Disclaimer: I do not own YGO 5Ds

"Yuki, good. You're finally here." Galen stood up as I entered the meeting room, motioning for me to sit where he had sat directly in front of the monitor. "We have a problem."

I looked at Felice, Akiza and Jack in turn, this is certainly an unusual combination. Galen is responsible for our security forces and Jack often receives his 'suggestions' as to which gangs to 'regulate' so it's not unusual to see those two together. Felice is the head of our financial department and usually barely has enough time to breathe. Akiza... Well, Akiza is Akiza. She is best viewed as stabilized walking nuclear defense system and treated as such.

"You need to look at this." Galen continued, turning my head towards the screen. "Bruno isn't who we think he is."

"Right." I nodded, not even bothering to fake surprise before turning my attention to the video.

"You can call me Vizor," The masked figure on the screen spoke gravely as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, which as far as he knew, he did.

'Masked' was really a generous term, the only disguise he wore was a 'vizor', hence the name.

"That's Bruno." Galen pointed out for us.

"You recognized him?" I asked, surprised. I didn't know those two had even met. With a completely different countenance, Vizor can actually be a little deceiving.

"Facial recognition software." Galen explained. Ah, right, we had installed it in all of our facilities, following the example of presumably every other organization that possesses a weapon that could destroy the world. Clark Kent would not do well in this day and age.

"You recognized him?" Akiza questioned astutely.

"Well, not exactly," I tried to shrug the question off, glad nobody pursued it any further.

"What does he want with Yusei then?" Akiza changed the subject helpfully, she kept her gaze on me, obviously expecting me to know the answer.

Which I did. I just don't remember anymore. The entire Bruno-Aporia-ZONE arc was a mess plotwise, and I really wasn't as interested in the show past season 2. Plus, it's been a while since I watch yugioh at all. I excused my own fault in memory easily.

"Pretty sure he's a good guy." I replied instead, "He's training Yusei for his duel with Ghost."

"Yusei's duel?" Vincent asked, surprised. "With all thirty-six ghost riders in Netherdale?"

"Well, that's what Bruno thinks will happen," I replied. "We'll take care of them."

"Don't be too cocky," Jack interjected, his patience finally wearing out, "I came to warn you about the Ghost riders, they're much more powerful than you might think."

Jack lifted his white trench coat to reveal the bruises on the side of his arm and ribs. "I just had a duel with them."

He didn't need to elaborate on the results, this is Jack after all. If he had won, we would have all heard about it by now.

"Keep watching," I prompted, "I believe that's why Vizor is here."

"If Bruno is really on our side, this is the only thing we need to watch out for." Galen fast forwarded the game until both duelists suddenly sped up, a white light filled the screen, hiding both duelists from view.

"Who or what is doing this?" Akiza demanded.

"Um..." I struggled and failed to retrieve that detail from my memory. "Did you guys ask Yusei or Bruno about this?"

"Yusei said their speed allowed them to enter into a different state of mind, so he was able to Accel Synchro." Akiza answered suspiciously, again seeing no surprise on my face.

"What about Bruno?" I tried again to jog my memory.

"He's under Roman's supervision right now," Galen replied tactfully. Roman is our judicial system (yes, yes, I know we need an actual judicial system, soon), so Bruno's in jail. "He can't explain what he did either, just keeps on saying there's a voice inside his head telling him it had to be done."

"Good thing it didn't tell him to murder us in our sleep yet." Jack muttered darkly.

"Are you saying he's trustworthy?" Galen inquired further.

"Um..." I still can't remember. The Accel Synchro bit rings a bell, definitely. I'm pretty sure it's one of those card effects that allow you to synchro summon during your opponent's turn, not too used in reality since your opponents can see the monster cards you have. The rest of it is still a blank. "I wouldn't go that far..."

"Let him go or keep him locked up!" Jack threw his hands up, angry at my series of none answers.

"Lock him up." Akiza answered for me. "I won't have him endanger Yusei again."

"Yusei may need him." I replied cautiously. Bruno dueled Yusei in the very end of the show, then died, I do remember that. I also remember Bruno swerving to avoid a kitten in a turbo duel, thereby cementing his position as a protagonist. Since I don't remember him doing any damages... "Let him out, tell him he will be under 24 hour surveillance, but let him out."

"Why?" Akiza demanded.

"I don't know what he's here for, but like Jack said, if he wanted to kill us, he would have done so already. Let him out for now, but keep him away from anything sensitive."

Akiza stalked out of the room, displeased I had labeled our technological/financial information as sensitive, but not her Yusei.

"I'll keep an eye on Yusei," Jack reassured me. "Together, we will duel and defeat these Ghosts!"

"Ghost hasn't really been a problem so far," Felice answered this time. "15 encounters with our agents, 1 major injury, 11 minor injuries, and only 1 significant traffic jam. No remarkable financial losses. I'd say we're doing pretty well." Felice looked very pleased with herself as she should be. Traffic jams are becoming a serious hindrance to our economy and we had been actively preventing disruptions to normal traffic in the case of impromptu (and prohibited) speed duels.

"Ghosts are intricate dueling robots, they all use the same deck. We already put together a complete card list for their decks, including extra deck monsters." Galen added for Jack's benefit. "We have designed a number of standardized decks for turbo-dueling Ghost Riders. They're designed to counter synchro summons but other than that, they're not particular strong against other deck types."

"That's why I'm here," Felice added, turning towards me. "I spoke to Nervin and Zigzix, both are very interested in studying these machines. Zigzix believes they will reveal the secrets behind the next technological revolution."

"That should be our primary focus during this fiasco," I agreed. Yliaster is the last arc of the Yugioh 5Ds series, so I definitely plan on milking as much profit as I possibly can. After that, I have to deal with actual politicians and corporations, aka 'hard mode'.

"I'll let our local security know but I can't promise anything. These machines deal real damage, so there may not be much our agents can do." Galen responded apologetically.

"Maybe we can have some of agents protected by psychic duelists," Felice suggested. She remembered Blizzard mentioning it a while back while discussing the possibility of defending against conventional and guerilla-style warfare.

"Isn't Akiza supposed to take care of that?" Jack asked rhetorically. Being psychic herself, Akiza was the default choice for recruiting psychic duelists when Kalin became the acting chief of Netherdale. But that's like using a flamethrower on your house to kill a spider, the results are uncertain and consequences possibly catastrophic.

"Maybe we can get her an assistant," Galen suggested, "What about Blizzard? He has to work with psychic duelists anyway at Crash Town."

This did get a chorus of assent. I can recall Blizzard offering to help with numerous departments, and managing to actually be helpful in most of them. If he had a proper education, he might have been the next Rex Goodwin, in a 'capable enough to run a city ' sense, hopefully without ideals of destroying the world to build something better.

"Can you get him to clean up Sayer's mess too?" I asked Felice. "Akiza was supposed to get on that ages ago but, you know. She tried."

"Sure," Felice agreed, "I'll let Akiza and Chaos know too."

"It might take a while to get all of our security agents equipped and trained properly." I mused, "Jack, we'll need you to keep these dueling robots at bay in the meantime. If you need any help, let us know."

Jack gave me a strange look.

"Well... About that," Galen stammered.

Felice chuckled and handed me the Netherdale bylaws that I had signed off on (but admittedly, didn't read cover to cover).

"What's wrong with you people?" I stormed into Rex Goodwin's office and slammed the book down onto his desk. Kalin, who was sitting on the couch going over this week's immigration records, looked up in surprise.

Surprise because I have actively avoided this place since its construction, mostly due to either Rex or Kalin constantly working inside- and there's always some work I need to address.

"Yuki?" He tossed a cream puff at me, I instinctively caught it with my teeth. That's another reason why we all like the Goodwins' offices, Roman keeps the stocked with snacks.

"Master Yuki," Rex Goodwin stood up from behind his desk, looked on disapprovingly. "There is a platter on the coffee table."

"It tastes better like this," Kalin defended me, tossing another cookie into the sky and catching it in his mouth.

Rex gnarled his teeth. He led me to an arm chair and sat opposite me beside Kalin. Kalin poured me half a cup of coffee, topping it off with three inches of whipped cream. He knows me so well.

Kalin had really been getting along with Rex, they mollified me in less than a minute.

"Rex," I licked the foam off my lips, "what was this this I hear about our security agents dueling?" I waved the first copy of the NDC regulation handbook. "I thought I told you, we will not use a card game to resolve legal disputes."

"You're still on the duel monsters thing?" Kalin asked between mouthfuls of whipped cream he was squeezing directing into his own mouth. "Give it up. It's the way things have always been."

"First of all," I growled, "no, that's not how things had always been. Secondly, when have we ever let tradition stop us? Our 'armed' forces are armed with a deck and a duel disk, that's not 'armed', that's not even vacation gear."

"You mentioned giving them weapons," Goodwin acknowledged, "I think it was, 'at least Tasers and guns for all emergency response personnel. I don't want people crashing into my office on a motorcycle. And much heavier military equipment for the army, I mean the diffuse-disturbance reaction teams.'" Those were my exact words repeated back to me two months later verbatim.

"I did mentioned that," I agreed, a little annoyed.

"I went over all the data twice, and the idea sounded very compelling" Goodwin confessed, "but after speaking with Professor Zigzix, we agreed it simply is not practical."

Ah, playing the Zigzix card. He is the most trustworthy employee I have as far as anything scientific is concerned. And I guess social science is technically still a science.

"Talk." I ordered simply.

"We can't promote a culture of violence," Goodwin insisted. He was beginning to sound like a bad CNN broadcast (so an average CNN broadcast). "If our officers carry and use weapons on a regular basis, it sends the message the same is expected of the criminal, then casualties would go up significantly in all types of crime."

"So you're telling me," I couldn't believe this nonsense he spewed, "that to decrease the chances of criminals having guns, your solution is to not give our officers guns." He isn't usually this stupid.

"It's not my solution," Goodwin clarified, "Japan adopted the social program to replace physical resolutions involving firearms with dueling decades ago. The initiative started even before the last War, and finally bore fruit a couple of decades ago. Most conflicts that would normally involve a gun is now resolved with dueling. We're an international leader on duel-based solutions, although Europe is catching up."

The complete and utter ridiculousness of his words flew completely over my head. "What?" I asked dumbly. Goodwin was smart enough not to respond. "What the hell?" I asked again after the information sunk in a little more. "The whole world is in on this scam?"

"I'm afraid this is not a scam," Goodwin objected. "We're on schedule to make 500,000 tons of fertilizer by next spring," he paused to see I was listening, then continued "using an idea Professor Zigzix dreamt of in a nap." I didn't know that part, interesting story though. "How long do you think it would take somebody to build a bomb? A gun? Or worse?" Goodwin demanded vehemently.

"What does that have to do with taking guns away from our own security force?" I protested.

"It took over half a century to get most of the population into a mindset that conflicts should be resolved with dueling instead of bloodshed," Goodwin insisted, "if we give the signal we're bringing guns back, the underworld would follow."

"We don't have an underworld" I pressed, "the city isn't even built yet, just keep out the unsavory characters."

"It's not that simple," Goodwin persisted, "even Kalin here could build a gun if he wanted to. It'd probably take him no more than a day."

We both ignored Kalin's protestations. Goodwin reached down to dust his pants where Kalin kicked him.

"Given some research, Blizzard could build a tank in a week and Nervin could build a striker drone in a month, and let's not mention what Yusei Fudo could do. What's stopping these people is not just harsh punishments, which we do have, but more importantly the belief that firearms are not the recognized method of battle."

In a twisted way, it made sense. Through popularization of dueling, the Japanese (and I guess rest of the world) had begun to see physical battles the 'cowardly way out'. It's like pulling a gun in a WWE championship, you're not getting that belt no matter how long your opponent stays down. This incredible (used in the most neutral way possible) reality is made possible thanks to the existence of a real duel monsters world, whose magic leaks to the human realm, influencing the populace to value dueling much, much more than they should. On the other hand, this was a world where the common Joe could build a hologram duel disk/arena*, and I would assume firearms are simpler to make than advanced computer holograms that responds to human command.

"Numerous international studies have shown," Goodwin continued, "that introducing excessive firearms to local security forces leads to a drastic increase of armed conflicts as soon as the subsequent month. So, until a clear need arises for arming our security forces, I don't recommending doing so at this juncture." Goodwin concluded.

"Alright," I downed the last of my coffee, and stood up "you've made your case. But I do want our ar-, diffuse-disturbance response units to be fully armed with real weapons and other accessories. And make sure a battalion is ready for intra-city conflicts."

"Yes Master Yuki," Goodwin stood up and opened the door for me. "I'll write a separate report regarding the training and maintenance of DDRUs."

"Great" I patted his elbow, "nice seeing you guys!" And made my escape. Other people working (on my job) while I'm slacking off always me a little uncomfortable.

It's probably a good thing to prepare for the upcoming dueling tournament by allowing our security officers to settle things though card games. It just makes me really, really uncomfortable.

"Deck?" Nicholas scanned their hotel room before asking. Everything looked so real. No matter how many times he looked, there was nothing to indicate he was about to wake up in the sewers again.

"Ready." His two teammates answered in unison. Being from the Kyoto satellite, both Tomas and Hermann are used to following orders.

"Protective gear?" He asked.

"Inspected and foolproof." Tomas replied.

"Duel runners." Nicholas continued, making sure every aspect of their duels is going to be under control.

"No sign of tempering." Hermann answered, then asked hesitantly, "Your card... That's gonna be okay too, right?"

"Don't worry about me." Nicholas dismissed angrily, "I don't make mistakes on these missions."

"Sorry, sorry, that's not my meaning," Hermann quickly apologized. "But, you know... It'll be enough to defeat our opponents?"

"I wouldn't ask that if I were you." Tomas offered with an almost friendly tone, though Hermann knew there were no friendships within Team Catastrophe,"Unless you want to move into the Domino satellites instead, I heard they're doing pretty well there."

"Knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially for those who wield it." Nicholas warned ominously.

"But they're really paying us to incite fear within these contestants? That doesn't sound suspicious to any of you?"

"Fear, anger, resentment. All negative emotion." Tomas correct with a malicious glint in his eyes.

"We will play, we will win and split the money, that's all." Nicholas insisted. "We don't get paid to ask questions."

X

"Alright, this is it boys! The big times! Are we ready?" Jean asked. He jumped off the last few steps of the stairs to get off the plane, then turned to face his companions, "I said, are we ready?!"

"The better question is, is Netherdale ready for the best turbo dueling trio in the world, Team Unicorn!" Andre joined him with a proud tilt of his chin, making sure his good side faced the cameras.

"Guys." Breo shielded his face slightly, gesturing with his hands for his teammates to be quiet," Com'on, don't do this here. People are watching."

"You're gonna have to get used to this now that we're stars!" Jean chided with a smirk, pushing Breo closer to the journalists waiting inside the airport.

"How confidant are you?" Andre whispered more seriously as Breo walked out of earshot.

"Not too worried. Remember, we don't need to win, this is a global event. As long as we defeat one big team, that's it." Jean muttered, hiding his mouth with his right hand, "That's all we need. Then, it's mucho gracias, sayonara, adios. We can just wait for the sponsorships to fly in and we'll be set for the rest of our lives."

"Alright then! Netherdale, here we come!"

X

"You're sure Jack Atlas will join the tournament?" Dragan suddenly wondered, his instinct tells him something is off.

"It's a little late for that, don't you think? We're halfway to Netherdale!" Broder replied energetically, bouncing up and down on the couch of Halldor's plane. Dragan was glad nobody is around to see him like this.

"It would be most uncharacteristic of him not to." Halldor replied reassuringly. As the leader of Team Ragnarok, one of the best turbo dueling teams in the world, he was confident in his own predictions even without the help of his god- Odin.

"Com'on! Relax about Jack Atlas already! Of course he'll be in the tournament, then you can defeat him once and for all to reveal him as the fraud he is!" Broder laughed, apparently already tipsy thanks to his second glass of champagne.

Halldor frowned, waving the stewardess over to get Broder a glass of milk, then glaring threateningly as Dragan giggled.

"Do not forget, we do have a more significant objective." Halldor cautioned with a resigned sigh, "My runed eye warns of Yliaster's meddlings behind the scenes, we must win the tournament to find out their true intentions."

"Sorry daddy," Dragan drone teasingly as he dragged Broder to his side. "I'll make sure little bro gets better and do his chores."

Halldor broke down and joined him in laughter.

X

"I dunno, I thought it would be bigger or something." Jinbei mumbled as their ship slowly approaches Netherdale. Though the downtown core already rivals Tokyo or Neo Domino, it's much smaller in scale and less impressive to look at.

"It's big enough," Yoshizo shrugged, "There's just nothing on it." he turned around, "Taro, what are you thinking about?"

Taro turned around with a distant smile to which Yoshizo had grown accustomed, looking at his friends, but not really seeing anybody.

Though Zero Reverse was unique, poverty is not. Progressive industrialization had all but eliminated the need for human labor after the third world war, leaving those with no capital for machinery, no education for technological research, utterly destitute. Thus came the Satellites, thousands of slums littered across the global, leeching off their neighboring metropolis, eyeing their wealthy next door neighbors with greed and envy.

It's the dream of every satellite to escape to a better life, occassionally, the 'Yuseis' and 'Jacks' succeed, never to show their face again in fear of capture, often leaving behind their own gang to spread their success stories like urban legends, the few sparks of optimism in the inevitably mundane life of abject poverty.

Team Sun listened to those stories growing up. Their parents were the success stories. In the satellites of Osaka, tales of their exploits against cops and robbers alike still get passed around at bedtime like fairy tales.

They were heroes that turned into legends, so how did things end up like this?

Still hunted by the police, their parents moved to a rural area, leased a farm from Industrial Illusions and just settled down. None of them grew up impoverished, but they were solidly lower-middle class. Taro would see himself in his father, as he is now, plaid shirt with mommy jeans, always smoking a pipe of the cheapest tobacco. It haunted his dreams, then spread to every moment until it became a living nightmare. Taro had to get out.

"Nothing, just zoned out for a bit." Taro smiled a little wider, looking slightly more reassuring, "It's no Neo Domino I guess."

"Let's hope not," Yoshizo replied, "I've been chased by the pigs enough to last me a life time."

'On the farm or in Neo Domino?" Taro asked, grinning.

"We're giving up the WRGP for this?" Jinbei still isn't convinced. "We're really gonna take their farm subsidies and invest everything we have in our own crops, instead of registering for WRGP?"

"What's WRGP gonna get us?" Yoshizo answered , shifting his bag to the other shoulder, "fifteen minutes of fame, maybe. I'm not prepared to pay the bills by touring the country playing fake duels."

"It won't be fake!"Jinbei protested, his confidence faltering under his companions' smiles, "It won't be fake for long, we'll get better decks. Then we'll find other strategies!"

"Not good enough," Yoshizo replied, "Never good enough. Look at the top duelists, they all have their own sponsors. Atlas has the support of Neo Domino, Fudo has the support of the Zephyrs, Ragnorok has their corporation. Even that new team, Catastophe is supported by some giant shadow company. Without financial support, us scums just don't have the resources to build a good enough deck. This goes as far back as Seto Kaiba. The only exception had been Yugi Motou. We, my friend, are not Yugi Motou."

Jinbei feigned outrage at his comment, then burst out laughing.

"Come on, let's see what this City of Hope can bring us!" Taro shouted, lifting his arms as though to embrace their choice.

Every day, duelists and civilians alike swarm to Netherdale, something Yuki described as viable class mobility and a (slightly) lower Gini index. They have a hundred different reasons for coming, but stay for the same reason, Hope. Something most of them may never achieve, but at least in this new town, the odds of success are better than most.

* A retired engineer in his 70s (I think?) built a complete duel arena in season 3, he's in a home now.

A/N: Yuki did misremember one detail :P