Yu-Gi-Oh! ZD: Rise Of The Dragons (A Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfiction) - Chapter 37

It was the final afternoon of the World Duel Carnival Preliminary rounds, the skies were grey as a faint drizzle of rain fell on Heartland City. The city was a buzz with duels as the remaining duellist in the competition went all out to gather the last important Heart Lights for their Heart Keys.

But not all the duels today were due to the WDC.

In a rundown district a duel of a different kind raged.

“I play <Rage with Eyes of Blue>, by banishing all the cards in my hand, on my field and in my Grave, I special summon three <Blue-Eyes White Dragons> to the field. Go triple White Lightning Attack!” a stern voice called out.

Three great white dragons took to the field with a furious roar. Raising their heads high dazzling lightning gathering in their open jaws before they blasted out against the opposing duellist like a raging river of destruction, wiping out his puny monsters and his life points in a single joint attack

<<DRAKE WINS>>

The master of the legendary White Dragons was Drake, the chosen Duellist of the Legendary Dragon Critias, a duellist from another world on a mission to save this world from the evil forces of the Orichalcos and their servants. The organisation known as New Order.

Today he was dressed in black trousers, black shirt and a long black overcoat. It matched his current mood, a homage to the Hell Kaiser. Brutal and merciless.

He walked over to his fallen opponent before putting his boot on his ċhėst.

“…You’re crazy….” The guy struggled to say. What had he done to deserve this?

This guy wasn’t a contender in the WDC, he wasn’t a member of New Order, he wasn’t even a Number holder or some agent of Dr Faker. And he wasn’t the first of such luckless person to taste Drakes wrath today.

“Where is he?” Drake asked as he slowly applied pressure with his boot.

—

The were in the Chamber of Judgement, were their king tried the most serious of failures or betrayals to their organisation. With their king’s personality no one since the early days of New Orders founding had ever dared cause any problems that would require him to use this room.

A faint smell of mould hung in the air. The Orichalcos King made a note to offer the soul of who ever was responsible for maintaining the room to the Great Beast later. His distaste hidden by his gilded mask the Orichalcos King moved his gaze across his five Generals.

The first two were quite calm, Reginald Kastle who went by the name Shark and was the newest of the Generals of Order, the Blue General, might already be under punishment for an earlier failure but he had no part of the debacle that the Generals had been called here for. He was just here to watch.

The other was the White General, Tempest. He too had had no part in the incident that had so enraged the Orichalcos King, beside even if he had been, as New Orders premier Alchemist he was too valuable to lose. The other three were not so fortunate.

Wyvern, the Black General and mistress of the black dragons. Hal, the Silver General and New Order’s strategist, chief interrogator and recruiter. And lastly the Quartermaster of New Order, the cyborg Gold General Proteus.

Of the three Proteus had the most reason to be afraid, yet he seemed the calmest. The Orichalcos King mused whether or not his general was as emotionless as the machines he so admired, or if he had simple lost the ability to show his emotions. He strongly suspected the latter after all of his general’s recent outrageous acts.

Tap, tap, tap.

The masked king tapped his fingers against the arm of his throne, the sound echoing through the silent chamber. The seconds stretched on until.

“Read the charges.”

“Yes my king.” Replied the black robed Umbral, Spy Master of New Order, who stood beside his kings throne.

“The Black General, Silver General and Gold General are here by charged with the gross failure to accomplish their mission, resulting in the incapacitation of almost a third of our available combat force and loss of ȧssets valued at almost 3 million. The Gold General is further charged with the unauthorised use of an Orichalcos Key, unauthorised summoning of the Great Beast and disclosure of New Order secrets to the world. As leader of the Operation General Silver is also charged with incompetence but he has also levelled a charge of dereliction of duty against the Black General.” Umbral recited the list of charges.

“So what excuses do you three have?” asked the Orichalcos King, pointing first Black General

“It was Silvers plan that went completely wrong and Gold idiocy is plain for all to see. I fulfilled my duties without error.” stated Wyvern.

“You little…! If you had done your job properly then nothing else would have happened and the mission would have been a success!” interrupted Hal.

“Affirmative, although Silvers plan was almost a complete failure from beginning to end, we still would have accomplished the missions objectives if Black had done her job properly.” chimed in Proteus.

“This coming from the tin can that went so far as to summon our God Beast just to try and avoid a simple duel. What were you thinking!? Even just failing the mission would have been better than revealing the Fenris and in the end you still failed! And you Silver! If not for the personal intervention of our king, would you have had any chance of completing the mission anyway?” she snapped back.

“You were supposed to deal with Atlas-!”

“Your puppet was meant to win the duel, not almost surrender to the enemy-!”

“Gold was the one who lost the Original Number-!”

“Only because your plan to deal with Drake Atlas was terminally flawed-”

“Useless bag of bolts!”

“Traitorous harpy!”

“Lecherous fool!”

“ENOUGH!!”

The room descended into silence again at the Orichalcos Kings shout. Since when did his elite generals become a quarrelling bunch of children? He took deep breaths to calm himself, such restraint was unheard of by his Generals.

“… so if you would place the blame of this missions failure on one person, who would it be?” He finally asked his generals, breaking the silence.

“Atlas.”

“Atlas.”

“Drake Atlas.”

The Orichalcos King knew what they were thinking, but in a way, they were also right. It seemed like with the appearance of this Duellist, things had just started to go wrong for New Order.

Changing the subject, the Orichalcos King turned to Tempest.

“How goes the recruitment drive?”

Since New Order had been pulled out of the shadows of secrecy and into the light, and with the incapacitation of so many of their duellists, New Order had begun to actively recruit new members to bolster their depleted strength for the upcoming conflict with Dr Faker and City Security.

“I am afraid we are falling far short of our target.” The White General replied.

“Why?” the Orichalcos King asked in confusion.

They were offering power beyond the dreams of mortal men and they weren’t being too picky about who they were selecting. Surely there were plenty of greedy, power hungry, lowlife thugs who would be interested in quick and easy power and a chance to cause mayhem.

“…Drake Atlas…”

Huh? that name again. What did he have to do with this?

“He is causing quite a stir in the cities underworld. And it is no secret that he has set himself up as our enemy.” Tempest explained.

“A… stir?”

“He seems to have gone on a warpath. Brutally duelling anyone, anywhere. His name is practically on the lips of every thug, gang member, informant and lowlife on the street. They are so scared of facing him that most of them don’t want to risk joining us.”

Was this a joke?

With a swipe of his hand in the air the Orichalcos King brought up all the data they had acquired about Drake Atlas on a holographic display. There were no records of his existence until shortly before the start of the World Duel Carnival where a fake ID was used to register his participation. Since then Drake had remained undefeated among his many duels, using his signature Blue-Eyes deck.

Besides that, was the data New Order had collected about his various mystical abilities. From his ability to materialise monster and magic effects, to his abnormal physical abilities and the strange dragon he used to fight against the shadow of the Great Beast.

Who are you Drake Atlas? What is your goal? The Orichalcos King wondered.

“Why is he on the warpath?” curiosity made Shark ask.

“Its not very clear, but it looks like while he was recovering the offerings soul from Gold, a third party took the boy’s body.” Tempest replied, referring to Yuma.

The conflicted look in Sharks eyes at that news was not lost on the Orichalcos King.

The Orichalcos King felt a headache coming on, now another variable had entered the contest. And he still needed to punish these fools, especially Proteus. If he didn’t it would only lead to more problems, but at this stage of the game he also couldn’t afford the time and effort that would be needed to replace him. When did world conquest become so complicated?

—

“I activate the spell <Black Hole> to destroy all your monsters!” a punk duellist cried.

A black vortex appeared on the duel field and like a ravenous maw, devoured all the monsters on the field, including a familiar white dragon.

“When you destroy my Blue-Eyes White Dragon, I activate the effect of the <Deep-Eyes White Dragon> in my hand. I special summon it and then it deals 600 damage to you for each dragon in my graveyard with a different name, dealing you 2400 damage and wiping out your remaining life points.” said Drake.

A majestic dragon from the depths of the cosmos arrived on the field before blasting out at Drakes opponent and sending him flying into a dumpster.

*Boom!*

<<DRAKE WINS>>

“Now answer my question. Where is he?” Drake demanded as he crouched down beside his beaten foe.

“I… don’t… know…”

Drake grabbed the front of the punk’s shirt in his fist.

“According to WDC records you were the last to duel him. So one last time.”

*Bang* Drake rammed the punk backwards into the dumpster again.

“Where. Is. He?”

“The corner of Glen Drive and Wellington Road… we duelled in front of the disused bakery… but that was early this the morning… he could be anywhere now…” the punk gasped out under Drakes fierce glare.

Drake released him and walked away with a scowl. Another dead end, it was already late afternoon and the trail had certainly gone cold by now.

Drake glanced at the audience that had been watching their duel just now, and they scattered like a startled flock of geese. No one wanted to risk being his next victim. Left with no choice, Drake decided to return home.

When he got there, it was to find Yuma’s friends gathered at the dinning table with Yuma’s Granma. At the shake of Drakes head to their unasked question the table fell into a depressed silence. Akari had locked herself up in her room, focused on tracking down any possible lead that would lead to the recovery of her brother.

The air between Drake and Akari had been tense and cold ever since he had returned after losing her brothers body. He didn’t blame her. Of Yuma’s friends, Bronk was taking this the worse. It had been a simple thing for Drake to break the mental prison the Orichalcos King had trapped the boy in when he had taken control of the his body during his and Yuma’s duel. If only the chains of guilt that Bronk carried with him were so easy to break.

Around his neck was his Heart Key, it was actually lit to the first green level. Even when kidnaped and brainwashed by New Order they had made sure that Bronk was still qualified to participate in the WDC. No doubt they had intended to make use of him even after he had defeated Yuma.

During his… investigations… these past few days Drake had naturally heard about New Orders recruitment drive. So it was obvious that New Order did not have the vast legions of duellists to mobilize that Drake had once feared. Which is part of the reason he took the opportunity to strike fear among the duellist underworld while questioning them about his target and publicised his conflict with New Order.

Two birds, one stone. And Drake made sure the underworld knew it was a very big stone.

The TV was on, a large countdown was slowly ticking down on the screen.

00:01:04:34, 00:01:04:33, 00.01:04:32…

It was the final count down to the official end of the Preliminary Round of the World Duel Carnival. No doubt some desperate duellist’s were even now trying to earn a few last Heart Lights, but Drake was indifferent. He had long gained a Golden Heart, in fact during his duel spree his Heart Key had actually evolved again into a Purple Heart.

This was a level Drake had not known about, there was no trace of information about this anywhere on the net, nor rumours on the street. And since Drake had not limited his duelling to competitors of the Duel Carnival it was actually a complete accident that he fulfilled this hidden achievement.

In order to achieve a Purple Heart one needed a twenty win streak after one had received the Golden Heart. As Drake had never lost a duel in the WDC that meant he had defeated at least 59 participants in a row. And how many people would duel so much once they had reached the supposed limit?

Drake still wondered just how Heart Light would affect the next round of the tournament as he got himself some dinner.

The silence at the table was suffocating but it didn’t affect Drakes appetite as he dug into a juicy steak. Acting like some spirit of vengeance all day was hungry work.

Finally Flip couldn’t stand it any more.

“So what do we do now?” Flip asked.

“We wait.” Drake replied.

“But…Yuma…” Cathy hesitantly said.

“Its fine, we get his body back and everything will be alright.” Drake reassured.

“Are you sure he will join the next stage of the WDC?” Bronk asked.

“Yes, it’s a pity I couldn’t find him before the end of the preliminaries but we have tried our best and failed. I am certain that he won’t miss such a great opportunity that the WDC will provide to gather Number Cards, which means that sooner or later we will be able corner him and take Yuma back.”

Drake was confident in his ability but his target had been too elusive so far.

Even Cathy and her connection to the cats of the city had failed to turn up anything they could act on.

But the fact that their target continued to duel in the WDC, even while being hunted by Drake, proved that he was not going to just run and hide. Even if the worse should happen Drake had a plan to make things right.

The timer on the TV was nearing the end.

00:00:00:05, 00:00:00:04, 00:00:00:03, 00:00:00:02, 00:00:00:01.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” the voice of Mayor Heartland came from the TV as the countdown switched to a live feed at the Heartland Central Park.

Drake had to admit that Heartland knew how to put on a show and please the masses. Highlights of different duels began to play on the screen to majestic music, there were even several scenes of Drake himself in action. Fireworks were going off in a fantastical display of colours as holographic projectors brought a variety of Duel Monsters to life in the sky.

“I now bring the Preliminary rounds of the World Duel Carnival to an official close and congratulate all the qualifying duellists for all their hard work and heart pounding passion. Their duelling spirit is truly an inspiration to us all, which I personally hope will become a beacon to lead us to a brighter future.” Heartland announced.