Sirens cut through the quiet gloom of the Satellite sector, piercing red and blue lights washing over the crumbling concrete of the abandoned highway overpass. Ryuki gritted his teeth, his grip tightening on the handlebars of the rusted, makeshift Turbo Runner he had scavenged from the scrap yards.
"You're not going anywhere, trash!" Officer Trudge's amplified voice boomed over his Duel Runner's speaker system. The massive, heavy-armored security runner surged forward, its twin exhausts spewing black smoke as it pulled alongside Ryuki's rattling machine.
A harsh chime echoed from Trudge's console. "Speed World, activate! Field Magic: Speed World!"
A dome of iridescent blue light flared into existence, engulfing both bikes and extending down the long, empty strip of elevated roadway. The digital speedometers on both consoles locked into sync.
"Turbo Duel rules in effect!" Trudge bellowed, a broad, triumphant smirk spreading across his heavy jaw. "Your mark pulsing back at the factory proved what you are, Satellite rat. Director's got a special cage waiting for you!"
Trudge overtake Ryuki of being at front, for the newbie like Ryuki. He doesnt know at the beginning of the duel, being front is always going first in turbo duels.
Ryuki glanced down at his wrist deck-holder, it was a dog-eared stack of faded generic cards—misprinted vanillas, low-stat Tuners, useless spells that'll cause backlash and situational traps he had Isekai with.
He drew five cards. His thumb stroked the worn cardboard. Sparks. Goblin Calligrapher. Defensive Tactics. Sonic Duck. Axe Raider.
Not a single dragon. Not a single card that could hold a candle to Sector Security's high-grade Synchro engines.
"My turn!" Trudge shouted, drawing his fifth card with a fluid, practiced snap. "I summon Jutte Fighter in Attack Mode!"
A small, stern-faced warrior clad in blue security armor materialized beside Trudge's speeding bike, its iron bat swinging rhythmically in the rushing wind. [ATK 700 / Level 2 / Tuner]
"Next, I activate speed spell - overboost! With this I gain 4 speed counters but end phase it goes to 1.
[Trudge Speed Counters: 1 -> 5]
Then I activate speed spell - double summon. If I have two of more speed counters I can use this card to summon another monster. Come on out, Guard Dog!" A snarl echoed as a ferocious 4 stretch limbs hound leaped onto the asphalt, its eyes locked onto Ryuki. [ATK 1500 / Level 3]
Ryuki's jaw set hard. A Level two Tuner plus a Level three non-Tuner on turn one.
"I tune Level two Jutte Fighter with Level three Guard Dog!" Trudge declared. Jutte Fighter dissolved into two glowing green rings, encircling the three glowing orbs of the hound. "Claws of justice, rend the shadows! Synchro Summon! Appear, Goyo Chaser!"
A massive, armored officer wielding heavy steel chains broke through the light burst, running alongside Trudge's bike at full throttle. [ATK 1900 / Level 5]
"Set one card face-down! End my turn!" Trudge laughed, the sound cutting through the engine roar. "Show me what a signer can do with a handful of garbage!"
[Trudge Speed Counters: 5 -> 1]
---
The wind whistled violently through the gaps in Ryuki's helmet. The makeshift Duel Runner shuddered under his thighs, the front wheel wobbling slightly whenever he hit a rut in the fractured road.
In his past life, dueling was played on pristine felt tables under crisp bright lights. Here, a single misstep meant slamming into concrete at sixty miles per hour. The digital display on his handlebars flashed red as his Speed Counters registered a single point.
[Trudge Speed Counters: 1 -> 2]
[Ryuki Speed Counters: 1 -> 2]
Concentrate, Ryuki told himself, sweat trickling down the back of his neck beneath his dark collar. Calculations were the same. Monster, spell, trap. Do not look at the drop off.
"Draw!" Ryuki snapped, pulling his sixth card. Axe of Despair.
It was an equip spell. Powerful enough to give a weak monster a fighting chance, but entirely vulnerable to basic backrow removal.
"I summon Axe Raider in Attack Mode!" Ryuki shouted.
A rugged warrior wielding a double-bladed battle axe materialized, running atop the highway guardrail beside his bike. [ATK 1700 / Level 4]
"Then I equip Axe Raider with Axe of Despair! Increasing its Attack by one thousand!"
The heavy iron axe flared with dark purple energy, swelling in size as Axe Raider grasped it with both hands. [ATK 1700 -> 2700]
Up next is where everything falls apart, Trudge just laughs. Ryuki stop to see what's running before he hears the system speaks from his scavanged duel runner. "Non-speed spell in effect. Backlash 2000 damage engaging"
Ryuki could feel the duel runner getting hot at its energy core and feeling the shock himself too. "Ugh!" Ryuki barely loss control, the duel runner swerve a bit before handling it again.
[Ryuki: 4000 -> 2000 LP]
Ryuki clenches his teeth before the next words comes out, "Battle!" Ryuki commanded, pointing forward. "Axe Raider, attack Goyo Chaser!"
"Predictable garbage!" Trudge sneered, slapping a red button on his steering console. "Trap card, activate! Synchro Deflector!"
A shimmering energy barrier snapped open in front of Goyo Chaser. Axe Raider's heavy swing bounced off the forcefield with a deafening screech of metal.
"When a Synchro Monster is targeted for an attack," Trudge shouted, "Synchro Deflector negates the attack and destroys the attacking monster!"
A blast of red kinetic energy erupted from the barrier, washing over Axe Raider. The warrior shrieked as he shattered into thousands of pixelated shards. The shockwave rattled Ryuki's handlebars, forcing him to lean heavily to the right to keep his machine from flipping.
"Is that all?" Trudge mocked, his Duel Runner surging ahead by half a length. "You're playing like an amateur who stole a deck from a child's shoe box! You don't know how to handle high-speed Synchros, do you?"
Ryuki's teeth ground together so hard his back molars ached. His mark on his right arm burned, a sharp heat beneath his leather sleeve, but no miracle card leaped from his deck to save him.
"I set one card face-down," Ryuki forced out, his voice thick with frustration. "End my turn."
---
"My turn! Draw!" Trudge roared, pulling his card with absolute confidence.
His Speed Counters incremented to three. The heavy engine of his Sector Security Runner thrummed with raw power, effortlessly maintaining pace while Ryuki's engine sputtered.
"I activate the Spell Card, Speed Spell - Angel Baton!" Trudge announced. "Since I have two or more Speed Counters, I draw two cards and discard one!"
He glanced at his new cards, a cold smile cutting across his face. He sloughed one card into his Graveyard slot.
"Next, I summon the Tuner Monster, Stygian Security!" A fiend with two bat like wings and red light on it's head, flapping along his bike. [ATK 1000 / Level 1 / Fiend / Tuner]
Ryuki's eyes narrowed as he analyzed the field. A Level one Tuner and a Level five Synchro monster on his field.
"I tune Level one Stygian Security with Level 5 Goyo Chaser!" Trudge bellowed into his helmet mic.
Stygian Security transformed into one bright green rings, lining up horizontally. Goyo Chaser turned into five glowing stars that aligned inside the rings.
"Gatekeeper of the underworld, break your chains and enforce absolute order! Synchro Summon! Loom over them, Goyo Guardian!"
A colossal, towering blue-armored warrior materialized in the middle of the highway. Its iron mace scraped against the concrete, throwing a shower of yellow sparks forty feet into the night sky. [ATK 2800 / Level 6]
Ryuki's heart hammered against his ribs. Twenty-eight hundred attack.
If he had his Blue-Eyes White Dragon, three thousand attack power would crush that iron giant in a single strike. Kaiba's ultimate engine of destruction would have wiped Trudge's field clean by turn two. But his deck was gone, replaced by junk, and his hand contained nothing but useless lower-tier commons.
"You missed your era, kid!" Trudge yelled over the engine roar. "This city belongs to Synchro Monsters! Old-school beatdown decks belong in the trash heap where we found you!"
Ryuki set his jaw, staring ahead at the dark highway curves. "A true duelist doesn't rely on the age of their cards. Strategy dictates victory."
"Then let's see your strategy save you from this!" Trudge pointed a thick gloved finger forward. "Goyo Guardian, attack him directly! Iron Mace Judgment!"
---
"I activate my face-down trap!" Ryuki shouted, hitting the trigger on his arm mount. "Half or nothing!"
The trap flipped up, glowing faint yellow. "With this trap, it can half of your monsters attack points until end phase or you can choose for no battle phase!"
"A pathetic stalling tactic!" Trudge growled. "I'll still gonna let Goyo Guardian proceed to attack!"
Goyo Guardian swung its massive iron mace downward. The wind pressure alone tore at Ryuki's clothes. When the weapon hit the yellow light barrier, a violent shockwave burst outward.
Ryuki's LP plummeted from 2000 to 400.
The force of the strike shattered the front headlight of Ryuki's Duel Runner. The handlebars violently jerked in his hands, nearly throwing him over the front guardrail. He dragged his boot along the tarmac, leaving a scorched trail of rubber before finally stabilizing the bike.
"End turn," Trudge smirked, easily cruising beside him. "You survived one swing. But look at your hand. Look at your field. You have nothing."
Ryuki drew his next card. Celtic Guardian. [ATK 1400 / Level 4]
A vanilla monster. No effect. No Tuner status. No way to bridge the gap against a 2800 ATK juggernaut.
He looked at his hand again. Sonic Duck. Sparks.
A knot of cold rage formed in his chest. In his previous world, he had better options to use than this starter deck. He calculated lethal lines three turns in advance. lethal Dragon combos that left opponents speechless.
Here, trapped in a body he barely understood, driving a machine he couldn't control, holding cards that felt like an insult to the game, he was helpless.
"I set one monster in Defense Mode," Ryuki said softly, his voice trembling with uncharacteristic anger. "End my turn."
"Is that the best the mysterious dragon-marked duelist can manage?" Trudge laughed hysterically. "Director Goodwin thought you were special! You're just another Satellite scavenger with a neat glow-in-the-dark tattoo!"
Trudge drew his card.
"Goyo Guardian, crush his set monster!"
The colossal warrior surged forward, striking Ryuki's face-down card. The Defense-position monster shattered instantaneously without making a dent in Trudge's field.
"And thanks to Goyo Guardian's special effect," Trudge sneered, "when it destroys a monster by battle, I can Special Summon that monster to my field in Defense Mode! Direct attack next turn with your own monster, followed by Goyo Guardian! This duel is over!"
The next couple of turns, ryuki defends with another monster and gets destroyed. Makes it ironic that Celtic Guardian attacked him to wipe out his life points and assaulting the salvaged duel runner.
Ryuki's LP dropped to 0 with a sharp, screaming chime.
The electrical feedback surged through Ryuki's handlebars. The makeshift Duel Runner's engine blew its main valve with a sickening bang, locking the rear wheel. The bike skidded sideways, flipping over twice before crashing into the reinforced concrete barrier.
Ryuki was thrown across the pavement, rolling hard before coming to a stop against the guardrail, his skin grazed and his deck spilling across the wet asphalt like scattered autumn leaves.
---
Pain radiated through Ryuki's shoulder. He groaned, pressing his bleeding palm against the cold concrete as he forced himself up onto one knee.
His starter deck lay scattered around him in the dirt and oil—faded cards fluttering in the night breeze. His right arm throbbed with a dull, burning sensation where the mark sat beneath his sleeve.
The heavy thump of boots approached. Officer Trudge brought his Duel Runner to a halt a few yards away, stepping off with a pair of heavy electromagnetic binders in his hand.
"End of the road, rat," Trudge said, his broad face twisted in a smug smile. "You put up a pitiful fight. Director Goodwin will be thrilled to see you wrapped up nicely for the Facility."
Ryuki gritted his teeth, trying to stand, but his legs buckled under his weight. His pride burned far worse than his scraped skin. Defeated. Humiliated by a brute with a basic police deck because he lacked the proper cards to fight back.
"Don't move," Trudge warned, unholstering his stun baton. "Makes it easier if you don't fight back."
Before Trudge could take another step, a sharp, deafening sound of galloping echoed from the upper highway tier above them.
Trudge snapped his head up. "What the—"
A pitch-black Duel Horse shot over the broken edge of the upper overpass, sailing thirty feet through the air like a predatory bird. It slammed down onto the tarmac between Trudge and Ryuki with a thunderous crunch, blue plasma sparks sprayed from its hoofs as it slid by a feet.
The rider was entirely clad in black leather, their face concealed behind a skeleton mask.
Without uttering a word, the rider whipped their wrist back, launching a dense, concentrated bolt of purple energy directly into Trudge's Duel Runner.
The police machine exploded in a sudden blast of violent orange fire and twisted steel, its front wheel spinning uselessly into the air before clattering across the road. Trudge was blown off his feet by the concussion wave, crashing heavily onto his back with a breathless yell.
"My bike!" Trudge roared, coughing through the thick black smoke. "Who the hell are you?!"
The rider didn't offer an explanation or say a single word. Instead, the Duel Horse snorts as if its alive, the black horse surged forward into the dark night, unleashing a blast of blue plasma that obscured the roadway. Just as Trudge prepares to take Ryuki into custody, a mysterious, masked Turbo Duelist, riding a black Duel Horse, swoops in, unleashing a devastating attack that shatters Trudge's Duel Runner and frees Ryuki, leaving him staring at the masked figure's retreating back in disbelief.