A boy opens a booster pack. The world changes.
One Card Short of a Full Deck
is a crossover fanfic between The DCU (with a particular focus on Young Justice (2010)) and Yu-Gi-Oh! by Stewart92.
After a mugging, a young man from Gotham named Roger Klein discovers that he can see strange cards which allow him to summon creatures from other worlds, and from there he is quickly dragged into the world of heroes and villains and finds himself a piece in a magical game with world-changing stakes.
It can also be read here.
One Card Short of a Full Deck contains examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Shadow Games are these, wherein the loser can lose something important, like their soul. It also doesn't have to be played with Duel Monsters, as Ra's al Ghul lost his soul in a sword duel and Kid Flash challenges the living virus Pestilence to a chemistry competition to save Robin's life.
- Adaptational Badass: The many vanilla Normal Monsters in Yu-Gi-Oh can become this when summoned outside of a duel or Shadow Game, where they're not restricted by game rules, and that's not counting how they can evolve into new card incarnations, like Dark Witch becoming Valkyrie Sanngriðr. As one of Roger's monsters puts it:"In a card game, normal monsters with no effects and little stars are amusing and perhaps a joke. In your game? That's not the case."
- Alternate Universe: Seems to be one to one of the authors other works, The One Ring, as one of that quest's main characters, Samuel Derricks, is one of the characters here.
- Always a Bigger Fish: As Nabu is trying to negotiate with Artemis for how long she can wear the Helmet of Fate to fight Klarion, Exodia the Forbidden One makes his appearance (through Artemis's connection to Roger via the Silver Bow and Arrow), grabs Nabu, and declares a limit of one hour.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Roger outright says that one major limitation to his power is reliability. He may be able to summon dragons, zombies, angels and military cars, but there is no guarantee that he'll get something useful to summon, and some summoned monsters may require a price to use their powers or even turn on him if they're willful enough.
- Backstory: A number of Roger's duel spirits have their card lore expanded upon, such as Dark Witch actually being a Norse valkyrie and the Raging Flame Sprite being part of a living weapons project by Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch.
- Bag of Holding: Roger turns one of Zatara's top hats into this by using Level Up! on it.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Kid Flash expresses his disbelief in magic, it seems like Aster will start an argument with the speedster. Instead, Aster just says that he doesn't know if what he has can be explained by science or really magic and that it doesn't matter to him; what matters is what he can do with it, like the fact that he was able to use it to save his mother's life.
- Blatant Lies: Captain Marvel gives one when asked to explain how he was able to avoid infection from the KV-DV.Green Arrow: So, Kid is now a Speed-bruiser and Robin got KAF-finated. How did you get out of the virus range, Marvel?
Batman: It’s not importan-.
Captain Marvel: (seriously and confidently) I turned into a swan and flew away, the virus didn’t target me.
Flash: (bewildered) How... did you turn into a swan?
Captain Marvel: Power of Zeus.
Green Arrow: ...That checks out. - The Cameo: A few times when Aster uses some cards linked to death like Grave Lure and Mammoth Graveyard, he sees a Perky Goth passerby that takes some interest. This is, of course, Death of the Endless.
- Cool Versus Awesome: Duel Monster summons versus supervillains. Such as a valkyrie taking on a martial-artist assassin.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Batman decides to not have Aster on hand to be the Team's healer. His reasoning is actually to keep the relationship between the Team and Aster healthy.The Shadow Team would not be relying on available healers to cover for their mistakes. Roger Klein was not going to be their personal doctor and let them make stupid moves.
They didn’t need that safety blanket and Roger didn’t need the guilt that came with only seeing his friends when they were dying.
No one did. - Die or Fly: Roger first manifested his powers when he got mugged and stabbed in the chest.
- Disappeared Dad: Roger's father isn't around. It's later explained that he was a soldier who was killed in action.
- Empty Shell: Ra's al Ghul is revealed to have been reduced to a soulless husk after losing a Shadow Game.
- Evil Versus Evil: Based on Wire's statements, his master is opposing the Light.
- The Fair Folk: Suffice to say, the first few faeries Roger summons reach varying degrees of crazy. Case in point, one of the Dancing Fairies being crazy and Pixie Knight being a knife-happy nutjob.
- Freudian Slip: Zatanna accidentally lets out something in front of her father after seeing Maugrim the Pitch-Black Warwolf."If we put a bag over his head..."
- Futureshadowing: Some of the cards created from others can do this, such as with versions of Nightwing and Oracle.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The result of Roger somehow evolving the powers of Turtle Oath and calling forth an original monster. Said monster being Karkinos, a giant crab wielding cosmic powers. No you did not misread that.
- Godzilla Threshold: Time Wizard and Time Wizard of Tomorrow interfere with Kid Flash’s Shadow Duel, because the latter is about to create a formula for the Negative Speed Force.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Roger/Aster gets this from two sources. One reason that Kid Flash doesn't like Aster is he sees the summoner as a replacement for his friend Speedy on the Team, especially as he becomes good friends with Robin, and Zatanna doesn't like the fact that her father is taking Roger on as a magical apprentice instead of her.
- Headbutting Heroes: Aster and Kid Flash do not get along with each other. Kid Flash is a skeptic for all things magical, is disdainful of Aster as a Naïve Newcomer, and is slightly envious that Robin is spending more time with him when they could be working to get Speedy on the Team, and as a result of his arrogant, disdainful first impression, Aster resents Kid Flash making fun of the power he used to save his mom's life (not to mention how he'd discard his magic skepticism just for a pretty girl).
- Helping Hands: Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands is made up of hands that can combine together to form different shapes, such as chairs or horses, for Aster to use.
- Heroic Build: After the Shadow Game against Pestilence, Kid Flash finds that he's become much more muscular.
- In Spite of a Nail: Wally is still forced to don the Helmet of Fate against Klarion.
- The Medic: Batman averts this with the Team by preventing Aster from being their on-call healer, for the good of both the young man and the members of the Team, as they shouldn't use his healing as a crutch nor should he only see his friends when they're hurt.
- Mind Control: Strings does this to Wire, who himself then controls others.
- Morton's Fork: Roger finds himself caught in one once he learns the stakes of the Cosmic Chess Game he’s caught in. If Darkness wins then his world is plunged into endless conflict and strife, but if Light wins then his world assimilated into the Duel Realm and everyone in it is transformed into cards, like how Yuzef's family was transformed into the Swordsoul archetype.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Several people attuned to either Order or Chaos are able to sense Roger summoning Chaos Sorcerer.
- Mythology Gag:
- The names that Roger can see on the cards are their international names. It's revealed however, that the Japanese names are the ones that are more accurate to who they are, like Dark Witch being a Valkyrie.
- After Aster manifests a whole Destiny Hero sub-archetype based on the Bat-family in one of his duels, Robin thinks Destiny Hero - Dark Wing is cool, while Roger notes how he both has a nicely sculpted rear and looks like he could be a real dick. If it isn't clear, Dark Wing is based off of Robin's future identity Nightwing.
- Negative Space Wedgie: In the climax of Roger and Yuzef's duel, they wind up summoning both Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End and Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. The result? The sheer presence of these two titans of power is enough to radiate chaos energy that builds until it punches a hole in reality and thus, Roger, Yuzef, and their monsters wind up in a void of pure chaos itself.
- Our Monsters Are Different: Roger is confused by how monster types work for Duel Spirits.I gave up, these monster types made no sense. Demons were Warriors, fairies were angels, and robots were also angels.
- Our Zombies Are Different: After Zatanna tests the first Zombie-type monster that Aster summons, they find that Zombie monsters count as sort of undead when it comes to magic.
- Power at a Price: Roger learns early on that some cards require LP, or Life Points, to be used. The process is painful and leaves him weakened momentarily.
- He experiences a more extreme example of this trope after he summons the Right Arm of the Forbidden One to defeat Amazo, as merely summoning it for 20 minutes destroys his own arm.
- Random Events Plot: Due to the fact that what Roger can get is entirely up to chance, it's hard, if not impossible, to predict what will happen in the story.
- Refuge in Audacity: When asked how he was able to avoid being infected by the KV-DV, Captain Marvel says that he just turned into a swan using the Power of Zeus.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Captain Marvel and Green Arrow act as emergency backup for the Team. However, if they do get involved and their presence becomes known, then they'll need to resign from the Justice League so that it doesn't get caught up in an international incident.
- Sneeze Cut: When Roger asks himself if anyone else has to argue with his power, the scene briefly cuts to Jaime Reyes, who feels a shiver down his spine at that moment.
- The Stool Pigeon: After Aster helps heal the Team after their first ill-fated encounter with Mister Twister, whereupon they immediately rush out to fix their mistake, Aster quickly calls Captain Marvel and informs him what's going on. The Team, especially Kid Flash, are initially resentful that Aster snitched on them, but Captain Marvel tells them that even the League keeps each other up to speed.
- Summon Magic: This is most of what Roger can do, summoning monsters, spells and other such effects to aid him in battle. As such, he'll be the weak point that others will target when fighting him. However, he can remedy this somewhat by using other cards like equip spells for weaponry and learning some magic from Zatara.
- Tempting Fate: When some goons are waylaid by a bunch of hands growing out from nowhere, one of them tries to rally by saying they can only have so many hands. Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands quickly disproves that notion.[...]Around them hundreds... thousands of grey hands formed out the wall with their index and thumb tips touching in a 'okay I believe you' manner.
- Toon Physics: Roger temporarily gains this after he activates Toon World, doing things like dancing all of Penguin's goons out of a factory in a conga line while turning the building into a cardboard cut-out.
- Wham Shot:
- Another person with access to Duel Spirits is in Gotham and looking for Roger.
- Ra's al Ghul is in intensive care with his soul removed. It's later confirmed to be the result of a Shadow Game, and Talia and the League of Shadows want Roger's help in restoring his soul.
- In exchange for Roger's help in defeating Black Adam, Thoth offers replica Millennium Items. Sanngriðr is shocked to see them, which clues Roger in to how important/dangerous the offer is.
- Black Pendant shards become embedded in Zatanna's right hand. They seem to be enhancing her magic somehow.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Practically every magic practitioner is incredulous that Kid Flash openly admits to not intending to keep his word to Nabu to find a host, since they know how powerful one's word is.
