Foreword.

Welcome everyone to this, my first Fan-fiction work.

To start with let me re-state the obvious, I do not own or have any rights to Yu-Gi-Oh, its characters or anything in any form, anime, manga or real life. This is a work of non-profit fan fiction, if you like it great, I hope it will provide you with hours of enjoyment and please leave a good review.

If you don't… then stop reading it and find something you do like. You are entitled to your own opinion on the quality of the story, writing etc. But I am writing this for my own enjoyment and practice.

What follows is a short piece about what this story will be about, where I hope to take it and some of the reasons for my choices.

Firstly duels, I will try to cut down on the descriptive text so as not to flood the story in meaningless details, second you will notice that each turn begins with a summary of the life points (LP) and hand of the players. This will also appear at times when a duel carries over from a previous chapter.

The names will switch order so that the first duellists name will indicate whose turn it is. The first use/activation/summoning of a card will normally be bracketed with < >, where as monster stats, stat changes, attacks match ups and LP changes will normally be bracketed with [ ].

When it comes to attacks I will try to abbreviate the attacking/defending monsters names into letters, for example Blue-Eyes White Dragon would become BEWD, a Number card like Number 96 Dark mist would become N96, etc. Because some monster names are just so long…

In this work I will refer to XYZ material on XYZ monsters by the term used in the English anime, Overlay Units (OU) I just think it rolls of the tongue better and fits the setting.

Don't expect a fast rate for chapters, with work commitments I only hope I can manage at least 2 a week, but I will start with a mass release. (UPDATE: Currently only 1 chapter a week)

So if you don't want spoilers you may move on to the first chapter now.

.

.

.

.

.

You have been warned.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

So what's the story about?

Simply put this story takes elements from one of my favourite arcs of the original anime series and put it into the world of Zexal. The battle between the world threatening power of the Seal of Orichalcos, and the miraculous power of the Legendary Dragons, introduced in the arc Waking the Dragons, continues across worlds, coming to the city of Heartland and the battle between Barian and Astral worlds.

Apart from the new main character I intend to take the other main characters in different directions by drawing upon the anime, manga and my own original ideas. For example I intend for the character of Yuma to follow the manga version more closely than Shark, who will more closely follow his anime version.

Why Zexal as the setting?

Two reasons, one is that I dislike Pendulum Summoning and the limitations that Link summoning puts on the field so I wanted a setting that neither were in, which ruled out ArcV and Vrains. Second, XYZ/rank up summoning is one of my favourite summoning methods (story wise). Although Yuma is often considered by some as one of the least like protagonists in the Yu-Gi-Oh series, I liked the fact that he didn't start off as an unknown duelling genius but actually had growth over the series as a duellist.

Will this follow the Zexal storyline?

No, yes, kind of. I intend to try to craft a story that blends elements from the Anime, Manga and original ideas into something that will feel like a Zexal story but not exactly follow existing media storylines before adding in the waking the dragons element. Yuma and Astral will still be collecting the Numbers, Kite will be trying to save his brother, Shark will be after revenge. Faker and Barian World will be trying to destroy Astral World and the new wielders of the Orichalcos will be in the shadows waiting to strike.

I will be focused on a new Main character, Drake a Blue-Eyes deck user and new 'chosen' duellist whose mission is to stop the Orichalcos. I know Drake is not an original name for a dragon deck user, but its no worse than names like Rex Raptor, Bonz, Flip Turner or Shark.

Will I give a deck list for my characters?

No, definitely not. Why? Because it can be assumed that my characters will be tinkering and rebuilding the deck many times over course of the story, this is also not a pro tournament but a story meant for fun. Who doesn't like to see Yugi bring out combos and God cards with a mish mash deck of spellcasters, knights and magnet warriors with a miracle top deck draw, but would someone use a deck like that in real life? Never competitively.

Will there be original card of my own creation?

Yes, not at first and not many, but considering that this story will include the legendary Dragons that were capable of combining with other cards to create new creatures there will definitely be some. I hope they won't turn out too overpowered, but if they do please remember that the series are also famous for many over-powered super cards used by main characters and villains. I have already planned a Blue-Eyes XYZ which I hope will do justice to its name sake.

Will I use anime/manga only cards?

Yes, where appropriate, and I will also use some anime/manga versions of TGC/OCG cards that were nerf'd, but the majority of cards will be the version from the TCG/OCG. Naturally as a Zexal story all Number cards will have the anime ability that they cannot be destroyed in battle except against another Number card.

That's all for now, perhaps I will add more details at a later date, or not.

Thank you for your time and now let our story begin.