Yu-Gi-Oh! DF Book Seven: Their Most Dangerous Enemy - Chapter Eleven

I think the added seriousness of Lawrence's quest over Monty's is apparent right away at the very start of the chapter. Kaiba is aware that Lawrence is looking for him, and he is as over the top paranoid and theatrical as ever. He even reveals details about Lawrence's past that even Lawrence didn't know. As for the duel, it takes Kaiba back to his roots, so fans of his should have a good time. It's very informative, and exciting!

I know I give Lawrence a lot of crap in my writing. The truth is, he was never really interesting, and I never originally intended him to be. He was a powerful villain. A wall for Jen and Tucker to breach in the first book. He was also there to round out a trio. Monty was clever, Karen was in control, and Lawrence was strong. When I decided to migrate Karen to the main cast, it didn't take long for me to decide to bring Monty over as well, and by then bringing Lawrence over too made sense.

But I never knew what to do with him, and he became something of the Worf of my group, getting his ass kicked to show how tough the bad guy was. His deck barely ever changed over the course of the story, either. I eventually decided to give him development, and by then I was able to use that as a source of his development. I made it so he realized his deficiencies and made a conscious decision to overcome them. That's how this storyline was born. Not to mention that I always liked the early jerkish version of Kaiba and wanted an excuse to write him with a similar attitude into my story in some manner.

I've added another new section to these chapters. If I include original cards, to remove the temptation of making the card of the day one of them every time, regardless of if they are deserving, all original cards will be displayed beneath the card of the day. 

Chapter Eleven

At Kaiba Corporation

I saw the security guard’s waiting inside the moment that I appeared. I’m not stupid. I knew that they were waiting for me. I didn’t know how they’d known that I was coming, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that their presence here meant that I was very likely right, and Seto Kaiba was, in fact, inside.

I stepped right up to the large front doors. They were glass, standard for any corporate office. It wasn’t the doors themselves which excited me, but the letters topographed on them in bright red: KC.

Without waiting for any invitation, I threw open the doors and stepped inside. I wasn’t surprised that the doors had been unlocked, and I certainly wasn’t surprised that the instant my feet crossed the threshold I found myself face to face with those security guards. Both were tall and powerfully built, wearing dark suits.

“Mr. Kaiba warned us that you can be impulsive,” one of the guards said with an amused smile. “He said that you might barge right in, even though all you’d have to do to be invited is to ask.”

“Is that why Seto’s been dodging my calls?” I asked the two men, looking from one to the other. Their expressions offered no answer, and they didn’t speak.

“Fine, don’t answer me,” I said. “Aren’t you at least going to introduce yourselves, since I’m a guest apparently?”

“No,” one of the men replied tauntingly. Then he gestured toward the elevators in the back of the large lobby and stepped to the side, “This way please. Mr. Kaiba would like to see you right away.”

I followed Seto’s nameless henchman (because really, that’s what he was) to the elevators. He pressed the button, and the doors slid open instantly. He tried to step inside with me, but I blocked him with my arm.

“Wait,” he said, “I’ve been instructed to-.”

“I can find my way,” I interrupted, hitting the “Door Close” button and watching the twin metal panels slide shut in his surprised face. It only took me a second of looking at the button panel to know where Seto would be: the very top floor. That way everyone else in the building would be literally below him. Even the empty receptionist’s deck which came into view at the elevator doors slid open was lower than the uppermost room, which stood behind double doors at the end of a corridor, which ramped slightly upward. I walked past that desk, through the lavish upper floor lobby, and toward those doors. John had been here once, at the end of the Duel Force Tournament, and he’s described it well, so I knew that it was Seto Kaiba’s personal office which awaited me there, behind them.

So, without a moment’s hesitation, when I reached the large, ornately-carved wooden doors, I threw them open. It was dark outside, and in the hall and the lobbies, but the office itself was well lit. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, and once they did, I saw him, standing up and looking out huge windows overlooking the island of Manhattan. I stared into the room, my glare cutting the brightness, falling upon the tall figure of my mentor.

“What do you want, Peter?” Seto Kaiba asked.

“It’s Lawrence now,” I told him, “and I have a feeling that you know. I’ve been journeying with a friend for a while now, aiming to improve as much as possible, and I have. So did he, and we soon realized that we each had a different destination to reach if we were to continue to grow. A different end to our journey.”

“And you, for some reason, believe that facing me again after so many years is the end to your journey?” Seto asked.

“Yes sir,” I told him, speaking with real respect for the first time in years, to anyone but Monty or Lawrence, or Jen. It sounded foreign to my own ears.

Seto paused for a moment before he asked derisively, “Now why would you think that?”

I felt my face twist with confusion, “Because you were my teacher. You made me who I am today. I know I fell behind in my development as a Duelist for a while, but I’ve grown much stronger in only a short time. I think that, between the changes I’ve made to my deck, and the lessons I’ve learned in my travels, that I’ve finally become someone who can live up to your example. To you high standards of greatness. That’s why I’ve been chasing you down: I think I’m finally ready to battle you as an equal.”

There was another pause, made longer in the context of my waiting mind. I was nervous. Scared, even. Since my parents’ death, Seto Kaiba had been the closest thing that I’d had to family, like an older brother and a father figure all rolled into one. There was no one else on Earth whose opinion I cared about more.

That’s why his next words were so hard to accept. Seto chuckled, and wondered aloud, “You dare compare yourself to me?”

He turned to face me, a wicked smirk playing upon his lips, “You aren’t my equal, Peter. You never were, and you never will be.”

“B-but,” I stammered, “you chose me as your student. You nurtured my potential, and taught me your own dueling style. You set me on the path to becoming a Duelist.”

“Not because I saw potential for you to become my equal,” Seto said with another little laugh. “I was still facing heavy competition from Industrial Illusions back then. Recent events had stained Kaiba Corp’s reputation, and Maxamillion Pegasus was bidding to buy back rights to control production of all holographic gaming technology related to Duel Monsters. If he did, it would be the nail in the coffin for my company. Pegasus had adopted a group of needy kids, and it had improved his public image greatly. I decided to do something similar, by taking you in as my student.

“I acquired distribution rights to three promotional copies of the ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’ from Industrial Illusions using three shell companies, as tournament prizes, and then fixed those tournaments so that all three cards would end up in the possession of representatives of my company. So that the cards would go to me. Then I set out to find the right child to take in. I selected several potential candidates, taking note of their gaming instincts and abilities. You were the only candidate out of everyone who fit the requirements.”

“Because I was the best,” I asserted with pride.

“No,” Seto countered, “because you were the only one of the group who didn’t have the potential to surpass me. Even with three ‘Blue-Eyes’ cards in your deck, you only ever be weaker than me. That way I could give you my own cards and teach you my own Dueling style without fear of creating an enemy impossible for me to overcome. In fact you were so impressionable that teaching you my style ensured that you would never develop beyond a pale shadow of me.”

To say that I was devastated by Kaiba’s words would be an understatement. I was in shock, too stunned to move, let alone argue as Kaiba turned and sat down in his high-backed chair, leaning back leisurely and continuing his monologue.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” he said, “you were, and probably still are, a strong Duelist. You were easily the strongest and most determined of the bunch of candidates, not to mention that you are almost as ruthless and independent as me. But the truth is that you’re a nobody. You have no family or social standing. You are only what I made you, and that’s a weaker, less skilled, less popular clone of me.”

“You’re lying,” I told him insistently, my voice darkening.

“Am I?” Kaiba asked. “Do I seem like the kind of person who would give anything away if I didn’t expect something more back in return? You can’t imagine the things that I did to develop this company into what it is today. I might be better than the previous company president, but I am out to make a profit first and foremost, and I make no protests to the contrary.”

“You sent John and Karen to Duel Academy to improve their skills,” I protested.

“Because John was popular enough with American Duelists to draw attention from them to the school. I’ve already made back the money I invested in their combined scholarships tenfold, and enough American Duelists have enrolled that Pegasus and I are considering building other schools in other countries.”

“You got over your feud with Pegasus,” I insisted.

“Out of necessity,” Kaiba explained. “After Duelist Kingdom, after being forced to hide away and recover, Pegasus was in the same boat as me: his company was floundering. We both struggled to remain independent for a few years, and profit margins widened again, but it became clear that we could only benefit from our joining forces.”

Everything that he said made so much sense that, finally, I couldn’t help but accept the truth, and the truth made me angry. My hands shaking, I demanded, “Why would you tell me all of this now?”

“Because,” Kaiba answered, “by doing so, I assure once and for all that you will never reach my level. I’ll crush your spirit, and you’ll fade into Dueling obscurity completely.”

My eyes narrowed, “I wouldn’t count on that. I won’t let you crush me, because I’m going to crush you first and prove that I’m my own man, and that I’m not a failure.”

I removed the Force Disk field section from the holster on my back and slammed it into the card loader on my arm. It attached, and a pulse spread from the point of contact like an angry breeze.

“You want to duel me, after everything that I told you?” Kaiba demamded.

“I do,” I insisted, “and you’ll accept my challenge, unless you’re afraid.”

I saw Kaiba’s arrogance turn to anger at the audacity of my statement. He stood up from his chair and pressed a button hidden in the surface of what I had thought was just a regular wooden desk. The surface of the desk opened, and a full duel field emerged out of it. Kaiba removed his deck from his jacket pocket and placed it in the correct zone.

“If you really want to embarrass yourself further,” Kaiba said, “then I’ll accept your challenge, but understand that I won’t allow you to speak to me like this. This duel will be broadcast live online on Kaiba Corporation’s duel spotlight website. Everyone on our email call list will be notified in a few minutes’ time that I will be dueling a new opponent in my own office. Your humiliation will be all over the world by morning. The career of a low level Duelist like you will never recover.”

I ignored his words, keeping my defiant eyes fixed on him. He smiled wickedly, “Alright then, let’s get this over with.”

He drew his opening hand, and the walls around us shimmered and then seemed to fade away in a prism of light as they were shrouded in a 360 degree holographic projection of the night sky and the city skyline outside. As far as either of us could tell, we were standing upon Kaiba’s office floor, which was floating in the air above New York City.

“I begin,” Kaiba declared, “with ‘Saggi the Dark Clown’!”

Kaiba’s monster, a truly disturbing-looking clown wizard appeared floating in the air behind Kaiba, laughing maniacally (ATK: 600).

“Next,” Kaiba continued, “I activate ‘Negative Energy Generator’. As long as I control this card the Attack of my Level Three, Dark attribute ‘Saggi the Dark Clown’ is multiplied by three.”

An orb of crackling dark energy appeared and sunk into the clown’s chest (ATK: 600 -> 1800).

“I place one card face-down,” Kaiba concluded, “and end my turn.”

I frowned, He honestly thinks that I don’t know what I’m doing.

I looked down at my hand as I drew my last first turn card, Well, won’t he be surprised, “I summon my ‘Mirage Dragon’, and I combine it with the Spell card ‘Stamping Destruction’. As it comes into play it does a fly by over you ‘Negative Energy Generator’ and smashes it, dealing you damage, and dropping the Attack of you ‘Clown’ right back down to normal.”

A serpentine golden dragon appeared, slinking through the air and crushing the holographic representation of Kaiba’s spell under its claws. The ‘Clown’ crackled, its power fell, and Kaiba took a hit (8000 -> 7500). My dragon circled around and settled at my side (ATK: 1600).

“When my ‘Mirage Dragon’ is attacking,” I explained, “you can’t activate Traps, so I attack-.”

“Chain,” Kaiba interrupted fiercely, “to the end of the Main Phase, the Trap card ‘Crush Card Virus’. I tribute ‘Sagi the Dark Clown’ to destroy every monster with fifteen hundred Attack or more on your side of the field, in your hand, and in your entire deck!”

‘Saggi’ dissolved into a cloud of red mist which passed through my dragon and my deck. ‘Mirage Dragon’ died, crying out in pain, and I discarded it, a card from my hand, and seventeen cards from my deck.

“Your deck has been devastated,” Kaiba announced triumphantly.

I smiled, “Has it? I set three card, and I end my turn, activating the Spell card ‘Ultimate Rejuvenation’. I pay one thousand Life Points (8000 -> 7000) to draw one card for every Dragon added to my Graveyard already this turn, but in exchange I can’t draw any more cards outside of the Draw Phase for the rest of the game.”

Kaiba was taken aback as I drew eighteen cards, but he recovered quickly and smiled, “You’ve reduced the size of your deck even more, shortening your life even further, and it’s the end of your turn. You have to discard most of the cards you drew before you can even use them.”

I ignored him as I fed into my Graveyard two copies of ‘Decoy Dragon’, three copies of ‘Trade-In’, ‘Kaibaman’, ‘White Dragon Ritual’, ‘Lord of Dragons’, ‘Flute of Summoning Dragons’, ‘Dragon Ravine’, ‘Mausoleum of the Emperor’, ‘Rope of Life’, and ‘Ultimate Offering’. Between these cards, the cards that I’d set, and the cards destroyed by Kaiba’s virus card, I felt that I might actually stand a chance of winning this duel. Of course, arrogant or not, Kaiba was brilliant, so I refused to let my recklessness get the best of me, choosing instead to remain wary.

“My turn,” Kaiba declared self-importantly, drawing a card, “and I play ‘Ancient Rules’, summoning a Normal Monster from my hand.”

I held my breath, worried that Kaiba planned to summon the ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’ already, a move that would likely cost me the game, but I let it out when the card that Kaiba placed upon his duel disk was a different one entirely.

“I Special Summon,” Kaiba announced fiercely, “my ‘Swordstalker’ in attack mode!”

A demonic, black-suited warrior with murderous black eyes appeared facing me, wielding a huge, curved blade as long as his own torso, gleaming with dark light. I forced a wicked smile to match my former mentor’s, “The moment that your monster touches the field, I reveal ‘Battle Mania’. Your monster is thrown into a battle frenzy. For the rest of the turn, it has no choice but to attack whatever target is before it, as long as it isn’t restrained.”

‘Swordstalker’ charged at me, his sword raised.

“I defend myself,” I continued, “by revealing ‘Call of the Haunted’ to revive the ‘Decoy Dragon’.”

A blue, baby dragon appeared in the path of the rampaging swordsman. I smirked, “And as I’m sure we both know, when ‘Decoy Dragon’ comes under attack, he calls a high level dragon from the Graveyard to battle in his place.”

The baby dragon roared pitifully as the ‘Swordstalker’ moved to swing his blade just as a massive white shape appeared, knocking the swordsman back and uttering a piercing roar that every Duelist knew by heart.

“I revive,” I explained, “the ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’ destroyed by your virus card.”

My dragon turned its piercing blue eyes toward ‘Swordstalker’ just as the warrior lunged again. The dragon (ATK: 3000) breathed white light down upon the swordsman, who struggled to hold the wave of energy back with his demonic blade.

“Clever,” Kaiba said, gloating, “but not clever enough. I was ready to face your dragon. After all I am the only true master of the ‘Blue-Eyes White Dragon’. I activate from my hand ‘Negative Energy’, doubling the base attack of every Dark monster currently in play.”

‘Swordstalker’ was wreathed in a dark light, and he began to actually push through the dragon’s attack (ATK: 2000 -> 4000).

My grin widened, “Not so fast, I reveal a Counter Trap, ‘Champion’s Vigilance’. Your Spell fails in the presence of a high Level monster, and our monsters continue to do battle at their original stats.”

My dragon’s eyes flashed, and the ‘Swordstalker’’s dark aura was blown away.

“Then I play,” Kaiba countered, a touch of desperation creeping into his voice, “the Spell card ‘Light of Ceasefire’, cancelling the Battle Phase.”

Just before the light of my monster’s attack could finally overcome the dark warrior, barriers sprung up around them, separating them and bringing their battle to an early end. After everything, after all of our preparation, Kaiba and I had fought to a draw. We’d come out of it roughly equal, and I could tell that my opponent didn’t like that one bit.

Card of the Day:

Blue-Eyes White Dragon

Played by: Peter Lawrence

Yeah, so this is a card which has been seen many times in Yu-Gi-Oh!. It isn't special anymore. However, in this duel, one master of the "Blue-Eyes" fights another, and it is the junior who summons the dragon before the senior. I consider this a special occasion, and so it is his "Blue-Eyes" card which is the Card of the Day.

Original Cards in This Chapter:

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