Oh?” The man said, as he examined Damian, as if he were a particular experiment, before the Dragon mark on his arm caught his attention. “Well, surprise surprise, the ex-Dark Signer has become a Signer. Congratulations.”

He clapped, sarcastically.

“Er,” Damian didn’t know how to answer this man.

It seemed as if every Dark Signer had been revived, even the crueler ones like him and Saizen. Still, among the Dark Signers, Protheus had always been the most mysterious. And during the final battle against the leader of the Sky Signers, who had now become Yuki, he had just sat by and watched, as if he didn’t care about the fate of the world.

He looked around.

“Odd. There's a lot less traffic than usual…” He muttered, just realizing it.

The man, Protheus, chuckled at this small realization, as if he had been the reason for it. Damian didn’t want to know.

“If you’re interested in knowing, the numbers of Psychic Duelists in the Arcadia Movement, and many outside of it, have already substantially decreased, by none other than me,” he explained.

Damian realized that he was the cause for the many deaths of the Psychics in America, and slowly turned his Runner back on, just in case he had to escape.

“However, they were smart and resorted to other means. Psychic cyborgs, to make up for the lack of Psychic Duelists! I never would’ve thought it. I tried to infiltrate their building and attack them head-on, but eh…”

Damian then realized that the left arm of Protheus was missing, and the sleeve of his robe looked torn. In fact, his entire robe looked tattered, as if he had been hit by a gigantic laser but only barely managed to dodge it.

“I underestimated them. I haven’t been this much outmatched since I attacked DATEA,” he admitted. “Damian Atlas, you would be foolish and stupid to proceed. If they were ordinary human beings, it would’ve been no difficult task to kill them all, but-”

“Well, they aren't,” Damian interrupted, starting to get pissed off by this guy. “And don't call me stupid. Besides, I have a better cause than the Immortals now.”

He held up his right arm with the Crimson Dragon Mark, before putting it down and looking back onto his former fellow Dark Signer.

“Look, don't interrupt me,” he said, in a very annoyed and impatient tone.

“I need to go there and save my friends. Those movement jerks turned two of them into cyborgs, and I think they plan on doing that to anyone who loses to them in a duel. And anyway, I need to save them, but if I can't find a way to free them from what they've become…”

He trailed off as he had the horrific thought of having to kill Iota and Yuki in order to save them from being the Arcadia Movement's slaves… tears then began to well back up in his eyes for what must have now been the twentieth time. He stopped after a while, and clutched his Duel Runner handles, ready to advance.

"Can you please get out of the way now so I can go there?"

“If you want to die, then so be it,” Protheus shrugged, and stepped aside for Damian to pass. He laughed a bit.

"From my millenniums of years of time-traveling and existence, I can tell you that you can save their minds, but you will never ever be capable of saving them completely, not even if you had the entire force of the planet to back you up. If you choose to advance, there is an extremely large chance you will end up destroying your friends to save them, or die and join them as a female cyborg.”

He crossed his arms and looked at Damian in the eye, and Damian looked back. He could sense the thousands of years this man had lived, but it didn’t matter much to him.

“Make your choice, insect. Do you still want to do this?”

Damian paused for a moment, and considered all that Protheus had said. It was nice to be given advice from a person who had lived long enough to know everything, but his personality, the way he made the options sound, and his ridiculously long speeches irritated and annoyed Damian greatly.

After Kasey and Saizen, this was definitely the third person he wanted to kill.

“So I can't restore them?” He asked, feeling colder all of a sudden. Everything he felt seemed to just vanish. His legs felt heavy, and his eyes watered. "But- Izzy- Yuki-”

“…have a zero percent chance of salvation,” Protheus finished for him, still in a mocking tone, but also with a slight tint of sympathy.

Damian felt like he should just gather up a whole load of dynamite and blow up the entire Arcadia Movement building into smithereens, leaving nothing behind. He also wanted to punch Protheus in the face, greatly.

"But I- there MUST be a way to restore them!” Damian countered, refusing to believe otherwise.

“Yuki still has a long life to lead, and Izzy- she wasn't purely a human, but she was also going to have a good life…..with me…and…..!!!”

Now determined, he turned the handlebar and his Duel Runner shot forward. He drove past Protheus in rage, faster than he had ever done before.

He was ready to do absolutely anything.

He had the odd feeling that Protheus had also decided to head towards the headquarters.


[center]-----------------------------[/center]


A team of professors and scientists working for the Arcadia Movement had appeared to observe the duel between Saizen and the AKI Prime in person, not wanting to miss this opportunity. They talked to each other, glancing at Saizen every now and then, and being cautious just in case he tried to do something funny. The street in front of the entrance door of the Arcadia Movement's headquarters had turned into a battlefield.

“I'll start the duel!” Saizen said, drawing his sixth card. “I set a monster! Then after one facedown, I end my turn.”

His set monster was the mightiest defender among the Mad series, its shield at DEF 3100. “What’s your name again?”

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“I am AKI Prime Unit Psi, formerly the entity known as Yuki Kiryu Fudo,”[/font][/color] Psi responded, drawing her card.

“Oh, I see now,” Saizen muttered. “It makes sense, you two look similar. But for the record, you seem a lot weaker than before.”

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“False. I have surpassed all human capacities.”[/font][/color]

“Oh really? Well, I doubt that. I bet you’re a lot weaker now than when you had been the masked Lady Oyuki…whatever the movement did to you, they failed to unlock your true potential.”

The AKI Prime narrowed her eyes, but otherwise appeared emotionless in front of him.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Duel start,”[/font][/color] she stated. [color=lightblue][font=courier]“I play Nobleman of Crossout, removing your face-down monster from play, and forcing you to remove all other copies of that card from play.”[/font][/color]

Saizen grunted as a sword pierced his set monster, forcing him to remove from play his Mad Shield Guardna, and the other two in his deck as well. That left him with little options for defending.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Next I will place Mental Protector in face-up Defense Mode,”[/font][/color] She continued, and a yellow mechanical cyborg only five feet high appeared on the field in front of her, with two transparent disks attached to the front of its body as shields. (DEF 2200)

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Then I will place 2 face-down cards, and end my turn.”[/font][/color]


[center]-----------------------------------------[/center]



DJ, anguished, charged towards the Arcadia Movement headquarters with an army of ready armed Sector Security police following behind him.

“Get ready to move in,” he warned them, in a voice deeper than normal.

All he knew was that he had to rescue Yuki from that place. He wasn’t actually thinking straight, and the people from Sector Security were aware of this behind him. They decided to let him be, as the movement’s downfall was more important.

“Oh, if any one of you discovers a cup of Frappacuino inside this building, take it for me!” DJ commanded - some of the police facepalmed at this command - and finally they stormed the building.

The guards and accountant didn’t stand a chance. The first floor was overrun as easily as stampeding over glass. It helped that there were five elevators in the building and a pair of stairs, but it slowed down the police as they advanced to the second floor. Still, the second floor went down easily, and so did the third and fourth.

The Psychic Duelists they had encountered tried to retaliate, but they were no match for the swarming Sector Security.

Among their opponents were also a couple of AKI bots, but they were quickly beaten down to scrap metal before they could actually do anything. DJ had warned Sector Security that the AKI bots were more dangerous than the Psychic duelists and were to be treated with more caution, especially since they could transform into ramming motorcycles. They took this seriously.

They had originally intended to salvage the AKI bot remains for research, but unfortunately the AKI bots had come with a self-destruct function that prevented them from ever reverse-engineering them.

While they continued advancing the floors, the number of Psychic Duelists and AKI bots began to increase. It didn’t help that they were sending reinforcements from all the way up to the twentieth floor, and that half the entire Sector Security force were still in the below floors, unable to advance quickly with such large numbers squeezed into small spaces.

Luckily, although many were harmed, none so far had been captured or killed. The one harmed the most was DJ himself, only because he was the first and charged without any protection or weapons. When they had advanced all the way to the tenth floor, someone had found him a cup of Frappacuino lying about, and he was glad as he drank it, letting the caffeine get to his brain and keep him awake.

All of a sudden, he received some sort of telepathic message from, wait what?

[i][color=maroon]DJ,[/color][/i] Iota said into his mind. [i][color=maroon]I'm so sorry about what I've done. Please help me, and come to the atrium on the thirteenth floor.[/color][/i]

[i]I’ll come, but no tricks,[/i] he replied, unsure if she was listening. [i]And I’m bringing my Frappacuino up with me just in case, okay?[/i]

"We’re going up to the thirteenth floor," DJ informed Sector Security, and they pressed on.

Once they had reached the twelfth floor, there was not a single Psychic Duelist in sight, only AKI bots that attacked as soon as they appeared. The police had been starting to feel tired after having fought through eleven floors. The first wave of the twelfth floor was completely decimated.

A horrifying sight that needn’t be described.

The next waves, however, were determined to avenge their comrades and managed to overcome and destroy them all, and then they advanced to the thirteenth floor, which was curiously empty.

Once half the entire Sector Security forces had made it up to the thirteenth floor, the majority of them took a rest before they would have to advance onward to the fourteenth. DJ looked around the floor and finally found the atrium. He stationed a few police outside of it just in case.

And then he entered, cautiously.

Suddenly, the doors to the atrium all closed. Iota came down from a secret panel in the ceiling, apparently still on the side of the Arcadia Movement.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I knew that you would trust Izzy enough to give yourself up to me,”[/font][/color] She grinned, paralyzing DJ psychically yet again. He dropped his cup of Frappacuino and it shattered to the ground. [color=maroon][font=courier]“This is the fourth time you’ve been caught by the Arcadia Movement, DJ. One would think that you’d actually learn from your experiences.”[/font][/color]

She then led his body to the opposite door, away from the Securities trying to get in.


[center]---------------------------------------------------[/center]


“Hmph. Lucky move. My turn then!” Saizen said, giving a grin as his monster faded away like a clearing mist. [i]I cannot attack with monsters less than 2000 ATK, but that won’t bother me…![/i]

“I summon Mad King!” He declared, and a monster appeared on the field (ATK 2000).

“He's one of my most favorite and fateful servant among my monsters in my deck. With his ability, I can Special Summon a Dark monster by reducing the summoned monster's ATK to zero. Come forth, Mad Synchron!”

The Mad King glowed for a moment, and then next to him appeared a monster similar in appearance, but younger (ATK 800).

“Next I play the spell Bribed Robbers! For every Dark monster on the field, I remove my deck's top card, and then destroy Spell and Trap card equal the number of Dark monsters I control. Now since the two monsters on the field I got are Dark monsters, I remove two top cards and destroy the two face-downs you have on your field!”

Saizen played a card from his hand, and then suddenly two blasts of black energy hit the face-downs, destroying them.

“Next, to overcome your Mental Protector's ability, now I will tune my two monsters together! Synchro Summon! Appear, Divine Mad Commander!”

His two monsters turned into portals and stars, and as they aligned with each other a burst of light came and engulfed them. When it disappeared, in its place was a monster that looked similar to Mad King, but older and more formal.

“Attack her Mental Protector!” he commanded, and his monster lunged, striking it's sword at the monster and destroying it. “Then I end my turn.”

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"I draw,"[/font][/color] Psi responded. [color=lightblue][font=courier]"I Normal Summon Krebons in Attack Mode, then set 2 face-down cards." [/font][/color]

A thin yellow and purplish cyborg appeared on the field, with two face-down cards behind of it. (1200 ATK)

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"I end my turn."[/font][/color]

“I've been wondering this, so I’ll ask you now,” Saizen said suddenly.

“What happened to Izumi Fudo, the cyborg-girl I came to get back in the first place? All I found was a broken window and all those scientists talking something about 'Iota'? What did they mean by that, Psi?”

He looked questioningly the stoic cyborg, drawing a card and straightening his arm to declare an attack at Krebons with his monster. Even so, looking at the former Lady Oyukihime, he had a good idea.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]"Activating Scrap-Iron Scarecrow,"[/font][/color] Psi stated, ignoring his question. A figure made out of junk appeared out of nowhere to stop Saizen's attack.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 9: Mental Freedom]
Damian had arrived at the headquarters, and he was just starting to doubt himself after his little ‘talk’ with Protheus.

[i]Without Izzy and Yuki, I doubt we'd ever stop the Movement,[/i] he thought to himself.

He recalled all of the good times he and Izzy had had since the day they met. Or rather, after he had been restored to a normal human being. He had seen DJ leading the Securities to storm the entire Arcadia Movement headquarters. But he understand why DJ was acting this way, Yuki meant as much to him as Izzy did to Damian.

[i]Good luck, [/i]he wished his cousin.

As Damian parked, he saw the force of Securities he saw go in come out, having already secured one-third of the building. With them, they carried both unconscious and chained But DJ wasn’t part of them. This got Damian a bit concerned, so he jumped off his Runner and ran over to talk to one of them.

“This is odd… hey, you!” Damian said, quickly catching a leaving Security. “Where's my cousin, DJ Kaiba?”

“Your ex-girlfriend got him,” the Security police replied, having already been informed of all the known enemies’ identities along with everyone else.

Damian was horrified at this response. But, as these Securities were leaving, another van pulled up.

“Damian Atlas!” A familiar voice cried out from the van. “I've got something for you!”

Damian quickly ran to the van, not really knowing what to expect from the van.

“Who? What?” he stuttered, and turned around to see a man he recognized in the doorway to the van. It was Dexter.

“Damian, I have something that might help you,” he said. “Come on in!”

“Oh, it's you, hurray,” Damian said unenthusiastically, but he climbed inside anyhow. “What was it you wanted to help me with? And what do you know about what they're up to? Besides turning Yuki and Izzy into those [i]things[/i]… Poor them.”

He looked down again, sad once more.

Dexter smirked as he led Damian into his van. All sorts of mechanical parts were hanging from wires and lying on shelves. Dexter fished for something while talking.

“Recently, with this 'AKI Prime' threat, we saw no real way to stop them. They can read your mind to figure out your next move before you make it, regenerate any injuries using the nanobots in their system, and, as far as we can tell, are virtually unstoppable,” he said, and in a way he was right.

After all, even Protheus, the immortal guy who had wiped out hundreds of Psychic Duelists within days, ended up with his arm blasted off.

“But recently, we were well, contacted by an old friend who gave us an idea.”

He handed Damian what looked like a high-tech pistol.

“This is a concentrated EMP pistol,” Dexter explained. “We re-engineered some of our wireless tasers to create this little gizmo. Fire it at an electronic system, and it will shut it down. You can use this to stun Iota for a few hours, but we've only been able to give each of these pistols enough juice for one shot, and one shot [i]only[/i]. Do you understand?”

“EMP? As in, electromagnetic pulse?” Damian asked, recalling a bit more stuff he had learned at school. “I don't know. What good is stunning her?”

He had a distorted expression on his face that was hard to read.

“What I meant by 'stunning' is that all of her mechanical systems will be shut down, and she will most likely be knocked unconscious,” Dexter continued. “This includes the mental uplink attached to her spine. We believe that we might have a chance of surgically removing it while she is in this state.”

Damian knew what this meant, and his hopes rose.

“Another thing, when firing, we believe the best chance we will have for the extraction of the uplink will be if you hit her in the back, near where the primary connection is, where the neck meets the back. There should be a little LED light there, which will be your target. And, whatever you do, do NOT make skin contact with her. The AKI Primes carry some sort of nanobot-based virus that will transform the victim into some sort of 'cyber zombie' connected to the Arcadia Movement.”

Dexter gave Damian a pat on the back as he herded the young man out of the van.

“Good luck, kid!” Dexter saluted as the van drove away.

Damian needed a moment to comprehend what had just happened in the past minute, and looked down at the pistol now in his hand.

“Nanobots, huh? Kinda sci-fi…” he muttered, dazed, before regaining himself.

[i]Anyway, Izzy, I'm coming for you![/i]

Then he ran into the headquarters, up the staircase and through the cleared floors one by one.

[i]Let's see,[/i] he thought to himself. [i]If I were an unstoppable killer cyborg, where would I be-[/i]

[color=maroon][i]Damian![/i][/color] Iota’s voice cried out into his mind all of a sudden. [i][color=maroon]Please help me! I'm so scared…[/color][/i] [i]I'm in the atrium on the thirteenth floor. It isn't being monitored and there aren’t any forces on it, so I think that we can get out of here together…[/i][/font]

“Izzy...?”

Damian wondered about whether or not it could be a trap, especially since DJ had been captured by her according to the Security, but since DJ was with her as the Security had said, he decided to go anyway, and casually took an elevator straight up to the thirteenth floor. Once there, he searched the floor for her.

He saw Iota standing in the hallway and rushed towards her, seeing that she was turned around, her back facing him. He thought that he would be able to see that beautiful face again.

When she did turn around, however, she was still ‘masked’, and therefore under the control of the Arcadia Movement.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I knew you would come!”[/font][/color] Iota exclaimed, and laughed maniacally.

Then, all of the doors began to close. He quickly realized it was a trap and had darted towards the nearest door as fast as he could, but he didn’t make in time and crashed against it. He was left with no escape options.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I just realized something.”[/font][/color]

Damian didn't know how to respond as she activated her Duel Disk, while, at the same time, overriding Damian's own Duel Disk.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“This room is just the right size for a duel!”[/font][/color]

“Okay, but why duel me now?” he asked. “Why is it you and the other AKIs are constantly dueling people? You do know that when Duel Disks are used, KaibaCorp records the duels, right?”

He activated his Duel Disk and drew five cards regardless.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Not ours,”[/font][/color] Iota clarified. [color=maroon][font=courier]“Every Arcadia Movement member's Duel Disk is custom-made on-site, making us invisible to KaibaCorp. To the systems monitoring this duel, you're simply dueling a ghost. And I will let you go first.”[/font][/color]

“That makes sense, I guess… my turn!”

He was about to draw a card when he felt something in his Extra Deck. While he felt the power and strength of his own Signer Dragon, and the warmth and energy of White Rose Dragon, this one was cold and passive. He quickly looked through his Extra Deck, and saw it, Zero Kelvin Dragon, Yuki's Signer Dragon.

“Draw!”

Damian didn’t really know how to react.

“I summon Lonefire Blossom, before activating its effect! I can tribute it to Special Summon any Plant monster from my Deck, and I choose my Tytannial, Princess of Camellias!”

A plant-like woman burst out from a huge rose that had sprouted from the floor, and she held out her arms, before putting her hands together gracefully. (ATK 2800)

“Next I play Double Summon, which allows me to Normal Summon once more! So I’ll summon the monster Nettles!”

A strange tiny creature seemingly made of grass appeared next to Tytannial. (ATK 1200)

“Now I’ll equip Tytannial with the equip spell card Demotion, reducing her level by two!”

Damian played another, and then Tytannial shrunk in size.

“And finally, I tune together my Level Two Nettles to my now Level Six Tytannial!”

The Tail mark began to glow on his arm, while a dormant Left Wing mark tried to radiate through Iota’s rubbery layer.

[center][i]“Infect with the ill storm you bring forth! Destroy the corrupted! [b]Synchro Summon! Spread out, Storm-Drive Virus Dragon!”[/b][/i][/center]

As he chanted, the Tytannial suddenly burst into six glowing stars while the Nettles split into two grass rings. The six stars aligned themselves into a line and entered through the two grass rings. Then they vanished into a burst of light. When the burst of light had faded away, it revealed a weird floating blob with colors of pink and blue mixed around it.

It then began to slowly and horrifically morph into a different shape, which appeared to be a slime version of a dragon’s skeleton. Then more slime erupted from the empty rip-cage, before starting to quickly cover and wrap the skeleton slime imitation with it, continuing until the dragon had a discernable, yet creepy appearance.

It roared an alien cry, resembling the annoying ear-popping screeching sound you hear when a microphone or megaphone malfunctions for a moment. (ATK 2500)

No doubt at the bottom of the list of the Crimson Dragon’s favorites.

"I activate its effect, and I select ‘monster’! This means that from now on all monster effects of yours are negated!” Damian continued.

The slime dragon then released small spores from its body, which showered Iota’s side of the field and lingered in the air.

“Also, next turn, I’ll be able to activate a Virus card from my hand without need of its activation conditions. I set one card and end my turn!”

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I draw,”[/font][/color] Iota declared, unperturbed by the appearance of Damian’s creepy Signer Dragon.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I activate the Spell card Psychic Feedback, which allows me to remove a Psychic monster from my hand and pay Life Points equal to the Level of a face-up Synchro monster on the field times a hundred, and return it to their Extra Deck!”[/font][/color]

Storm-Drive Virus Dragon was suddenly quickly sent away in a wave of powerful chaotic static, and with it, the spores as well. (Iota LP: 3200)

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now I will Normal Summon Mental Protector in Defense Mode, set two face-down cards, and end my turn!”[/font][/color] (2200 DEF)

"Draw!” Damian said, and drew his card. Things weren’t looking too good. “Erm, I activate Monster Reborn and revive Tytannial from the graveyard!”

Then, a portal appeared on the floor beneath their feet, and from it emerged Tytannial, spreading out her arms to once again feel the air, once again alive. (ATK 2800) “I’ll set another card and end.”

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I draw,”[/font][/color] Iota said, and drew her card. [color=maroon][font=courier]“Due to the effect of Mental Protector, I must pay 500 Life Points to keep it on the field.”[/font][/color]

The Mental Protector on her field radiated a small purple light for a moment as Iota’s Life Points decreased, but it faded away when it was done. (Iota LP: 2800)

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Next I will play a card similar to one I had in my Plant Deck, my face-down Cyber Séance! It allows me to remove Psychic monsters in my Deck from play and [i]draw a card[/i] for each monster removed!”[/font][/color]

She took a card from her hand and activated it into her Duel Disk.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I will banish Psychic Commander, Mind Master, Reinforced Human Psychic Borg, Genetic Woman, and Krebons to draw five cards.”[/font][/color]

Then, five monsters were ejected from her deck, and she caught them all before removing them from play. After that, she drew five cards from her deck.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Next I will play Brain Exploitation Research Lab, and then Field Barrier, which will prevent its destruction.”[/font][/color]

While she said this, the room transformed into a dimly-lit laboratory, and then a transparent barrier began to form across its surface, preventing it from being destroyed.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“While the Lab is on the field, once per turn I can Normal Summon or Set one Psychic monster in addition to my ordinary Normal Summon, and if it is successful, it allows me to place a Psychic Counter on it. And do you know what? I can place Counters on it instead of paying Life Points to activate a Psychic’s effect that I control.”[/font][/color]

Damian took a step back. This meant trouble.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Next I will Normal Summon Destructotron in Defense Mode,”[/font][/color] she continued, and a humanoid cyborg on four mechanical ‘spider legs’ formed. (ATK 1600) [color=maroon][font=courier]“And then with the effect of my Lab, I’ll set a face-down card by placing a Psychic Counter.”[/font][/color]

Within the Lab, suddenly a single light bulb came on, as if to signify the one Psychic Counter.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now I will use the effect of Destructotron. By paying a thousand Life Points, I can destroy one Spell or Trap you control. However, instead I’ll activate the effect of my Lab, so instead of paying the Life Points I’ll place [i]two[/i] Psychic Counters on my Lab. And destroy your face-downs.”[/font][/color]

Two more lightbulbs in the Lab turned on, and then two purplish balls of energy materialized in front of the Destructotron, before finally being shot towards Damian’s two facedowns. They collided, and now his face-downs were gone, leaving him no defense.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I end my turn.”[/font][/color]

“My turn! D- d- draw!” Damian said, hesitating. “Okay, um… I activate Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy your Lab!”

A typhoon suddenly appeared and began to sweep the entire Lab into it, attempting to tear it apart, but at no avail. However, it did manage to sweep in the Barrier that had protected it, and grinded it into nothing before disappearing.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Tsk tsk tsk,”[/font][/color] Iota taunted. [color=maroon][font=courier]“My Field Barrier protected my lovely Laboratory from your nasty Typhoon.”[/font][/color]

“I end.”

Damian facepalmed at his stupidity.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“My turn!”[/font][/color] Iota declared, and drew her card. [color=maroon][font=courier]“First I will activate Psi-Station, allowing me to pay 500 Life Points to upgrade my monsters by one Level and 300 ATK while they’re Normal Summoned!”[/font][/color]

Suddenly, at the four corners of the lab appeared four miniature yellow pillars. At the point of each pillar was cackling yellow electricity.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now I will Normal Summon a Krebons, and increase its Level by 1 and ATK by 300 by paying 500 Life Points.”[/font][/color]

A small, thin cyborg in colors of purple and yellow appeared on the field. As it did, from the four pillars suddenly came a strike of electricity towards the Krebons (Iota LP: 2300), and it was hit, making it grow slightly in size (ATK 1500).

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Then I will Tune together my Krebons with my Destructotron and my face-down Doctor Cranium to Synchro Summon [i]Thought Ruler Archfiend!”[/i][/font][/color]

She didn’t chant, but while she said those last few lines, the Destructotron and Doctor Cranium had turned into five large hoops, while the Krebons had suddenly burst into three purple orbs of energy. The orbs then aligned themselves into a line before entering through the five hoops. Then a burst of purple light formed, and when it disappeared, in place of the orbs and hoops was a creature, with what appeared to be a secondary skeleton [i]over[/i] its body. It had rough green skin and two large wings, as well as sharp claws. The skeleton seemed to act as its armor, and it was large. (ATK 2700)

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now I will play Psychic Sword, which increases the ATK of my Archfiend equal to the difference in our Life Points,”[/font][/color] Iota continued, and then the same rock-like device that had appeared earlier appeared once more, a lightsaber-esque energy protruding from it. Holding the Psychic Sword in its hand, the Thought Ruler Archfiend looked like a knight that had come straight from hell. (ATK 4400)

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Now attack his Tytannial, my Archfiend!”[/font][/color]

“Argh!”

As Damian’s monster was sliced apart, he had felt pain due to her psychic powers. (Damian LP: 2700)

Then, before the Tytannial could disappear into nothingness, its essence was suddenly compressed into a small purple ball of energy, which the Archfiend then consumed. (Iota LP: 5100) And then after that, the Psychic Sword deactivated due to Iota’s LP being higher than Damian’s, now becoming nothing more than dead weight to the Thought Ruler. (ATK 2700)

“Anything else, Izzy...?” he gasped out.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Since my Life Points are much higher than yours now due to my Archfiend’s effect, it has returned to normal,”[/font][/color] Iota said. [color=maroon][font=courier]“I set a face-down card, and then end my turn.”[/font][/color]

He looked around the sealed room, wishing there was a way out.


[center]--------------------------[/center]


DJ and Damian were not the only ones who had attempted to attack or infiltrate the Arcadia Movement. Nick was lost, randomly searching around the massive building. He didn’t know which floor he was on, but as it appeared, it was empty.

“Nobody seems to be here…” he murmured.

He entered a room randomly, hoping to find something, and by pure luck he found himself within an empty console room, filled with computer screens. Selecting one, he ran towards it.

[i]I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I messed around with a few things,[/i] he thought to himself as he drew a card out of his pocket, namely ‘Electric Virus’. [i]Now then, let’s destroy their entire computer mainframe![/i]

He concentrated on the card, focusing his psychic powers into it and trying to manifest the virus. After a short while, it was cackling with electricity, signaling that it was ready. He was just about to slide it into a CPU, when-

[color=orange][font=courier]“I don't think so.”[/font][/color]

Nick suddenly felt a large barrel of metal hit him, and his consciousness slipped away.


[center]-------------------------[/center]


“Iota, these doors and stuff are electronically kept closed, aren't they?” Damian asked as he drew his next card. He was slowly getting ready to make for the door. “Anyway, I now activate Fissure to destroy your lowest ATK monster, which is Mental Protector!”

A hole suddenly formed beneath the Mental Protector. It tried to escape, but then a creepy hand emerged from it and with amazing strength dragged it deep into the darkness. A small electronic shriek could be heard before the hole closed.

“And uh, I guess I have to end my turn,” he said, reluctantly. He had absolutely nothing to defend himself.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“That is true, but they are now closed by my mind,”[/font][/color] Iota replied, drawing a card, not caring about the loss of her Protector.

[color=maroon][font=courier]"I play Mind Master in Attack Mode."[/font][/color]

A small cyborg head with tiny arms attached to it appeared on the field, floating. (100 ATK)

[color=maroon][font=courier]"Now I will tune together my Tuner monster Mind Master to my Archfiend to Synchro Summon [i]Hyper Psychic Blaster!"[/i][/font][/color]

As before, she didn’t chant, but while she said those last few lines, the Thought Ruler Archfiend had burst into eight hoops made of purple energy, cackling with electricity, while the Mind Master compressed itself into a single mechanical orb, which then proceeded to enter through the eight hoops.

Then a burst of purple light covered the area, much more powerful than the last one. When it disappeared, in place of the orbs and hoops was a cyborg, which although was a lot less creepy and a lot more humanoid than the Archfiend monster before it, had a certain more menacing air about it. It was a white cyborg fully coated in mechanical armor, and had two blaster-like guns attached to it. (ATK 3000)

But that wasn’t the end of it.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“Next I will play the Trap card Assault Mode Activate, Tributing my Blaster to upgrade him to Assault Mode!”[/font][/color] Iota continued, and Damian took a step back, knowing he wouldn’t ever be able to counter the forthcoming monster.

A bright light engulfed Hyper Psychic Blaster, which didn’t disappear for at least a minute, and when it finally faded away, it revealed that Hyper Psychic Blaster had now been equipped with much more powerful weapons and armor, had increased in size, and was now an unstoppable force (ATK 3500).

But just then, Iota stopped, her head suddenly dropping low like she had been switched off.

“I- Izzy…?!” he called out, worried.

Without thinking, he ran over to her. He was concerned that she might be malfunctioning, but, at the same time, he knew that he would most likely be critically injured, and very much likely die, if the Hyper Psychic Blaster/Assault Mode attacked him.

Right at that moment, Iota drew a card outside of her turn and held the backside of it up to Damian, signaling her surrender. She looked up at Damian. Her face was no longer ‘masked’, yet it still had the cybernetic circuitry on her face, and it also had tears falling down.

[color=maroon][font=courier]“I can[/font]'t do it!”[/color] she cried out. [color=maroon]“No matter how much they tell me to, I just can't kill the [i]one[/i] person in this world that I love!!!”[/color]

She started yelling and screaming psychotically, fighting off an invisible force that was driving her insane. She spun around as she punched and kicked and sent flying barrels at figures that didn’t exist…while also leaving her backside exposed.

Damian could see a little green LED light at the top of her metal spinal device, blinking steadily and telling the world that Izzy was still under the control of the Movement.

Damian hesitated. He couldn't tell what to do, until now. He wiped a tear and took out the EMP gun.

[i]Please work, [/i]he thought to himself, and fired straight at the device on Iota's back.

She collapsed like a hunk of metal, deactivated for the moment.

When the golden blast from the EMP gun hit Iota, she suddenly keeled over and collapsed onto the floor. As this happened, the robotic arm and leg replacements disengaged, scattering across the room, and now her body was light enough for Damian to carry, yet still quite heavy and a bit odd to carry someone who had stumps just past their elbows and knees.

He walked over to Iota, whom the pulse had deactivated making sure not to make skin contact with her although he knew he still had to bring her to Dexter.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Chapter 10: Critical Convergent Point]

Damian put Iota down briefly when he saw a nice looking lab coat while heading to the elevator and put it on, which made carrying Iota a bit easier considering his arms and legs were covered. He pressed the elevator button and it opened straightaway. Then he entered and selected the second floor.

The elevator started to go down.

12[sup]th[/sup]…

11[sup]th[/sup]…

It stopped at the tenth.

Damian had a mini heart-attack.

The doors opened, and a young Arcadia Movement member wearing a purple-robed uniform entered casually. Damian tried to act as normal as possible, like a scientist, but he was hiding it terribly.

“Nervous?” The member asked. Damian just nodded. “Thought so. Just half an hour ago I came across the newest AKI Prime, Zeta, and she [i]laughed[/i] at me, like a maniac, as I passed by her! It must be pretty scary creating all those sadistic, destructible robots.”

He fought the desire to correct the member, since they were [i]cyborgs[/i], and that there was a difference, so he just nodded again. [i]I wish he’d just shut up. I can’t risk blowing my cover…![/i]

“Aren’t you a bit too young to be a scientist?” The member asked, noticing Damian’s young face. He shrugged.

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter. That Sector Security that invaded us earlier was a little scary, but Vinedi Years is using that against them now, claiming that they’d attacked us without cause,” he remarked, before adding something.” These days, they’ve been starting to ask for psychic volunteer[i]s, [/i]but don’t explain what for, none of them return. It’s sort of scary, but I guess we can’t argue. Oh yeah, what are you gonna do with that thing anyway?”

“Just to run a few tests,” Damian replied, trying to sound as stoic and intellectual as possible.

He didn’t add anything else in case he accidentally tipped off his identity. He also fought off the desire to argue with the member that it was not a [i]thing[/i], it was a [i]she[/i].

“I don’t suppose I could take a look at the AKI?” The member asked in a friendly tone.

“No,” Damian replied straightaway in an angered tone, but he quickly rushed in his mind to calm himself. “I mean er, you might awaken it, and as you can imagine, AKI Primes do not appreciate being carried around.”

Izzy herself hadn’t liked that, and the memory of her nearly made tears swell up in his eyes again.

Then the elevator stopped at floor two, and he rushed out before the member could question him any further, nearly crashed into an Arcadia Movement janitor. Damian took a right turn, though his legs were killing him.

Good, there was a fire escape. He quickly ran down it and out of the building to the parking lot where Dexter had been earlier.

It had exhausted him, running while carrying around a heavy object, and he wasn’t allowed to make skin contact with it, or else he’d turn into a cyber zombie. Damian saw Dexter's van, wondering how he had arrived so quickly. Dexter opened the door, helping to hoist Iota into the van – it helped that Dexter was wearing gloves - and then closed the van door, allowing the van to head away from the headquarters as fast as it could.

Damian was still puzzled at how Dexter had managed to figure out how long it would take.

Then he looked back at Iota, trying to catch his breath. “I promise that we’ll get you back to your old Izzy self,” he whispered into her ear.

“Well, we decided to monitor your Duel Disk via KaibaCorp, who kinda want their heir back by the way,” Dexter chuckled at this, before realizing that it wasn't that funny and stopped.

“Anyway, I figured that it was odd that you were dueling all by yourself, and your Life Points were decreasing on their own. When you stopped dueling, we moved in to give you a quick getaway.”

Then Damian noticed that the van was heading towards Satellite.

“Hey, Dexter, why are we going to Satellite?” he asked. “Wouldn't it be easier to go to somewhere in the city?”

He looked at Iota once more. “How long do we have anyway before she reactivates? I hope it lasts long enough for us to get her restored, since the last thing I want is to touch her beforehand…”

Dexter motioned for the driver to turn, and then continued to examine Iota.

“We have a couple hours until the effects of the burst wear off. Until then, we are setting up shop in a familiar place.”

The van pulled into a large garage, and several other Sector Security vans as well as some medical vans were in the giant motor pool.

Damian then realized where he had been taken.

“Welcome back to the old former Dark Signer base!” Dexter declared, opening the doors to the van.

"Oh great,” he muttered unenthusiastically, jumping out.

He breathed in and out, trying to suck in the air.

[i]Not quite the same, but still, it feels strangely nice to be here again for some reason… [/i]

“So how are you gonna restore Izzy?”

As a medical team pulled a stretcher over for Iota, Dexter looked hesitantly at Damian.

“Umm, yeah, restoring. About that…”

He leaned over to Damian and whispered in his ear, “I need to talk to you, in private.”

Then Dexter shooed the driver out of the van and beckoned Damian back inside, a reluctant look behind the glasses he wore, as if he didn’t really want Damian to find out about something.


[center]-----------------------------------[/center]


Nick had been chained onto a stretcher. He knew what they were going to do to him, turn him into a female AKI Prime cyborg just like Izzy. The idea of being female frightened him, and he tried to break free from the table. He was starting to panic, but then allowed himself to relax. Relax. Relax. Relax. Relax. Relax. He had to think of a way to escape-

A few scientists came in, and Nick began panicking again, breathing heavily.

“Hello,” one of them greeted.

“AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

His heart rate increased rapidly as he was injected with some strange liquid, which unknown to him was the XY->XX retrovirus, altering and converting his DNA to that of a female. As he began receive feminine characteristics, he was encased in some sort of weird rubbery gunk while placing on a circuitry on his, or rather [i]her[/i] new body.

Nick was screaming.

His lower arms and legs were sliced apart by laser, cutting his scream short at the sheer pain, before replacing them with robotic recreations. He resumed screaming as the encasing process reached for his face, and they surgically his spine with a robotic one. The process overall was painful. It hurted a lot a lot a lot lot lot lot lot lot hurt lot a lot hurted hurted painful painful painful-

[i]Come,[/i] a voice beckoned to him.

It offered him the chance to become something greater than he had ever imagined before, to join a greater force unlike any other, to achieve the perfection dreamed of by mere mortals. A soft sound that sounded very tempting. Perhaps he should just give in—

He hesitated.

Why should he hesitate? What was there to lose? There was nothing special to his life. He would’ve stayed an ordinary teenager had he not been chosen as a Sky Signer, and would’ve stayed that way had he not died and been chosen as a Dark Signer as well. He didn’t have proper friends, he didn’t have a crush or girlfriend. His quest for vengeance had ended. Why did he continue? Why should he hesitate? If he accepted, then his life would become so much more…

Right then, he spotted a Duel Monsters card sticking out in one of the scientist’s pockets. It was the spell card Dark Hole. Focusing all of his psychic powers into it before his consciousness gave in, trying to materialize, he tried for one last desperate attempt to save himself—

He succeeded.

A miniature black hole materialized from the card, and all the people currently present were stretched, ripped apart and sucked into it before they could react, before being followed by machinery. In a horrible mess, both biological and non-biological matter was forcefully crushed and grinded together within the core, particle by particle.

And then it faded away once there was no longer anything to sustain itself.

It had been just a small one, but that made it all the more worse as it left a lot of spaghettified metallic substances, along with biological substances. Bones, muscles, fat were scattered in spaghetti form across the room, while a large mess of blood covered it all, mixed in with metallic spirals. Nick breathed a heavy sigh, but something felt wrong.

He got up.

[color=green][font=courier]“AKI Prime Unit Nu reporting,”[/font][/color] a voice intoned automatically.

It took him a moment to realize that had been his own voice, which was oddly female, with an underlying mechanical tone.

A large mirror lay nearby, unperturbed by the black hole for some reason, and she ran to it just to be sure…

He- or rather she, looked at herself. She was jade-green with forest-green potions and armor, and red circuitry. Her body was similar to when she was still Nick, but was feminine, and the facial features looked like a female version of when she was still Nick. Her hair was a very deep shade of brownish-green, and her eyes were now an orange-red.

She was now AKI Prime Nu, killer female cyborg duelist.

Luckily, she had managed to stop the scientists, turning them into gory spaghetti before they had stripped her of her free will, so inside she was still Nick. Who had once been a guy.

She was silent.

“This is awkward,” Nu said to herself.


[center]------------------------------------[/center]


“What is it?”

Damian got back into the van and looked at Dexter. Something about the look on his face told Damian this wasn't good. Dexter closed the door, and showed Damian a bunch of data he had gathered on his laptop that made no real sense to Damian.

“I was taking a sample of Iota's blood when I noticed that it had a bunch of nanobots in it, and that got me thinking, ‘how exactly do her systems work?’” Dexter began.

“What I found out is that Iota's software is mainly composed of two components: the cybernetics inside of her body, and the colony of nanobots that makes up the second skin that covers her body. The cybernetics mainly boosts her physical and mental capabilities, so there is no real reason for us to have to surgically remove all of it. The nanobots, on the other hand, maintain the near-death state her body has been in since her conversion.”

Damian began to see what Dexter was trying to say, and he didn’t like it one bit. He clenched his fists as Dexter continued.

“They’re also constantly multiplying and adding to their numbers as she sheds them, like we shed small skin particles. This is why we can't make skin contact with her: the nanobots, in sufficient numbers, will swarm onto us and, because they are tuned to her genetic code will recognize us as [i]not[/i] Iota, and transform us into cyber zombies.”

Dexter paused for a moment to let this sink in, before continuing on with his speech.

“And even if we could remove the second skin, which is now ingrained into her real skin, they would just grow back and resume protecting their host. We have the capabilities to surgically remove the mental uplink, which looks like it can be temporarily removed from her spine for upgrading purposes, and maybe even reprogram her to a state similar to her mental state before they did this to her, and possibly negate the threat of the nano-virus. But the Izumi Fudo you have known all this time is never coming back.”

At those last words, Damian just stared blankly.

“Say that again? I thought you just said that I- Izzy is n- never coming ba-”

Then he was slapped.

“That's exactly what I said!” Dexter exploded.

“We can take out the uplink, cure her of the nano-virus, and take out some of the mental conditioning they gave her, but we can't give her back her humanity! She's now eighty-percent mechanical, with most of it being her now mechanical skin. We have all of this equipment, and yet we can't get rid of the endless supply of nanobots in her system!”

The scientist hung his head, unlocking the van.

“You know what?” he said, and his eyes began to water. “I wanted to be a doctor at one point of my life, but I decided against it because I didn’t have the heart to tell someone that we couldn't do anything for their loved one!”

Then jumped out the van and ran away, hoping to find some sort of solace, while Damian let out an inhuman cry of desperation and sadness, collapsing to his knees.

[i]Izzy…IzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzyIzzy....!!!![/i]

Damian felt that his whole world had gone and disappeared, an empty space that nothing could ever possibly fill.

He got out of the van silently, and walked over to the deactivated Iota. One last time he would look at her, before he would have to do what’s best-

Suddenly, Damian felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see a greenish-black haired girl with a black bodysuit and black sclera around royal purple eyes. For some reason, she looked familiar, but he couldn't place where he’d seen her before…

“We need to talk,” she told him, but in such a tone that it sounded like a command.


[center]-------------------------------[/center]


Zarkus was awakened by the noise of people setting up something in his garage, very rudely awakened.

[b]“*** ******* ******, WHO THE **** IS ******* HERE?!”[/b] He shouted out angrily, opening up his garage door. He had had a hangover from the previous night, what with the sudden revelation of the Black Knight’s identity and all.

He kept on shouting out curses, but he was ignored by them all.

Suddenly a random guy with glasses, Dexter, shoved past him and went to Zarkus's liquor cabinet, raiding it. He started downing a six-pack of beer one can at a time.

“Answer my question properly,” Zarkus warned, turning to follow after Dexter. [b][i]“WHAT THE *********** ARE YOU ******** ***************** DOING HERE?!?!?!?!?”[/i][/b]

[center]----------------------------------------------------------[/center]


Damian turned to the stranger and looked inquisitive.

“What about?” he asked.

The mysterious girl dragged him into the base, which also happened to be Zarkus’s home, and flung him onto his old bed. He noticed that her right arm ended in some sort of wicked-looking device.

“Tell me everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours concerning the Arcadia Movement,” she demanded him.

Once he had recovered from being flung onto the bed, he realized that the business end of previously-mentioned arm weapon was in his face, and the device was making a whining sound as it charged up.

“Er, first of all, who are you?! Why do you want me?! AND WHY ARE YOU POINTING A WEAPON AT ME?!”

Damian was depressed at Izzy’s current status and confused over what he should be doing now. So instead of answering her question, his already-unstable mind was scattering through sheer terror.

“My name is Victoria Atlas,” she said, introducing herself. “I'm your baby sister roughly fifteen years from now, happy? Now [i]talk.[/i]”

“Well, that's a nice way to greet your brother, but okay,” Damian muttered.

He had seen enough weird things happen in the past few days, so it wasn’t hard for him to believe what she had just told him, even having to admit that she looked a bit like his baby sister. He trailed off for a moment and then swallowed.

He proceeded to explain to her all the events that had happened up until now. The tree, the masked man, the date and the events that had unfolded afterwards, everything. After finishing his explanation, he felt sadness and despair take over, while he himself started to weep like a lost puppy. Victoria lowered her arm weapon, sat on the side of the bed, and thought heavily.

“Thing are definitely going faster than before, and the events are a bit different- wait. Did you say that Iota was here, in surgery?!”

Damian sniffed and got back up from the bed and walked back to where Iota was, unable to properly put it into words, with Vicky following behind him. He looked at Iota, but only saw Izzy's face. He hung his head down, and frowned.

Vicky suddenly looked at her watch, then looked at Iota, then looked at her watch again.

[b][i]“Oh, s***! I’m at the critical convergent point…less than thirty seconds left!”[/i][/b]

Before Damian could ask what was going to happen in thirty seconds, Vicky started to run towards where the surgery was taking place. She activated her arm cannon, selected a weapon, and fired a shot of golden energy at Iota, who had been starting to move bit by bit at the time. The blast stopped her from moving, and the AKI Prime suddenly convulsed as her mental uplink on her back cracked, shattered, and fizzed until it was a burnt-out cinder.

Iota slumped back onto the table.

Damian was horrified, and ran up to Vicky.

[i]“[/i]YOU MURDERED HER!” he screamed out. [i]“YOU MURDERED MY PRECIOUS IZZY!!!”[/i]

He ran off and punched the wall, then slumped to the ground in a puddle of tears, having collapsed into a meaningless screaming of gibberish and random words that made no sense, his mind in its fragile state shatteri-

Victoria smacked Damian right in the face.

“SHE'S NOT DEAD, YOU IDIOT!!!!!” she yelled.

At the same time, Iota began to stir once again.

“You should be thanking me for saving everyone's butts in this sorry excuse for a secret base! If I hadn't hit her with that EMP burst, she would have woken up and started infecting everyone in here! She then would have taken both you and Zarkus, brought you back to base, and convert you both into AKI Primes Delta and Omega, respectively!”

She screamed these words at Damian, letting them sink in.

“About twelve years from now, I delivered the same type of shot I gave Iota to you! [i]YOU, ONEE-CHAN! [b]AND IN THE HEAD!!!”[/b][/i]

She cried into her big brother's shoulder.

“Can you imagine growing up, knowing that your brother-now-turned-sister was one of the enemy commanders, and both of your parents served under her as cyber zombies, and then having to finish them both off by yourself?!?”

“No, not really-” Damian halted.

“You mean me and Zarkus should’ve gotten converted into AKI Primes right about now?! Hold on, doesn't that mean you're interfering with history…?!”

Damian looked back at the stirring Iota, and then at Vicky.

“That was the whole point in me coming back here; changing history, like I just did right now,” Vicky replied.

“In my timeline, things went a bit slower, but I just averted one of the crucial points in the war, Iota waking up mid-surgery and eventually turning you and Zarkus into AKI Primes. Now, she should regain consciousness soon, and I'll figure out what to do next.”

Iota was starting to wake, the fragments of her mental uplink disengaging and revealing several holes along her spine. So far, she seemed free of the movement’s influence.

[color=maroon]“Wha- whe- where am I?”[/color] Iota/Izzy groaned, rubbing her head.


[center]------------------------------------------------[/center]


Nu was still really disturbed by her new appearance.

It was just strange, just weird. He was now female. SHE was now female. And she had jets in her boots, allowing her flight. She could also generate codes and hack into any system by just being nearby them. Oh, and her Psychic abilities had been greatly enhanced too. She was unstoppable. She had the power to tear down the entire Arcadia Movement if she wanted. She felt great.

But tearing down the movement can wait.

Before she had left the mess of a lab, she noticed the Greek symbol for ‘Nu’ lying about. The same symbols were on the other AKI Primes, so she attached it onto herself, half just so that no one would suspect her and half because it just felt routine in what little of her mind had been successfully converted.

When she had left the mess of a lab, she was careful not to touch any of the humans she had passed, and also tried to act as normal as possible. Everyone she had passed cowered in her presence, but they also regarded her with respect and didn’t act as if she was the enemy. It was only a matter of time before they noticed the disturbing creepy pasta created within that science lab. She should’ve burned the entire thing, but it was too late to reconsider.

Looking through a window, she saw a man trying to break through what appeared to be an invisible wall. He just kept kicking and kicking at nothing. Using her scanners, she identified it as a generated forcefield, placed to prevent non-humans from entering, though leaving wasn’t a problem. Intrigued, from where she was standing, she used her mind to access and hack into the system deactivating it for just a moment. The man walked in, satisfied, before she activated it again.

She recognized him on the spot as Protheus, a former Dark Signer and someone she hadn’t seen in an entire year. She wasn’t overly enthusiastic about this, but then she noticed that he was missing an arm. Her scanners had worked themselves and detected a hint that another AKI Prime had done the damage.

And then all of a sudden, he disappeared. Panicking, she activated her scanners to search for unknown entities within the building, and there was only one result, and he was standing right next to her.

“You have free will, I presume, unlike your sisters,” a voice remarked, and the figure smirked as he examined her body from top to bottom. “Heh, this is just excellent. Now, I have the advantage…”

[color=green][font=courier]“I have allowed you to enter the Arcadia Movement headquarters. Welcome,”[/font][/color] Nu greeted, an automatic reply she didn’t have much control over.

[color=green][font=courier]“You are unauthorized to use teleportation, or move more than five feet from your position within the building without permission.”[/font][/color]

“I appreciate your help for allowing me to infiltrate the building, ex-Chaos Signer,” he replied, unperturbed while also somehow managing to identify her.

“So, how did it happen? How did you end up as this? How do you possess free will?”

If Nu was still Nick, he would’ve stumbled over his words trying to reply all of his questions, or he would’ve just ignored them. However, Nu gave an instantaneous reply. It came to her instantly, like an artificial intelligence generates results.

[color=green][font=courier]“I had entered the building, along with my friends Saizen Himalaiya, DJ Kaiba, and Damian Atlas, in order to stop the Movement and save the AKI Prime Unit Iota, formerly known as Izumi Demeter Fudo,”[/font][/color] Nu said, and she couldn’t help but have this warm fuzzy feeling inside.

[color=green][font=courier]“Unfortunately, before I could unleash a psychic virus upon the Arcadia Movement system, coming from the Duel Monster card ‘Electric Virus’, I was knocked out and captured, before later being converted into an AKI Prime. Luckily, one of the scientists had been careless and had a Dark Hole sticking out of their pocket. I had used my Psychic power to bring it forth physically before they could strip me of my free will, and it killed them all as well as released me from my bonds. Now, as you can see, I am a female cyborg. And it is somewhat weird.”[/font][/color]

Protheus was impressed by what she had said. Now, here was finally a chance for him to strike back at the Arcadia Movement, directly this time. No more scavenging around the streets and around the world for random Psychic Duelists to kill or send into the Shadow Realm. Now he could strike at the center.

“So,” he said. “What do you plan on doing?”

Nu had to consider this question for a moment, before giving her response.

[color=green][font=courier]“First, I shall locate my friends Damian and DJ, just to confirm if they are safe. I will have to leave before the Movement has discovered my, ah, defection. And then I will return to the headquarters and grind it to the ground.”[/font][/color]

“Then what are you waiting for, ex-Chaos Signer?” Protheus asked. “Or perhaps you want to call me by your original name, [i]Nicholas?”[/i]

[color=green][font=courier]“Nu is fine with me,”[/font][/color] she clarified.

The name Nick, although she now had free will, seemed to feel dull in her mind. It was better to just be Nu from now on.


[center]---------------------------------[/center]


[color=lightblue][font=courier]“I draw,”[/font][/color] Psi stated. [color=lightblue][font=courier]“I Normal Summon Cryokin Yin in Attack Position.”[/font][/color]

A blue Psychic woman dressed as a cybernetic Yuki-onna then appeared on the field. (1600 ATK) [color=lightblue][font=courier] “It allows me to Special Summon my Pyrokin Yang from my hand by paying 500 Life Points.” [/font][/color]

As a small energy glowed around Psi, reducing her Life Points (Psi LP: 3500), a blazing cyber samurai is summoned. (ATK 1600)

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Now their effects activate; your Synchro Monster and face-down are destroyed.”[/font][/color]

A chilling freeze and a burning blast appeared, but before they could destroy his cards, Saizen countered.

"Not so fast, Psi!” Saizen declared. “Just before your Yang appears, I activate my Divine Mad Commander's special ability! See, whenever you may summon a monster, I can decrease the ATK of the summoned monster to zero until the End Phase! That means Yang's ATK is now zero, and when you attack me directly, I’ll still survive!”

[color=lightblue][font=courier]“Now my monsters, attack him directly!”[/font][/color] Psi declared as her three monsters' attacks closed in on Saizen, unperturbed by what he had done.

[color=lightblue][font=courier]”Victory is still assured.”[/font][/color]

Saizen had been grinning confidently, but then it turned to a painful one when Krebons blasted him with some energy ball, sending him backward, even he did block it. Then as Yin came and attacked with some kind of electric attack, Saizen fell on his knees for a little second, breathing a bit heavily. (Saizen LP: 1200)

“That hurt, but you can’t beat me!” Saizen declared proudly. “After all, I'm Saizen Himalaiya, the famous Mad player!”

“Unfortunately, my turn is not yet over,” Psi stated.

“I activate my other face-down, Emergency Teleport. It allows me to Special Summon a Psychic monster from my Deck, so I’ll Special Summon Psychic Commander in Attack Mode.”

Her other face-down card flipped up, and then Saizen’s eyes widened. A small green cyborg whose lower body was in a miniature tank teleported onto the field, looking weak but he knew that this was the card to end the duel. (1400 ATK)

"Attack, Psychic Commander."

Saizen had fallen to his knees when the all the three attacks had hit him. Even the ATK of 0 had made him his gut to blow all air in his lungs out. The others had actually made his arm and side bleed with some nasty wounds and rip clothes from here and there, plus his right arm felt numb.

And still, the cyborg had found a way to attack him directly again, while Saizen had ran out of cards.

[i]Just how weak have I become within the past year?![/i]

The tournaments he had been in lately were nothing like the level of the AKI Primes Unit's dueling skills. It was unnatural. She was definitely weaker than last year, but it was simply odd that he still lost. Had he still possessed his powers as a Chaos Signer, he might’ve had a better chance, but right now-

“What is this- wh- why am I so we- weak…?” he asked himself, almost hysterically.

The attack from the Psychic Commander’s miniature tank let out a small Psychic blast that hit him head-on, sending him flying, crossing over twenty feet.

(Saizen LP: 0)

Several surrounding scientists then turned their heads to him. The majority of them were just talking to themselves, smiling widely as their own creation did just what they were made for. Perfectly.

“I'm supposed to be among best in the world, Saizen Himalaiya, the man to rule this planet…” Saizen continued in a low whisper.

[i]WHY AM I SO WEAK?!??! [/i]He screamed out in his mind, with such intensity that it made Psi, who had been telepathically probing his mind, flinch.

Then he lost conscious to a mere cyborg, having been wounded, shocked, burned, tortured, and most of all, humiliated.



[center]-----------------------------------------------[/center]


Damian wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his science coat, which he was still wearing over his red jacket, over his Yugi cosplay outfit, and rushed to Iota.

“Izzy? Is that you?” he asked, unsure whether or not to touch her despite how much he wanted to, even if it was just a hug or a light kiss.

Suddenly, Vicky noticed a small device from behind Damian’s neck. She ran over to him and yanked something from behind his neck, which appeared to be a small device beeping like crazy. It had possibly been placed on him during the duel with Iota beforehand.

[i]It’s a tracer.[/i]

“This position is compromised!” She yelled to the Securities. “MOVE! We have to get out of here!”

The futuristic woman ran towards Damian.

“My EMP burst has several nasty side-effects on an AKI Prime when fully charged up, which the shot I fired at Iota wasn't. But one side effect that keeps for any setting is that she no longer has the ability to infect you with the nano-virus.”

Then she handed Damian a pair of familiar keys with the words ‘Duelhog’ on them.

“I brought it back here for you when you left it back at that abandoned house. Dexter was supposed to use it to get away in my timeline. Get Iota out of here.”

“Great,” Damian sighed, and picked her up in his arms, but he still had one important question. “Is she still Iota…or is she my Izzy again?”

What he would do next depended on the answer solely, but for a moment his baby sister from the future didn’t reply. Damian placed Iota down, still only seeing Izzy's face, on the interior of the Duelhog and kissed her on the forehead.

“Izzy, please…” He closed the door again and walked back to Vicky.

“Well? Is she Izzy or Iota? I MUST KNOW!”

“I don't know…” Vicky murmured as a reply.

Her eyes temporarily turned back to normal from black sclera, slightly watery. Damian realized that her sclera turned white when she was really sad, remembering that the same thing happened when Vicky had confessed to killing a future version of Damian only a mere few minutes ago.

[/spoiler]

[Aerion Brightflame]

Yeah, I read the Pdf. I was browsing, found it and read it. It was good.

[Merci]

Thanks.

But I've already updated that PDF since then, actually, after reading and rereading it again myself and noticing unexplained flaws and things in the story that should've been explained.
 

-----


[spoiler=Chapter 11: To Psi]
 
They ran back into the Duelhog and got in, with Damian in the driver's seat, and Vicky in shotgun, which was ironically fitting, Zarkus and Dexter had somehow ended up in the back, drinking together, and Iota was lying in the back with them. They managed to get out of the garage just as the first wave of AKIs started to pour in through the other entrance.
 
Let's hope they don't catch us first…!
 
Damian put the pedal to the medal to the other pedal. He kept looking in the mirror in case any AKIs were already on their tail. A few things still troubled him.
If she changed history, well, I'm no expert, but if science fiction has taught me anything, it's that you can't interfere with the space-time continuum or else something would happen…
Iota stirred and sat up, only to be knocked back down by a bump in the road. She concluded that she was in some sort of vehicle.
 
“U- ugh… Dam- Dami-kun, what’s going on?” she groaned, feeling more hung over than both Dexter and Zarkus combined.
 
“Izzy?” he asked. Damian hinted at Vicky to take the wheel as he looked backward at Iota.
 
"Not really,” she replied. She shook her head, having a very confused look on her face. “I feel as if I'm Izzy, but at the same time, I feel like I'm Iota. I'm neither of them and yet both of them at the same time...”
 
Damian smiled as he tried getting into the back as Vicky took the wheel. He took Iota or Izzy or whatever into his arms and whispered.
 
“It's fine by me,” he comforted her. “To me, you’ll always be my Izzy.”
 
Then, at that moment, he kissed Izzy, properly, before climbing back into the driver’s seat. What was once Iota tried to stop him from going back to the driver's seat and tried to embrace him, but she couldn't due to the fact that she didn't have any hands or most of her lower appendages.
 
"Umm, when are we going to fix this?" Izzy/Iota asked, holding up her stumps. Damian laughed when he realized he'd forgotten that.
 
“Sorry about laughing, but Dexter should be able to help, that is of course when he SOBERS UP!” He emphasized the last part, annoyed at Dexter for getting drunk.
 
Suddenly, a strange motorcycle resembling a Duel Runner had caught up with the Duelhog. It turned out to be DJ’s Duel Racer prototype, and DJ was riding it, smiling as he looked at the now-back-together couple, before pulling over next to the window.
 
"Hey, guys!” he called into it. Damian pressed a button to open it so they could hear him better. “Party at the KaibaCorp building, our anniversary to celebrate our victory over the Sky Signers last year! Let’s just forget the Arcadia Movement for now, alright? Everything on me!”
 
He paused, and noticed Iota/Izzy’s stumps.
 
“I’m sure KaibaCorp can fix that too!” he added.
 
“Hold on a minute, didn't I lock you away in the Arcadia Movement headquarters’ dungeons?” Iota/Izzy pointed out.
 
“Uh.”
 
DJ seemed reluctant to answer for a passing moment, but in the end, he decided to do so.
 
“I’m not really sure about the details, but an AKI Prime and some man who looked familiar released me! Next thing I know, I’m standing outside the building with my Duel Racer waiting. Not sure why they released me though…”
 
Iota/Izzy turned to Damian and grinned.
 
“Well, a party sounds nice.”
 
She smiled. Suddenly Vicky turned around, at first to take a quick check on DJ to see if a tracker was placed on him, and, seeing that there was none, decided to add something.
 
“Oh yeah, that reminds me. I can fix your arm problem once we get there. Kaiba Corporation will definitely have the proper equipment!” The woman from the future declared, crossing over the bridge into New Domino, the setting sun painting the sky a spectrum of reds.
 
Then DJ’s Duel Racer began to levitate into the air.
 
“Awesome! Well, see ya there!” he called, and it flew off into the sky towards the Kaiba Corporation building.
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
 
Nu and Protheus entered the Kaiba Corporation building.
 
Protheus had changed his outfit into that of a formal suit he had grabbed somewhere within the Arcadia Movement, while Nu had put on a dress that covered and disguised her entire mechanical body. She was female now, but it still bothered her to wear dresses, since on the inside, needless to say she still felt like a guy. But he had to get used to being a she from now on.  And she couldn’t touch anyone either, else she infect them with the nano-virus.
 
I wonder how I should explain this to DJ and the others? Nu thought to herself when she arrived and went inside.  
 
It was Protheus who had suggested the party, and he had whispered it into DJ’s ear while he was locked up before releasing him, giving him the idea for the party. Surprising, they had managed to set up the party rather quickly.
 
“Hi,” she said, struggling to maintain an absolute human tone, as Protheus had warned her that a robotic tone might tip her off as a cyborg. Still, she didn’t really succeed at this. “I’m a friend of DJ Kaiba’s. Can I speak to him?”
 
The counter lady stood up, not noticing the odd tone.
 
“Mr. Kaiba is busy. Do you two have an appointment?” The lady asked, looking tired. She looked at her watch, and then at the two strangers in front of her. “Who are you two anyway?”
 
“This is Protheus, and I’m Nicholas Hawk,” introduced Nu.
 
It bothered her to use her original name, but Protheus said that it was necessary if they wanted to get through to DJ. “I really need to speak to him. Is that enough information?”
 
“We’ll see,” the counter lady replied, and pressed a button. DJ's voice came out of the intercom.
 
"WHAT NOW???!!!" DJ’s voice boomed from it, surprising loud, booming across the entire lobby. A few other people who were also in the lobby closed their ears as he shouted.
 
“I have a Nicholas Hawk to see you!” The lady said into it, also covered her ears. “Oh, and a Pro—”
 
“OH! Bring him in then,” DJ said, and the intercom turned off. The lady got up and led the two to the atrium, which had been converted for the party. The lady left.
 
“Hey Nick! What do ya need, bud—”
 
DJ popped up from a corner, but as soon as he did, Protheus lunged. Nu was expecting him to knock DJ out cold, but he just touched DJ’s forehead with his index finger gently, and in that one instant the boy's eyes drooped, his body falling unconscious just like that without a rational explanation.
 
“He won’t have any memories of the past two minutes,” Protheus explained. “Hopefully, I managed to knock out before a thought of us went across his head, because that would’ve been very dangerous. Now then, let’s move on, shall we?”
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

They ran back into the Duelhog and got in, with Damian in the driver's seat, and Vicky in shotgun, which was ironically fitting, Zarkus and Dexter had somehow ended up in the back, drinking together, and Iota was lying in the back with them. They managed to get out of the garage just as the first wave of AKIs started to pour in through the other entrance.

Let's hope they don't catch us first…!

Damian put the pedal to the medal to the other pedal. He kept looking in the mirror in case any AKIs were already on their tail. A few things still troubled him.

If she changed history, well, I'm no expert, but if science fiction has taught me anything, it's that you can't interfere with the space-time continuum or else something would happen…

Iota stirred and sat up, only to be knocked back down by a bump in the road. She concluded that she was in some sort of vehicle.

“U- ugh… Dam- Dami-kun, what’s going on?” she groaned, feeling more hung over than both Dexter and Zarkus combined.

“Izzy?” he asked.

Damian hinted at Vicky to take the wheel as he looked backward at Iota.

"Not really,” she replied. She shook her head, having a very confused look on her face. “I feel as if I'm Izzy, but at the same time, I feel like I'm Iota. I'm neither of them and yet both of them at the same time...”

Damian smiled as he tried getting into the back as Vicky took the wheel. He took Iota or Izzy or whatever into his arms and whispered.

“It's fine by me,” he comforted her. “To me, you’ll always be my Izzy.”

Then, at that moment, he kissed her, this time properly, before climbing back into the driver’s seat. What was once Iota tried to stop him from going back to the driver's seat and tried to embrace him, but she couldn't due to the fact that she didn't have any hands or most of her lower appendages.

"Umm, when are we going to fix this?" Izzy/Iota asked, holding up her stumps. Damian laughed when he realized he'd forgotten that.

“Sorry about laughing, but Dexter should be able to help, that is of course when he SOBERS UP!” He emphasized the last part, annoyed at Dexter for getting drunk.

Suddenly, a strange motorcycle resembling a Duel Runner had caught up with the Duelhog. It was DJ’s Duel Racer prototype, and DJ was riding it, smiling as he looked at the now-back-together couple, before pulling over next to the window.

"Hey, guys!” he called into it. Damian pressed a button to open it so they could hear him better. “Party at the KaibaCorp building, our anniversary to celebrate our victory over the Sky Signers last year! Let’s just forget the Arcadia Movement for now, alright? Everything on me!”

He paused, and noticed Iota/Izzy’s stumps.

“I’m sure KaibaCorp can fix that too!” he added.

“Hold on a minute, didn't I lock you away in the Arcadia Movement headquarters’ dungeons?” Iota/Izzy pointed out.

“Uh.” DJ seemed reluctant to answer, but he did. “I’m not really sure about the details, but an AKI Prime and some man who looked familiar released me! Next thing I know, I’m standing outside the building with my Duel Racer waiting. Not sure why they released me though…”

Iota/Izzy turned to Damian and grinned.

“Well, a party sounds nice.”

She smiled. Suddenly Vicky turned around, at first to take a quick check on DJ to see if a tracker was placed on him, and, seeing that there was none, decided to add something.

“Oh yeah, that reminds me. I can fix your arm problem once we get there. Kaiba Corporation will definitely have the proper equipment!” The woman from the future declared, crossing over the bridge into New Domino, the setting sun painting the sky a spectrum of reds.

Then DJ’s Duel Racer began to levitate into the air.

“Awesome! Well, see ya there!” he called, and it flew off into the sky towards the Kaiba Corporation building.
 
Nu and Protheus entered the Kaiba Corporation building.

Protheus had changed his outfit into that of a formal suit he had grabbed somewhere within the Arcadia Movement, while Nu had put on a dress that disguised all her mechanical features. She was female now, but it still bothered her to wear dresses, since on the inside, needless to say that she still felt like a guy. But he had to get used to being a she from now on.  And she couldn’t touch anyone either, else she infect them with the nanovirus.

I wonder how I should explain this to DJ and the others? Nu thought to herself when she arrived and went inside.
 
It was Protheus who had suggested the party, having implanted a subconscious suggestion into into DJ’s mental framework while he was locked up before being released, since a party would hold various advantages. The main one being gathering all the main players involved in opposing the Arcadia Movement in one spot.

What he hadn't anticipated, though, was DJ running with the idea and being able to prepare everything in the span of a few quick meetings and phone calls. The boy really was a genius, wasn't he?

“Hi,” she said, struggling to maintain an absolute human tone, as Protheus had warned her that a robotic tone might tip her off as a cyborg. Still, she didn’t really succeed at this. “I’m a friend of DJ Kaiba’s. Can I speak to him?”

The counter lady stood up, not noticing the odd tone. “Mr. Kaiba is busy. Do you two have an appointment?” she asked, looking tired. She looked at her watch, and then at the two strangers in front of her. “Who are you two anyway?”

“This is Protheus, and I’m Nicholas Hawk,” introduced Nu. It bothered her to use her original name, but Protheus said that it was necessary if they wanted to get through to DJ. “I really need to speak to him. Is that enough information?”

“We’ll see,” the counter lady replied, and pressed a button. DJ's voice came out of the intercom.

"WHAT NOW?!" DJ’s voice boomed from it, surprising loud, booming across the entire lobby. A few other people who were also in the lobby closed their ears as he shouted.
“I have a Nicholas Hawk to see you!” The lady said into it, also covered her ears. “Oh, and a Pro—”

“OH! Bring him in,” DJ said, and the intercom turned off. The lady got up and led the two to the atrium, which had been converted for the party. The lady left.

“Hey Nick! What do ya need, bud—” DJ popped up from a corner, but as soon as he did, Protheus lunged.

Nu was expecting him to knock DJ out cold, but all he did was lightly poke DJ's forehead with his index finger. Without a sound or any sign of force, the boy's eyes drooped and in that one instant, he fell asleep.

“He won’t have any memories of the past two minutes,” Protheus explained. “Hopefully, I managed to knock out before a thought of us went across his head, because that would’ve been very dangerous. Now then, let’s move on, shall we?”
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

Meanwhile, Psi had arrived back at the conversion chamber, carrying an unconscious Saizen.

“Prepare him for conversion,” Gamma barked at the scientists, absently stroking Psi’s shoulder with her hand.

Psi faltered slightly, but remained emotionless at Gamma’s awkward, strange and meaningless movement, before turning to the scientists and to the successfully-captured target.

“Keep him on life support,” one of the scientists ordered.

“Hope he doesn't turn out like Psi,” another muttered.

Saizen's body was placed on a table as they began to inject him with the XY->XX retrovirus that would alter his DNA into that of a female. Slowly, he began to receive feminine characteristics as the actual conversion machine began to coat him in the nanobot solution.

Meanwhile, Kasey was there watching Saizen get transformed, a small kind of satisfaction within him. He had also noticed Psi standing there, and a twinge of attraction crossed through his heart, his heartbeat began to increase. This had starting happening every time he looked at the blue AKI Prime, ever since she got here.

Curse that original, plaguing me with his pathetic feelings…

“In any case, it’s time for me to take his place,” Kasey muttered to himself, and turned around before walking out of the room. Who cares about the AKI Primes anyway?

Must you always think so negatively? Gamma asked telepathically, appearing before him with blinding speed.

He shot the AKI Prime a look of hatred. After all, HE was the one meant to take control of Kaiba Corporation. HE was the one who was supposed to be receiving all the attention, but he had been bested by even his very own backup clone for some crazy reason! Bested by his very own backup clone. How pathetic was that?

His backup clone chuckled at his thoughts. Of course, her mind reading skills were far more advanced than his own. Either it was due to the conversion, or it was due to that angel freak she used to talk to, but still, it served to be incredibly annoying.

Why be jealous of me? You’re more like the original, after all.

Idiot, that’s the point, he replied telepathically. That ridiculous coward, I despise him so much… can’t you understand?! You got to be different from him! But as for me? I’m stuck with his STUPID face and his STUPID emotions—

Hush. Although I am converted, I too feel the connection with him. I too feel his...

For a moment they both looked around to glance at the stoic Psi, who was observing Saizen’s conversion. She turned around to shoot them a cold glare, and they both quickly looked the other way, both feeling slightly flustered as the exact same oddly positive emotion shot through them.

This is absolutely ridiculous, Kasey moaned.

Then perhaps you should get rid of the original. If you wish, I’ll help you leave, Gamma offered him.

DJ’s clone looked at her suspiciously.

And why should I trust you?

Because, his emotions are interfering with my programming.

After a bit of thought, he ultimately decided that this was enough. Satisfied, he turned around and began to walk away. Unlock all doors and grant me permission to leave the HQ, he ordered her.

Permission granted! Gamma chimed, and went to work in accessing the Arcadia Movement’s mainframe with her advanced mind.
 
Unbeknownst to them both, Psi had been listening in on their conversation, and made the decision to tail Kasey on his little escapade. As all AKI Primes were connected by a network, Gamma became immediately aware of this, and a slight surge of emotion - embarrassment - flowed through her head.

...Those feelings will serve you no use, Psi advised Gamma telepathically, just before leaving. Kasey was supposed to stay on standby until DJ was taken care of. That was the goal of the Arcadia Movement, and you are endangering it by letting this malfunction lead you.

Oh, I understand. You are trying to defend your precious DJ, aren’t you?! The yellow AKI Prime accused her in retaliation. Then, after that, you will malfunction just like Iota-

Sister.

Psi glared at the through her turquoise eyes with such inhuman coldness and intensity that it tore into Gamma’s heart, as if she was about to be rejected by her own crush after a long and heart-filled confession.

You... are the one malfunctioning.

And with that, the blue cyborg left, leaving a crushed Gamma behind.
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

Saizen woke up to find that he was flat on his back, staring at two large lumps on his chest.

He groaned out loud, only to find that ‘he’ had a much higher-pitched voice than usual. ‘He’ was also being wrapped up in this rubbery stuff similar to what was on Psi and presumably the other AKI Primes too. Not too long afterwards, he felt light-headed as the machine continued to coat her. She felt like she was slipping away, her sense of self dissolving as she joined a community of the mind where she would never feel alone.

Thus, as the last of her will was destroyed, she felt not fearful, but at peace.

A few minutes later, the scientists moved the slab to a vertical position. The new AKI Prime used to have brown, spiky hair, but it was now a shade of violet as she had silver and purple and light-green circuitry. Her eyes opened, revealing a glowing shade of jade.

“AKI Prime Unit Sigma reporting,” she responded in a mechanical, female version of Saizen's voice.

The scientists clapped and cheered, the symbol for Sigma being placed on her chest.
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

DJ woke up in the atrium, with a throbbing headache.

He could’ve sworn that he had come here for a reason, but he couldn’t remember. Something about Nick arriving... although he didn’t seem to see Nick anywhere. A silence passed by, and suddenly he began to think about Yuki. He hoped she was still alive, and somehow not converted. He hoped he still had a chance to save her, despite everything. He just wanted to know if she was alright.

And he should’ve known to be careful what he wished for.

“Hello, DJ,” a familiar voice came from behind.

He turned to see something that was Yuki, yet wasn't Yuki at the same time. His heart sank when he realized that Yuki Fudo had been turned into another AKI Prime. A pretty, deadly one at that.

"Yuki?!” DJ said, taking a step back. He frowned for a moment as he looked at the Greek letter on her chest, ‘Psi’, before trying to make a smile, trying to act positive.

“Came to join the party?”

Psi looked at him curiously for a moment, before extending out her hand. “I-”

“NO.”

Kasey suddenly appeared behind her, looking half-annoyed that she had followed him.

“I know the deal. If I let you two chat, you’re just gonna randomly switch sides like Iota, am I right?” he pointed out to the AKI Prime. “The Arcadia Movement definitely won't be pleased with that. Besides, this is between me and him, not you.”

And especially not our stupid crush, he told her telepathically.

The AKI Prime looked to DJ, and then to his clone. Confusion crossed her face for just a split second, as if she was making a choice but was unsure who to choose.

Finally, she walked over to where Kasey was, and kept on moving, returning to the lobby. She had chosen the Arcadia Movement.

DJ could only watch after her with a sad look, and as much as he wante to run towards her, take her hand, and tell her that it was all going to be okay, he couldn't bring himself to move. To do anything. Dammit…

“You and I have business to attend to!” Kasey shouted, activating his Duel Disk and forcing DJ to do the same. “So come on, and fight me like a man!”
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

Sigma, female cyborg and the newest AKI Prime to join the ranks for the moment, took a couple of calm deep breaths.

She looked around, analyzing the room. Then she tested out her limbs and other systems, moving her arm and fingers, and then she took a few steps forward.

“Is there anything I would be wished to do?” she asked the professor next to her, who was looking very excited about another successful operation, in a cold voice though with that undeniable robotic tone over it.

“Not at the moment,” the scientist replied.

He seemed intrigued to see that Sigma had a bit more free will than the others, yet was still loyal to the Movement.

In fact, Sigma had been expressly designed in personality to be able to reach the degree of tactical freedom as Iota, yet still suppress her previous self due to Saizen having no heavily ingrained connections to anyone that might trigger a relapse like Iota.

In other words, Sigma was Iota's replacement.

Putting her hand on her ear, she got a radioconnection with all the other AKI Primes - except Nu who mysteriously had hers deactivated – hearing all they heard and saw. As she saw Psi's ‘eyesight’, Vicky the closest to her, her dueling disk activated while the others, DJ and others were watching on the back. Sigma took her hand away from her ear, turning to the professor again.

“Sister Psi seems to be on a mission to exterminate a group of humans. May I support her in the annihilation, sir?” she asked with the same, backshivering cold voice, checking her mechanical arms’ locator radar, checking where her ‘sister’ Psi was.

The new Kaiba Corporation building.

“Sure,” the scientist replied, managing his own work.

He had no idea why Sigma was reporting to him. They usually received their own orders from way up top. The scientist actually didn't know where the orders everyone got did come from, but they were orders.

Must still be glitchy, he thought to himself, hoping that the AKI Prime would leave him alone.

Little did he know that she was reading his mind as he thought this.

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
 
“A challenge, is it?!” DJ said.

He activated his own Duel Disk. He was actually somewhat relieved, since for one he wasn’t powerful enough to fight off an AKI Prime, and for two he couldn’t possibly harm Yuki. Or at least what was left of her.

But against this guy, against his own clone? TIME TO BEAT THE HELL OUT OF HIM.

“I’ll summon Ancient Gear Knight!” he declared, and a rusty geared knight entered the field (ATK 1800). “Then I’ll set two cards and end my turn!”

“My turn,” Kasey replied, and drew his own card. “Now then, I summon Symmetry Rorschach!”

On the field appeared an unclear mass of purple energy, which together formed an unclear shape a little bit like a moth, or a butterfly, or something similar to those two. (ATK 1200)

“Then I’ll set my own two cards and end my turn.”

 He didn’t attack, DJ noted.

So why did he summon the monster in Attack Position…? It’s strange. I’ve got to be careful, he IS psychic after all.

“My turn again,” DJ began. “I summon Ancient Gear Soldier-”

“Not so fast, original me! I activate my trap card Rorschach Magic!” His clone countered, and then one of his facedowns flipped open.

“While I control a Rorschach monster, I can negate one of your summons, and then all Rorschach monsters gains its effect!”

As a geared soldier entered the fray, it was suddenly dragged by an invisible force towards the Rorschach monster, before being absorbed into it. As it did, the monster then took a more humanoid shape, one that was oddly familiar to DJ...

Is that…Yuki…? DJ thought dazedly, staring into the humanoid black mass.

“Hmmm, I'm sorry, but you must be seeing things!” Kasey mocked him, probing into his thoughts.

Once he was aware of this fact, he imagined a brick wall forming to keep his thoughts from being attacked by any external forces, else Kasey learn what his cards were. It was trying to get into his head, trying to mess with him, but he couldn’t afford to hesitate or stop now. Not at all. He had to settle things with this clone first.

“Now, my Knight will attack!” he declared.

DJ’s knight lunged forward at the unclear thing, and pierced into it, while also splattering bits of it into Kasey. (Kasey LP: 3400)

“I end my turn.”

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

Damian parked the Duelhog in front of the Kaiba Corporation building where the party was, before opening the back to look at Izzy with an uneasy expression. Something felt wrong.

“Izzy, we'll get those fixed soon as possible, alright?” he reassured her.

As he helped Dexter out of the Duelhog, he turned to see a very weird sight. Izziota was carrying Zarkus, without any lower arms or hands. And she was standing up, without any lower legs or feet.

“Uh?” Damian said, but then he snapped his fingers as he realized how she was doing that. Oooohh, right, of course! Your psychic powers!

Yep, Izzy/Iota replied, carrying Zarkus into the building, moving her limbs just like they were still there.

“I guess you could say I've taken the term 'phantom limbs' to a whole new level!”

She chuckled, smiling just like Izumi used to, reassuring Damian that, no matter what percentage of her was mechanical, she was still pretty much the same.

“Great, well, let's get inside,” Damian said as he walked into the building.

Then, he saw, standing right there, an AKI Prime that looked like none other than- “Yuki?!” He clenched his teeth. “How did she know where we all went?”

Psi then revealed in her hand a small device with an LED similar to the ones on the AKI Primes.

“Using a transmitter like this, the Arcadia Movement has been picking up every thought that has crossed DJ’s mind ever since its placement,” she explained.

She watched expressionlessly as Izzy/Iota entered and placed Zarkus quickly aside.

“AKI Prime Unit Iota, my sister.”
Then, telekinetically picking Damian up with her mind, an invisible force began to grasp at his neck and strangle him, wringing him in the air. If she so pleased, she could kill him right there and then. But of course, that was not what she'd come here for.

“Please return to Headquarters or I will use excessive force in order to make you comply.”

“I-”

Izziota didn't know what to do as she watched Damian suffocate. He started feeling dizzy as he began suffocating. He was willing to die if Izziota could stay free.

"Don't— mind— me— just run!” he managed to choke out.

All of a sudden, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye, from above, flying by a window. It appeared to be some sort of silvery-emerald dragon-

Psi turned to see what Damian was staring at only to be hit by the attack from Chthonian Emperor Dragon, which caused Damian to go flying towards the shattered window. A black shape slid down the dragon's neck and landed nearby, catching Damian. He turned to see that Vicky had saved him.

She let her brother down before aiming her arm cannon at Psi while activating some sort of device on her left arm, which seemed to act like a futuristic Duel Disk.

“No one hurts onee-chan, you cyborg b****!!!” Vicky declared.

“Great work, sis!” Damian gasped out. He paused to catch his breath, before continuing. “Though I actually thought being strangled sounded interesting after all the bad things that had happened to me and my friends…”

“Duel request accepted,” Psi replied, activating her built-in Duel Disk.

“You know, I don't remember a 'Psi' in my time.” Vicky stated to nobody in particular, looking at the Greek letter on her chest. She then decided to concentrate. “…but I have the ultimate anti-Psychic deck, so I can't lose!”

Then a purple ring of fire began to encircle the two duelists. Did that mean, by any chance, a Shadow Duel…?

“I will go first,” Psi stated, unperturbed. "I draw, and I will place Mental Protector in Defense Mode, and then set two face-down cards.”

The same Mental Protector that had been played a few times before then appeared on the field, with two face-downs appearing behind it. (DEF 2200)

“I end my turn.”

“My turn!” Vicky declared. “Now I play my ace card, Black Blood of the Inhuman!”

Then, a puddle of black blood materialized in the middle of the field, and it began to increase and spread until both Psi’s and Vicky’s feet were within it. It was a little disturbing sight to watch.

Psi’s feet began to burn within it, as if it were acid to her.

“This card represents the 'black blood' of the AKIs, which is actually their nanobots in a more natural state, and it is, ironically, their downfall! Because as long as this card is face-up on the field, all Psychic monsters on the field are instantaneously destroyed!”

Vicky cackling madly.

Damian had joined Izziota, and the two of them were impressed that there was a card that could defeat Psychic monsters, an anti-Psychic card that may give them a proper fighting chance of resisting against the Arcadia Movement.

The Mental Protector that Psi controlled blew up, and its many different pieces fell into the puddle of Black Blood, dissolving as effortlessly as paper.

As for the AKI Prime herself, her expression was unreadable, but it was apparent that the black blood was disturbing her to some extent.
 
[center]~ ~ ~/center]

Rorschach Dragon fired a mass of energy at him (ATK 3500). DJ took in a sharp intake of air as pain went all throughout his body, and he was swept off his feet and hurled backwards (Damian LP: 400). His clone’s Psychic powers heavily outmatched his own, although they had both managed to inflict a great deal of pain onto the other. (Kasey LP: 1500)

Kasey laughed.

“Are you ready for this, original?” he asked. “All this time I’ve been forced to feel the same things you feel. Friendship, courage, a burning passion, concentration, attraction. And yet, although I feel those things, I never really properly have them, you know what I mean?”

“I guess so...” DJ groaned, waiting for Kasey to continue his turn.

“But if I replace you, then I as Casey-02, the next in line, will become the new original!” Kasey declared. “And all those feelings… they won’t be fake. They would be mine. Who knows, I might even actually be a man and confess to Psi my feelings! That’s something you were way too much of a coward to do!”

This comment angered DJ.

“You’re wrong, Kasey!” he shouted in response.

“You may be my clone, but I had the guts to rescue my friend in a near-suicidal mission. I fought against Dark Signers, and faced their Earthbound Immortals head-on. I even repaired the entire Spirit World and saved thousands of lives! I might bottle things up, but I’m no coward!”

“Oh…?”

While DJ anticipated Kasey's reaction to be that of disgust and then throw out a witty retort, he seemed to be...genuinely confused by this.

Then he realized; the Arcadia Movement hadn’t told Kasey about anything. He had lived his entire life, two years to be exact, being trained to hate DJ. He had been taught everything, about how DJ worked as his own company’s engineer but not director, about how much he was a coward and how much he avoided battle. They hadn’t told him anything else.

But…that contradicts everything…

“Mhm,” DJ replied. “And I- I was planning on telling Yuki how I felt during the party I was supposed to hold today. The party to celebrate the anniversary of our victory over the Sky Signers, and the moment Yuki’s brainwashing was gone…”

He looked down, a half-hearted smile forming on his face.

“B- but I never really got the chance...”

“Oh,” Kasey murmured, the clone's fists clenching at this newfound knowledge. “That’s why. I envy you."

Part of him wanted to deny it. To tell him that DJ was lying. But as a clone with a psychic link to his original, he understood fully that everything this person was telling him was absolutely correct.

"You had such a good life like this, with family and friends and support and…I want that." So! I will take it all away from you! I will take over YOUR place in existence!”

As if to emphasize this, he swiped his hand across his hair, and with one swift move it was now completely identical to DJ’s.

“DRAW!!!”
 
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]

“Next, I will play Ancient Rules, which allows me to Special Summon the Gemini monster Chthonian Emperor Dragon from my hand!”

A scroll appeared on the field, floating in the air horizontally, and it slowly began to unroll until the end of the scroll touched the puddle of black blood. Within the scroll was the painting of a dragon, and then the painting suddenly took shape and emerged from the scroll as a serpentine onyx dragon with two wings (ATK 2400).

Then the scroll fell into the black blood and was dissolved by it. “Since I haven’t Normal Summoned yet, I can Gemini Summon my dragon to give my dragon his effect; attacking twice!” She declared, and then the onyx dragon glowed a bit, signifying its gained effect.

“Attack, my Dragon! Hellkaiser Wing!”

The dragon then charged towards the AKI Prime and slashed at her.

“Not so fast, I-” Psi began, but she never even had a chance.

“I activate the Quick-Play Spell Card, Trap Stun, negating all your Trap card effects until the end of my turn!” Vicky continued. “Go forth, Chthonian Emperor Dragon!”
The dragon successfully slashed at the AKI Prime, bringing her down to her knees and heavily damaging her. The Black Blood burned against her surface like acid. (Psi LP: 1600)

“Now, attack once more! Hellkaiser Blaze!”

Then red fire spurted from the Dragon's mouth, burning up the poor AKI Prime and sending her hurling backwards at a tremendous speed, having her crash into the lobby floor harshly with flames all around her. She'd ended up in such a horrible state it was nearly impossible to discern her as the snow-haired girl she once was.

Just like that... It was over. Victoria had utterly defeated her.

(Psi LP: 0)

After a moment, the smoke had cleared from Psi's side of the room, which revealed something that definitely WASN'T a pretty sight. Psi was heavily burnt and cut all over and was oozing the ‘black blood’ that Vicky had mentioned. For a moment, she got up as if the damage was nothing, as if this was all a minor inconvenience that she could simply shrug off - but then a silence crept upon her eyes, and she collapsed.

The same medical team that worked on Iota had already been called in to work on Psi after Vicky had won, and they now entered the dueling area, the circle of purple flame gone. They checked over Psi, careful not to touch her.

A small silence crept across the room, and then one of them interrupted the silence. “There's nothing we do. She's gone.”

Damian walked over to the defeated AKI Prime.

“Yuki’s gone…? But I wanted to stop her from-” Damian put his hand on Vicky's shoulder. “…Did you know her in your timeline?”

As Izzy decided to pull off some of the second skin on her sister's face, Vicky finally realized who her opponent, Psi, had been.

“The face looked familiar, but I didn't place it until now..!”

With that, Vicky's expression melted into horror as she'd finally realized what she'd just done.

“After the Joining, after everyone I knew was now part of the Arcadia Movement's Overmind, she came along. She hadn’t been converted into an AKI Prime like in this timeline. She had lost everyone she knew in the Joining as well, and she was, well, basically my mother…AND NOW I’VE KILLED HER!!!”

But one of the doctors, who was paying as close attention to the autopsy as he possibly could, realized something.

“No, you didn't,” he replied.

Damian was extremely relieved. He turned to see the doctor.

“What? She's alive? After all that? Wow, those shells must be tough, or those nanobots strong, or both.”

“I meant a different no,” The stoic doctor replied. “Yuki's still dead, but, according to what I'm getting here, she was clinically dead BEFORE they converted her.”
“So that means...” Izzy/Iota murmured.

“Whatever killed Yuki Fudo killed her before she turned into Psi,” the doctor finished before packing up his stuff and leaving.

Then Izzy joined Vicky in crying and sobbing hysterically at the motionless body of AKI Prime Psi.

[/spoiler]

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

DAYUM!!!
Merciful, this is incredible!
You have taken a three-year-old roleplay from a dark period in this forum and turned it into a coherent fanfiction!
My only real complaint is the lack of a card index with the various cards featured in the series.
Other than that, it looks great!
Keep it up!

[Merci]

Thanks, TFF!!!! Really, without you, the whole thing wouldn't have been possibly, so yeah, I really appreciate it!!!

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

I still can't believe we managed to finish that fraking thing.
Lugia61617 and I practically dragged the RP kicking and screaming (the RP, not us) to its conclusion.
I hope you add some of the details that we skipped over, such as some later duels, and the demise of a really important character.

[Merci]

Mhm. I wrapped up as many points as I could, and I definitely gave that character a satisfying demise.

[Sunshine Jesse]

I like your portrayal of Zarkus in this. Seems accurate. Also very well-written in comparison to how most of us RPed back then, lol

I'm rewriting my own fanfic myself (which is also based on an RP), so keep an eye out for that.

[SunKistRebelution]

This is unreal. *applauds*

This is unreal. *applauds*

[Merci]

[quote]I like your portrayal of Zarkus in this. Seems accurate. Also very well-written in comparison to how most of us RPed back then, lol

I'm rewriting my own fanfic myself (which is also based on an RP), so keep an eye out for that.[/quote]

[b]Um, yeeeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh[/b], about that.... um... yeah. Um. Just thanks.

[quote]
This is unreal. *applauds*[/quote]

Thanks!

[Sunshine Jesse]

I know it's the exact same character and similar events, it's just usually difficult to rewrite them well enough.

Meanwhile:
http://forum.yugiohcardmaker.net/topic/288785-yu-gi-oh-chaos-of-the-virtual-world-pg-13/

Shameless plug~!

[Merci]

Well, er, I made up a background for Hikari (since you never revealed her identity >.>) and made a dramatic story ending for the duo...you might like it too, but I can't be certain.

I heard about the Virtual World thing ^^ I'll check it out.

[Sunshine Jesse]

Makes sense, considering I never finished writing her.

[Merci]

Chapter 4: Perishing Distress, added~

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

TwT
That transformation scene...it brings back so many memories...

[Merci]

yep~ And so Izzy's confusing story is only further confuzzled around.

[Merci]

Updated with Chapter 5!

[Merci]

Chapter 6 added. A short chapter, and also the least edited~

[Merci]

Chapters 7: Hope Spot and 8: Zero Percent Salvation added.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Merciful, you really need to proofread your font and color tags.

[Merci]

Not my fault YCM doesn't automatically create the coding from a copy-paste from Word ._.

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Which is why you preview your post.

[Merci]

Edited. I think.