Fanfic / The Power of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!)

Honestly, Mokuba deserves to have a gun. And everyone else deserves to go absolutely Off The Fucking Rails.

— Gallus

A Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic by tumblr user gallusrostromegalus. Mixing elements from the manga, 4kids dub, and whatever the author feels like, the fic retells the plot while letting the characters be as meme-loving and full of violence as real teens.

It can be found here.

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This fic provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents:
  • Yugi was taken away from his parents by CPS for unspecified reasons.
  • Téa's mom is a doomsday cultist who thinks it's OK to do things like spending four hours screaming at her daughter to strip naked so she can verify that Téa didn't get a tattoo, because her mother dreamed that she got one.
  • Joey's mom once left her kids alone with only dog food to eat. His father is an alcoholic and steals his mail for identity theft.
  • Tristan's father tries to force him to inherit the family business, which he doesn't want, and refuses to let his willing and able sister to run it out of misogyny.
  • Bakura's father knowingly forced a dangerous magical artifact on him with the aim of destroying his soul so he could possess Bakura's body, and possibly used magic to force obedience. His parents also did their best to erase the memory of his twin sister after she died, and his father acted like Bakura was being ridiculous for mourning his twin a month after her death. There's also hints that Amane's death wasn't an accident.
  • The fathers of the Kaibas and the Ishtars are as terrible as they were in canon.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: In canon everyone was (presumably) cisgender. Here, Seto is a trans man and Mai is a trans woman.
• Adaptational Heroism: While Thief King Bakura did all the things in the past that he did in canon, here he spent most of his afterlife before merging with Zorc forming a close bond with each of his wielders that was mutually supportive. He also attempted to warn Shadi before the man was cut in half by his adopted children and willingly absorbed Zorc into himself to keep it contained. Once Zorc is purged, Thief King decides to take on a more protective, proactive role in keeping evil at bay.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Seto is by no means friendly, but he's much better than he is in canon. His animosity towards the gang early in the story is explained away as being a sort of infection feasting on his soul, and once it's gone he's much more reasonable. He works with the gang, staying with them and using their supplies at their invitation while discussing his ideas, and forms an unlikely friendship with Mai. He's also shown to have a great working relationship with his secretary and other employees of Kaibacorp, and behind-the-scenes information reveals that working conditions are phenomenal.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Ammit the Devourer, a crocodile-lion-hippo beastie, rolls in dead things and sticks inadvisable things in her mouth. Mokuba assumes she's a dog.
• All There in the Manual: There is a ton of background information on Gallus' Tumblr.
• Ambiguously Human: Misha, who resembles a very large man who covers most of his body in a lot of layers. Word of God has stated that he's not human (though his actual species is unknown). What is known is that he either can't or won't speak, and Funny Bunny thinks of him as an equal.
• Americasia: Domino City is located in Nihonifornia, which also contains Los Osaka and San Fransokyo.
• Angry, Angry Hippos: Yami has a not-irrational fear that persists even with his amnesia.
• A Rare Sentence: Bonz manages a good one when teaching Mokuba how to make s'mores:
  Bonz: Okay, so the Most Impor—PAY ATTENTION! Okay, the Most Important Part is when your marshmallow catches on fire—
  Mokuba: I’m not gonna set mine on fire!
  Bonz: Shut up, everyone does it at least once. WHEN your marshmallow catches fire, CALMLY remove it from the fire and blow it out. Don’t scream and wave it around, or it’ll fly off and someone—PROBABLY ME—will have flaming marshmallow stuck to my face and then I won’t be able to play my new zombie deck in that cool arena we found and I will hunt you down and swap your teeth with your toenails about it.
  Mokuba: Okay, that’s a new threat. You should be proud; I get threatened with grievous bodily harm a lot!
• Artificial Human: Shadi is an ushabti made to protect the Pharoah.
• Artistic License – Biology: In-universe. Rex and Mako complain about the anatomy of Duel Monsters creatures.
• Badass Adorable: The small, sweet, and/or cutesy members of the cast are no less capable of extreme violence. Mokuba bites fingers off, Yugi can be utterly ruthless when pushed far enough, and Téa can break bones with a kick.
• Bad Boss: Pegasus's underlings are terrified of him.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Kaiba hacks an Industrial Illusions satellite and crashes it into a server farm by posing as various tech workers over the phone.
• Benevolent Boss
  • Behind the scenes information indicates that Seto is one, as he provides high wages, free childcare, bias-free hiring, and plenty of sick days. It's to the point where employees will fight and kill over Kaibacorp positions.
  • All of Marik's employees are devoted to him, and he thinks of them more as his friends than his employees.
• Berserk Button:
  • Yami's is disrespecting the dead.
  • Joey's is hurting children.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Joey is frequently compared to a golden retriever.
    She'd sort of mentally classified him as a bit of a Golden Retriever in her mind- Blond, Biddable and Just A Bit Stupid, but looking at him now, she was beginning to see the cheerful bloodlust any good gun-dog had and was realizing her initial impression had been more correct than she realized.
  • Yami is scared shitless of Yugi at first.
    Yami: If there is a river of ruthlessness, perhaps it deltas into a vast ocean of forgiveness?
• Butt-Monkey: Hodgekiss. If anyone's going to get comedically injured or made to look like an idiot, it'll be him.
• Celebrity Paradox: Jurassic Park is a movie in-universe, but InGen and Dennis Nedry exist. According to the author, this is foreshadowing.
• Canis Major: The Entity when it visits Pegasus to enforce their agreement.
• Chain of Corrections: After Yugi pulls Joey out of the ocean while traveling to Duelist Kingdom, and Joey asks what a selkie is...
  Joey: What’s a Selike?
  Yugi: It’s one of those rocks they sell at hippie stores as a healing crystal but it doesn’t do shit.
  Tea: No that’s selenite. A Selkie is an evil portrait.
  Mai: No, that’s a Seflie. I think Selkie is another word for Mineral Water?
  Joey: No, that's Seltzer. I think it’s a band gets picked up by a major label and suddenly they sound like every other top 40—
  Tristan: I’m gonna throw you all in the ocean if you don’t shut the hell up.
• Chess with Death: Yugi challenges the Parasite to chess rather than Duel Monsters for Bakura's freedom.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Entity explains that a story, repeated often enough, can become a reality.
• *Click* Hello: How Tristan gets Kemo to let Joey go.
• Colorblind Confusion: Seto is red-green colorblind, hence why he dyed his hair green (it looked like brown to him; his classmates thought it was just eccentric rich person things so said nothing about it) and why he's so attached to the Blue Eyes White Dragon (blue is more vivid than most colors).
• Combat Pragmatist: Most characters.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: When Seto wakes up from his coma, he makes it through the building and into a helicopter before noticing his lack of pants.
• Commonality Connection: Seto and Mai bond over being transgender young adults who grew up in abusive rich households and who had to figure out their own way in the world.
• Cool Old Guy: Solomon Moto is the only responsible guardian for any main cast member, and he tries to help out the less fortunate teens.
• Crazy-Prepared: Tristan color-codes packing lists, carries colloidal silver in case of monster bites, and has several holy symbols in his pockets. It comes with being the son of two retired dungeoneers who now run a dungeoneering supply store.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In the first chapter, the group watches a televised duel where Weevil beats Rex in under a minute.
  • When Pegasus' goons try to recapture Mokuba after the boy reunites with the group, Joey and Téa tear the goons apart with very little effort.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: The Channel Island Foxes' mating call sounds like the screams of the damned.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the anime, at least. The fic returns to the manga's roots as a horror-comedy.
• Dead Person Impersonation: Bakura hid from his family by enrolling in a boarding school as his dead twin sister, Amane.
• Denser and Wackier: Guy Fieri is president, there are sprays for Doppelgangers, and the gang quote memes at each other.
• Defiant Captive: Mokuba. He actively screws over his captors at every possible opportunity, and will tear someone's fingers off to get out.
• Deliberately Cute Child: Teenager, but Yugi is short enough and cute enough that he can still invoke Precious Moments (™) when he smiles.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The Entity, an ageless god of death is furious at the coroners in the crime show Solomon is watching for how they treat the body, tagging it with a number and only referring to her as 'the victim'.
• Devious Dolphins: Not evil, but dangerous wild animals. Mako's father is swept away when a pod of dolphins rips through the tuna they're trying to catch.
• Disappeared Dad: Mako's dad was swept away while they were fishing and hasn't been seen since.
• Divine Date: Solomon Moto is romantically involved with an Entity.
• A Dog Ate My Homework: Discussed in regards to getting Joey on the boat as a duelist. Yugi claims that his new puppy chewed on both their gloves and that they only have one starchip each, when he actually took an icepick to his glove and used some light doctoring to fake it.
• Doorstop Baby: In this fic, Odion's birth mother knew the old well was inhabited.
• Drives Like Crazy: Ishizu texts while driving, passes cars already going way over the speed limit, and gets far too close to other vehicles for her passenger's comfort.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Marik. Weevil and Rex initially think he's Odion's girlfriend.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Croquet points out that while both Magic and Corporate Law have redundancies and adherence to ritual, it's clearly not an ironclad thing, as Shadi did just shove the Millenium Eye into Pegasus' eye socket, and that simply robbing Yugi and killing Seto would save Pegasus time, money, and effort. Pegasus is forced to concede the point and makes arrangements for the mundane plan, but keeps his magical plans on the backburner just in case it doesn't work out.
• Embarrassing Middle Name: Joey's is Melvin.
• Enfant Terrible: Mokuba. Sometimes he's an adorable little brother; other times he's biting fingers off and trying to strangle people.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Bakura attacks a duelist and drains his blood. Tristan, who doesn't know that Bakura's a vampire (or on the island), examines the injured duelist and concludes from the bite and his statement that the attacker was a chupacabra.
  • Duke Devlin comes up with a ton of increasingly crazy explanations for what's happening, which make sense given the limited information he has, but aren't correct.
• Eskimos Aren't Real:
  • When Yugi mentions the Titanic, Joey thinks he mistook fiction for reality.
  • According to the author, Téa thinks football is staged like professional wrestling.
• Everyone Has Standards: The group get Weevil to forfeit a duel by threatening to set the forest around them on fire if he doesn't. Weevil is horrified and points out that they're in a national park where many rare and exotic species of plants and animals are found, and the group immediately put the fire away and apologise.
• Everyone Is Bi: Seems to be the defacto sexuality in the cast. At the very least Yugi, Atem, Téa, Mai, and Tristan are shown to swing both ways.
• Fantastic Foxes: Thanks to the influence of the Entity, the foxes on the island where the tournament is being held recognize the gang as people who are not to be messed with, and the Old Bitch appears to have the same intelligence levels as a human.
• Fictional Country: Many. Most of the fic takes place in Nihonifornia; references are made to others such as the Kingdom of Oceania.
• Fingore: Mokuba bites off his captor's fingers.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Yami is new to things like guns, marshmallows, and supermarkets.
• Friend to Bugs: Weevil Underwood.
• Freudian Slip: When Téa meets Mai:
  "Yeah I'm Ogay." Téa accidentally portmanteau'd but the woman only burst out laughing. "Don't worry, I get that a lot."
• Full-Body Disguise: Misha. It's unknown what is under the mask, but apparently most people do not react well.
• Good All Along: The Ghost, aka Thief King Bakura. For the first seven chapters it's referred to as the Parasite, for good reason as it feeds on Bakura's life while regularly taking over his body. However, once the Parasite is separated back into Zorc and Thief King Bakura, the latter immediately shows his true colors as a protective, loving soul who adores his host and who will do anything to keep his hosts safe. It's even revealed in Chapter 10 that TKB willingly bound himself to Zorc to stop the god from escaping and causing chaos.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Believing a god can do something, if the faith is strong enough, gives them the ability to do so.
  Solomon: ...You're telling me you could huck around tanks and teleport and fight hippos because I thought you could?
  The Entity: Yes, that last ability in particular is new and extremely helpful so please keep believing that.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Mystery Skulls kidnap Joey and try to psych him out before a duel by telling him that the arena is full of the bones of people Pegasus left there to die (they're fake skeletons). Unfortunately for them, they wind up hitting Joey's trauma button and he freaks the fuck out.
• Grave Robbing: Any time the British Museum is brought up, it's usually in regard to this trope.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: The Shadow Match of chess… devolves. Not only do the Parasite's pawns go on strike, some of its pieces mutiny and join with the other side's pieces to become knights that either side can command.
• Groin Attack:
  • How Mokuba incapacitates several of Pegasus's goons.
  • In the shadow game of chess, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon takes umbrage at being stolen from Seto.
    Whatever he said next was drowned out by the sound of their opponent shrieking in fear and pain, leaping up and back as a blue-eyes-white-lump crawled up Its pant leg, bent on ending the family line.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Shadi found out the hard way that when a rebel faction agreed to split the family property equally, they were including him. He got better.
• Healing Factor: Shadi regenerated from being cut in half. Both of him.
• Heel–Face Turn: After Thief King Bakura was killed and imprisoned in the Millennium Ring, he spent his time bonding with his various hosts and doing everything in his power to befriend and aide them, even when it was for a short time. After he's reclaimed by Shadi he immediately tries to save the man from his impending fate, to no avail, and even takes Zorc into himself to save the humans there. After he's purified of Zorc he begins doing everything in his power to protect Bakura and his friends.
• Hideous Hangover Cure: The Rare Hunters were going to give one to Seto to wake him from his coma, but luckily he woke up before that was necessary.
  Sergei: Babushka's Secret Hangover Cure! I don't know all the ingredients, but it's mostly equal parts Vodka, Ouzo and Orange Juice. You know, for Vitamin C. Also ghost pepper, I think. On theory that either pepper will kill what ails you, or kill you, in which case you no longer have hangover!
• Horrible Judge of Character: Shadi, prior to being split, was intent on hunting down the Millenium Ring, and treated the Ghost trapped inside as a dangerous tempter, while trusting his many, many children and descendants with his life. As it turns out, his family was willing to murder him to try and get their share of the fortune, while the Ghost is a mostly benevolent sort who warns him of his family's impending betrayal and willingly binds an evil god to himself to stop it from getting out.
• Identical Twin Mistake: Ishizu is angry at Scales Shadi for making a traumatic experience worse. She takes it out on Key Shadi, who assumes she is mad about his 'loss' of the Millennium Scales.^note Admittedly, Word of God pointed out that Key Shadi doesn't entirely have clean hands here, because he knew his family was running an insane cult and never bothered to check on their children.
• Idiot Hero: Mostly Joey, though the others have their moments.
• The Internet Is for Porn: The Entity is baffled that Solomon wants to be hooked up to a glorified abacus until he explains that it's where 'the weird shit' is.
• Interspecies Romance: Several.
  • Solomon (human) and the Entity (some kind of god).
  • Sergei (human) and Misha (actual species unknown).
• Jailbait Taboo: Subverted. Mai is nervous upon learning that Joey's in high school, because while there's little chance of her being charged with a crime^Explanation In California where the story is set the age of consent is a strict eighteen with no wiggle room for small age gaps or exceptions, but due to being in international waters Mai couldn't be charged with anything. she still doesn't want to form a relationship with a minor. She only calms down upon learning that he's eighteen.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Like in the original anime, Yugi and Weevil duel in Duelist Kingdom. But when a very rare insect lands on Yugi's shoulder and he verifies its identity with an utterly gobsmacked Weevil, the latter immediately concedes the duel to get closer to it.
• Lame Pun Reaction: When Joey says that Rex Raptor was into fossils "when they were still underground", Rex chases Joey with a knife. According to the author, based on a true story.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Often, but not exclusively, done by Joey.
• Loophole Abuse: Bakura's vampirism takes the form of a curse mandating that those cursed can't eat "the flesh of meat or vegetables". (Word of God says that the nature of the curse changes depending on the law practiced by fairies.) As such, what Bakura can eat is mushrooms, food that's been processed so much that it's not recognizable as being derived from the original ingredients, or food that's been liquefied and thus is considered a beverage.
• The Lost Lenore: Pegasus is heartbroken by the loss of his wife, Cecelia, and his entire motivation is getting her back.
• Love at First Sight: Thief King and Ryou Bakura both fall head over heels upon seeing the other for the first time. When Bakura first sees the Thief King, he even recites a portion of Romeo and Juliet with him.
• Malicious Misnaming: After Mai introduces Panik as 'Panik with a k', Téa constantly calls him 'Mr Withakae'.
• Man on Fire: Stephannie burned her husband's office down with him inside it when he decided to leave her for his dental hygienist.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
  • The fic is set in Nihonifornia; other works that have similar blending of Japan and the US make appearances.
    • Phoenix Wright is Joey's lawyer.
    • Big Hero 6 will take place in the setting's future, according to the author.
  • Diana Prince is Ishizu's coworker.
  • Doralee Rhodes is Kaiba's secretary.
  • InGen is working on a theme park, and Kaiba has an unpleasant phone call with Dennis Nedry.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: Cecilia and Mai were the oldest and youngest of their family, with seven brothers between them.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: As Mokuba is escaping Pegasus and his goons, he jumps out a window and is caught in the arms of a Blue Eyes White Dragon topiary piece, which easily bends and places him gently on the ground. Blue Eyes White Dragon is the Ka of Kisara, Seto's love interest in a past life, and the way it's written implies that her spirit may have taken form in the shrubbery to come to Mokuba's rescue.
• Meaningful Name: Lampshaded. The gang wonders if "Rex Raptor" and "Weevil Underwood" are given names or like in drag. ('Weevil' is a nickname; 'Raptor' is an assumed name that Rex uses because his real last name is long and hard to spell.)
  Téa: So were these guys named that by really prescient parents, or are they like, Drag Personas?
  Yugi: I want to say it's like Drag, but grandpa literally named me after the kanji for 'games' so I have a horrible feeling it's not.
• Meta Guy: Joey.
  Joey: I know, it feels like somebody crammed eight episodes worth of anime into a single morning.

  Tristan: Is Yugi really allowed to do all of that in one turn?
  Joey: It's up to the writers, and they just want to stop looking up cards and get to the next scene.
• Monster Clown: In a universe where vampirism is a documented medical condition, goths have instead latched on to clowns.
• Mood Whiplash: Bakura admitting that he's a vampire is pretty funny when Tristan concludes, despite all the available evidence, that he's a werewolf. It then abruptly swings to depressing when Tristan freaks out at the thought of Bakura being a vampire and explains that his mother has become a vampire and is now a shadow of her former self.
• Motor Mouth: Joey, when he's explaining the last few days' events to Seto. Over a thousand words are said in apparently a single breath.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Yugi is horrified when he learns that his duel with Seto may have been what put the latter into a deep coma, and has to be soothed out of a panic attack by Joey.
• Never Split the Party: Tristan is frustrated with his impulsive companions.
  "FOR FUCK'S SAKE GUYS, IT'S THE FIRST RULE OF ANY ADVENTURE! NEVER! SPLIT! THE! PARTY!" he wailed.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Bakura, because it helps him feel closer to his dead twin sister.
• Noodle Incident: Several; some are foreshadowing future plotlines or references to the manga, but some are original to the fic.
  "It better not be weird Duel Monsters themed porn again." Joey sulked.

  “Oh fuck you left him connected to the INTERNET? UNSUPERVISED??” Yugi howled, leaping to his feet and running for the car. “We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t try to edit his FBI Profile again!” “Again?” Asked Tristan. “Yeah last time he added a whole bunch of crimes.” Said Joey.

  Tristan: Yeah, it's your turn to be on Don't-Lose-Yugi duty anyway. Seriously, he's been kidnapped like, five times now? Once by a gang of third graders.
  Yugi: "TRISTAN! AT LEAST MENTION THAT THEY HAD KNIVES!

  Tristan: We all remember what happened during PE Archery Joey.
  Joey: Yeah, OK, fair. Don't need the FAA after us for Axe Crimes too.

  "These are really nice shoes." She said, still reeling a bit. "Thanks! I had to play Scorpion Roulette for them!" he beamed.

• Old Friend, New Gender: Discussed Trope between Seto and Mai. Pegasus was a cross between a cool uncle and an adopted parent to Mai when she was pre-transition, but in the seven years since she has undergone Gender Affirmation surgery and been on hormones for years.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Odion and Kaiba's phone conversation.
• Only Sane Man: Odion, with the Rare Hunters.
• Orbital Bombardment: Seto drops a satellite onto one of Industrial Innovations' server farms.
• Our Vampires Are Different: There are many kinds of vampirism, and they're diagnosable medical conditions. Bakura has Polidori's curse, which is passed down from parent to child. Tristan's mother has Sunnydale Syndrome, which is transmitted via bites.
• Parental Substitute: Key Shadi looks after the children orphaned when the Millennium Items reject an aspiring user.
• Phrase Catcher: "Shut up, Hodgekiss."
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Among Pegasus' many sins, he created a duel arena with a mashup of several Asian cultures, and tried to copyright the Hawaiian pantheon.
• Polyamory:
  • The fic's listed pairings include Yugi/Yami, Yugi/Kaiba, Kaiba/Yami, and Yugi/Téa.
  • Solomon Moto had romantic relationships with several humans and one Entity; the latter acted as a wingman in pursuit of some of the former.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Pegasus offers a reward to whoever can steal and bring back Yugi's Millenium Puzzle. A few layers of delegation later, Weevil throws Yugi's puzzle box into the ocean.
  • Scales Shadi tried to comfort the Ishtars when a possessed Marik killed their father; they all interpreted his words differently. Ishizu is angry years later, and takes her anger out on Key Shadi. He assumes she is mad because he lost an artifact, and neither have worked out that there's a different Shadi running around.
• The Power of Friendship: (and This Gun I Found!)
• Pragmatic Villainy: How Seto views his treatment of his employees at Kaibacorp. He offers them high salaries, in-house childcare, phenomenal healthcare, and blind hiring in order to make a working environment where his workers are extremely loyal and work their absolute hardest.
• Promotion to Parent: Cecilia and Pegasus took Mai in as a child, and were the closest things she had to real parents.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Kemo Cantor is only in Pegasus' employ to pay his student loans.
• Related in the Adaptation: Mai only had dead parents in the anime, and Pegasus' wife didn't have any family. Here, Cecelia is Mai's big sister, making Pegasus Mai's brother-in-law.
• Royally Screwed Up: Ishizu theorizes that semi-regular inbreeding in her family is what's causing her youngest brother's mental issues.
• Sarcasm-Blind:
  Mokuba stared at him, disgusted. "You're asking me, the Vice President of the company that makes Duel Monsters Holographics, being held hostage by your Boss, the guy who makes Duel Monsters, over who gets the technology to make more Duel Monsters, while he holds a Duel Monsters tournament, what Kids are into?" Croquet stared a moment. "...Baseball?" He tried.
• Running Gag:
  • 'I'm not an animal.'
  • Adding Rules.
  • Joey mixing up words.
  • Joey's list of complaints.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Kemo finds his limit in Pegasus's employ after being ordered to kill several children.
• Sharing a Body/Symbiotic Possession: As in canon, although Yugi and Yami bond more quickly.
• Shout-Out: Quite frequently- the author reportedly enjoys hearing their editor shout from the basement upon spotting references.
• Sneeze Cut:
  "The Hippo would be Bad." he clarified.
  In the space between spaces. Ammit sneezed. "...Bless you?" Shadi stared at her, baffled.

  There must be an exchange of equal value! She exclaimed. Or there will be a Hippo.
  On the beach, Ammit sneezed like a mine being dynamited out. "Gesundheit?" said Mokuba, while Shadi stared at her with concern. Can Gods catch head colds? He wondered.
• The Speechless: Misha communicates via vague noises and hand gestures.
• Spiteful Spit: Mokuba spits Croquet's severed fingers into Pegasus' hand as he's escaping.
• Stalker with a Crush: Téa had one long before the story started. It really didn't end well for him.
• Starfish Character: Shadi was cut into two, and his Healing Factor caused both halves to regenerate. Nobody in-universe has figured out that Key Shadi and Scales Shadi are different people, though as of chapter 9, Mokuba's catching on. The two Shadis finally meet in chapter 10.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • Croquet suggests that Pegasus use his impressive influence to steal the Puzzle directly rather than bother with an entire tournament. Pegasus decides to try it, but it fails miserably.
  • Yugi points out to Mako that since he needs a boat, he should just steal Pegasus' boat rather than try to go through the whole tournament and use the prize money to buy one, since Pegasus won't bother going after a theft and Mako's home country doesn't have an extradition treaty with Nihonifornia.
• Stone Wall: Téa's strategy as a duellist is to build up a defense her opponents can't breach and enjoy the results as they run out of cards or realize how screwed they are.
• Swallow the Key: One of the many ways Mokuba frustrated his captors.
• Take That!:
  • Joey and Bakura are not complimentary about BattleMace 42 Million's IP policy.
  Mokuba turned to glare at the TV. "-4Kids? What the hell garbage off-brand animation crackhouse-?"

  "I'm sure he's fine, Yugi." Grandpa had said, chilling on the set of some new thing called Lost which Solomon was pretty sure was an Improv Performance Comedy. "They didn't intend for it to be a comedy but it is. Nice beach though."
• Tempting Fate:
  They hadn't seen Yugi or Joey yet, and her cell battery had definitely died by now, but they were on a BOAT. The only way they could get lost would be to somehow fall off.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Solomon looks at the records on a cold case, a murder where the victim's corpse was so heavily mutilated that the examiners couldn't even tell what gender or ethnicity they were.
• Thieving Pet: Suggested by Joey as a way to get star chips. The rest of the gang shoots it down.
• Trans Tribulations: Seto is a transgender man and had to deal with his adoptive father's misogyny while going through his transition. He bonds with Mai when she mentions the doctor who did her Gender Affirmation surgery. Seto also points out that if the public finds out that he's trans, a whole bunch of 'concerned parents' will flip their shit at him.
• Trauma Button: Joey has a lot of issues after witnessing a friend's accidental death.
• Unfortunate Names: There's a children's hospital named after Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Joey thinks this is in appallingly bad taste.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Sergei.
• Villainous Friendship: Bandit Keith and his minions; they even draw a symbol on their hands like the heroes did.
• Wall of Text: In Chapter 8, Joey summarizes the shenanigans he and his friends have been up to at this point. It's a single unbroken paragraph that takes up most of, if not all, of a typical monitor screen. Seto's response is a Flat "What".
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Pegasus thinks that it doesn't matter how many people get hurt or killed because of his plan, because if the plan succeeds, he can just bring them all back anyway. Everyone else disagrees.
• Willing Channeler: Yugi is happy to lend Yami his body to help with his goals.
• Who's on First?: When the gang is trying to pass the time by trying out Bakura's new game, they play the sketch out almost word-for-word.

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