The Duel That Spans Dimensions
Prologue: The Challenge Is Made
Rikuo Amero had been through some strange things in his lifetime. Both of them in fact. He had also been through many deadly challenges, battles, duels, everything. He had faced vicious demons, insane humans, twisted soul haunted freaks of nature that wanted to wipe out all of humanity. Actually he'd faced more than one of those, but most particularly Kilomet Sestros came to mind. He'd also saved the world from a ten thousand year old mage intent on destroying the entire universe.
So when he found himself in a situation where it looked like he didn't stand a chance of winning, he took a little time to think back about his life. Despite the challenges he had braved and the incredible skill as a gamer that he possessed, he found himself unable to win in this one situation. "Damn it! I swear it's the claws!"
Jamming the buttons with his fingers the wolf-demon bit his lip and focused intently on the screen, watching as his burly wolf creature was beaten senseless by a female ninja. It was only a few more moments before the K.O. was delivered and he had lost the game. "Stupid fighting game. In a real fight I could take both of those freaks in a real game, and you too!"
The smirking figure next to him was an attractive female fox-demon who had been controlling the female ninja. The game was called Killer Instinct and this was the tenth game in a row that he had lost to her. "Face it Rikuo, you suck at these fighting games. Stick to something you suck marginally less at, like dueling for instance."
"What? I've beaten every opponent I've ever faced at Duel Monsters, even you!" Despite his anger, it was all in fun. After all, as his mate Jasmine liked to mess with his head more than she had before they got involved. Somewhere in his mind it occurred to him that she was doing this just for the purpose of having them exchange a kiss of forgiveness.
Moving forwards with a predatory gleam in his eye the wolf readied himself to make his move. He pounced, and quickly found himself on the floor, with Jasmine standing about six feet away. She had jumped just in time to avoid him. "Sorry, but I can't play now. Beating you all those times has taken up a bit of free time I had, and now I've got to get started on dinner."
Grumbling the wolf-demon duelist plopped himself down on the couch and started flicking channels. His super-human vision (only super-human because he wasn't human) caught a very specific image that interested him. A figure with a DD2 on his arm, and another across from him. A duel. "At least there's something good on TV, a tournament."
However his happiness at having found something to watch was cut short when he realized that the two duelist's disks had just shut down, and one of them had no life points left. The duel had ended, and from the cheers that he could hear coming from the audience on the TV it had been an exciting duel. "I always miss the good parts."
The camera moved to focus on the winning duelist, a tall human with reddish brown hair and violet eyes and handsome features. He wore a gray vest over a simple red shirt and held his duel disk with a casual arrogance. He also held himself in a way that only a fighter could, something Rikuo was good at recognizing. "Now that you've won the Japanese National Tournament, do you think you're ready to go head to head with the top duelists of the world at the World Tournament?"
The cocky looking duelist raised his disk and smirked confidently. "This entire tournament was a breeze. I just wish some duelists like Yugi Motou would have come, but I guess he hasn't had much interest in dueling over the past few years. And that punk Kaiba is too busy with business to bother dueling anymore. I figure I've got a clear cut shot at winning the tournament, but there's one thing I want to do first."
The camera focused in on the duelist's face, and Rikuo heard the interviewer ask him the next question from off screen. Rikuo just rolled his eyes at watching another overconfident young punk duelist acting like he was the best. He could cream this punk in his sleep. "What exactly is it that you want to do?"
"I'm sure you remember that weird duel everybody saw a couple of years ago. The big bone freak and that wolf-guy dueled for the fate of the world and all that. Well that was an awesome duel, and both of them were really skilled duelists." Rikuo smirked at hearing this, and couldn't help but give himself a mental pat on the back. Damn right he was!
"Well, I can't feel that I really deserve to be the best in the world until I've defeated a person capable of saving it. That big bone guy called the winner Rikuo, and I'm calling him out! If you're anywhere in the world watching this wolf-boy, I challenge you to a duel! The name is Daisuke Ihachi, and I'm ready to take you on any time and any place." The camera zoomed out to show Daisuke pointing his finger directly at the screen, and to Rikuo it seemed like that finger was pointing directly at him.
"A challenge huh? I think I might just accept." Rikuo's gaze fell on a small box on the other side of the room. In it was his duel disk and his deck. He had a feeling he was going to be needing them both shortly, and boy was this going to be good. He'd enjoy teaching the punk what a real duelist was like.
"Hey Jasmine....where's the phone book?" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Author's Notes: Yes, very short, I know. But next chapter the duel will start, so it's cool.