Yu-Gi-Oh! The Fallout - Chapter One

[Tara Nashino]

Tara walked slowly through the desert she'd come to know as the new world. The year was 2594, or so she had heard. The reality was that the years were lost, ever since the world began to fall appart and the Shadows took their grip on humanity.

'Tara, please, just listen to me...' Rang a voice in her head, showing nothing but concern. 'You need to stop and rest a while. Perhaps one of these new settlements...You'll die out here if you don't rest soon.'

Turning her head, the girl saw the faded outline of a Spellcaster, the Dark Magician to be exact. "It's fine..." She said calmly, continuing on at a faster pace than before. "There's nothing wrong with me, I can keep going."

'Tara, please stop!' Said a new, more feminine voice. This one appeared directly in front of her, the Dark Magician Girl, a spirit she'd come to know as Mana. "Mana, leave me be, I can handle myself just fine, I know my limits."

'You can't fool me child, I can read into your thoughts...' Now a spirit appeared behind her, a Fiend known as Yubel. "Yubel, just stay out of my head and leave me be." Yubel only shook her head. 'I know you're tired, I know you're thirsty, and I know there's a town nearby, which is where you need to go and rest, no matter how afraid of the place you are.'

Tara sighed, changing directions suddenly. As painful as it was to admit, the spirits were right, and she needed to rest. The issue however, was that the nearby town was Dark Domino City. A merciless, lawless town where only the most dangerous lived. "I better hide the puzzle..." She muttered, placing it in her bag and walking into the pre-apocalypse bar. She slumped down in a booth, ordering some water from the man who walked by, and closing her eyes.

[Caleb Vancent]

Haruna was sitting at a bar stool, holding his drink, simply minding his own business. People around here had grown to do two things, respect him and fear him. It was a preferrable status, rather than being jumped by the various duel gangs in the area. Spinning in the stool, he noticed a particularly exhausted looking girl walk in. She had three spirits following her. One was a rare sight to begin with, but THREE was just unheard of.

He watched her sit down and just close her eyes, dropping her bag to the floor. 'Hmmm...wonder what she has to hide...' Said a voice next to him, and the spirit of Dark Grepher appeared next to Haruna. "Dunno bud, I say we go check it out." He said, smiling a sneaky grin and walking over to the girl. Careful not to disturb her, he unzipped the bag and peered inside. A glowing golden artifact was inside, surely worth some type of money!

Suddenly, a disturbing sight caught his eye and jutted him out of his visions of wealth. This artifact had the same symbol on it as the object he'd found just last month. 'I've seen this thing before...' Dark Grepher said in a voice that only showed confusion. "Yeah, it's on that rod we found last month." Haruna said, dropping the bag on the table and shocking the girl back to consciousness.

"Hello there, my name is Haruna, and I have a few questions for you...regarding this." He said, holding up the artifact by the chain. "We're going to have a friendly little duel out back, just for fun of course. Then, I want my questions answered. If I win, you have to tell the truth, if you win, well, I suppose you could answer them however you wanted."

[Tara Nashino]

Tara's eyes snapped open to see a stranger in front of her. "Regarding what now?" Then he held up her Puzzle. Did he know what it was?! No...he couldn't...he would have just taken it if that were the case...there must be something about this guy that made him leave it be. "A-Alright...fine, we'll duel." She said, pulling out her old Kaiba Corp. style duel disk. "Just once though...and it can't take too long."

In the back, both duelists had their duel disks on and had their cards drawn. "I'll make the first move!" She said, drawing her card.

Hand: 6

"I'll start things off by summoning one monster in face-down defense position, and then I place two cards facedown." The facedown cards appeared, boring and lifeless. "That's it from me."

Hand: 3
Monsters: 1 facedown
Facedown S/T: 2

[Caleb Vancent]

Haruna drew his card, looking at it briefly and adding it to his hand. "Before you do anything..." The girl said, pressing a button. "I activate my trap card, Coffin Seller. So long as this is in play, whenever monsters are sent to your Graveyard, you lose 300 Life Points."

Haruna winced. That was a major flaw in his strategy. He relied on his graveyard, which meant this would get ugly. "I have no choice. I summon Dark Grepher in attack position!" The dark-skinned warrior appeared on the field, eyes glowing a deep red color. "With his special ability, I can discard my Dark Hunter to send my Necro Gardna from the deck to the Graveyard." He said, but almost immediately Coffin Seller cut him off, reducing his Life Points.

LP: 3400

"Now, I activate the magic of The Swords of Revealing Light! This will force your monster to flip face-up, and you cannot attack for 3 turns!" The monster flipped, revealing a cybernetic sphere. Haruna's eyes widened. "Oh no..." He said, as Cyber Jar exploded. Dark Grepher was destroyed now, and Coffin Seller took yet another 300 Life Points from him.

LP: 3100

Now both players drew five cards. The girl summoned her Sangan in attack position and added the rest to her hand, while Haruna summoned his own Card Trooper in attack position. "I activate Card Trooper's effect, despite the costs, and send the top 3 cards of my deck to the graveyard, to increase his attack power to 1900!" Coffin Seller did not glow this time, meaning Haruna did not send any monsters to the graveyard.

((Sent Cards: Negate Attack, Card Destruction, Simultanious Loss))

"Now I activate this monster's special ability to special summon it! Come forth! Dark Armed Dragon!" The dragon rose from the ground, roaring loudly, but it was met with horror. The girl's other face-down card had flipped face-up. The Crush Card Virus. Sangan disappeared from the field, and ass did Dark Armed Dragon and Card Trooper, along with 300 more Life Points.

LP: 2800

"I place two cards facedown then...and my turn is done."

Hand: 4 cards
Field: 2 facedowns

[Tara Nashino]

"It's my move then." Tara said, drawing her card. She knew how she could win now...but she also knew what it would mean. 'Do what you have to do...' Said a voice in her ear, and Tara nodded. "I activate Graceful Charity! By discarding two cards, I can draw 3 from my deck! And now I activate Monster Reborn, to revive the Dark Magician Girl!" Mana leapt onto the field, smiling at Tara. "Go ahead, it'll get you the win, so it's the best option."

Tara placed two new cards facedown, making a gesture that her turn was over. "As a chain to your draw phase, I activate my trap card, Ring of Destruction! This allows me to destroy my Dark Magician Girl and inflict damage to each of us equal to her ATK power, but also, I chain Spell of Pain! This redirects the damage i would've taken from Ring of Destruction back over to you, causing you 4000 points of damage!"

[Caleb Vancent]

((Ryek, you're supposed to duel one of the members of the DoM in order to become one of us, Christy explained that already.))

Haruna watched his life points drip down to 0. Naturally, he has a duel and a chance to find out more about these items...and the girl has a deck that completely counters his own. "Alright, yeah, you're good girly, but I still have that question." He walked over to a cluster of rocks nearby, kicking them out of the way and pulling a safe from inbetween them.

He pulled mutliple keys from his pockey, unlocking six locks on the safe and then entering the combination. He then pulled his own strange item from it. "I want to know what this thing is. That thing in your bag had the same eye marking on it as this, and I want to know what they are."