Before I even found that deck of cards, I was trying my best to calm Zoe down since she was jumping around the place.

Jeez, the girl was hyper today. It was her seventh birthday and she had managed to get a new deck of cards from me and her mother, Annabeth (yeah, me and Annabeth had decided to get married before Zoe was born). Zoe had her mothers blonde hair, but she definitely had my fiery green eyes. She also had my grin as well, though she was pretty smart for her age. Heck, that's why she loved playing Duel Monsters so much - it was her way of trying to solve a puzzle. I had to admit that the game got me interested, ever since it got introduced to the world by this guy called Pegasus five years ago. Since then, almost everyone in the world had a deck on them. Heck, even the campers here at Camp Half-Blood had decks on them.

And amongst those people was me, Percy Jackson - you know, the modern day son of Poseidon the God of the Sea? If you haven't heard of me then shame on you folks!

"Alright, for my end turn, I lay one card facedown," Zoe said excitedly as she laid her cards on the table we were sitting next to. She already had two monsters on the field, which happened to be her Swordsmen Of Landstar and her Little Winguard. She had also managed to lower my Life Points to two thousand, while she still had four thousand.

Yeah, okay - I'm duelling my little daughter. Don't blame me, she insisted on duelling me so she could be able to learn her new cards. I had no idea why, but she was doing pretty good so far despite the fact that I had more experience than her and that I rarely lost a duel. I had two monsters out on the field as well - Vorce Raider and Dark Blade, though I had them in defence mode just so that I wouldn't lose any Life Points, but Zoe had managed to get around that by playing magic cards that allowed her monsters to attack me directly.

"Okay then, its my move," I said, drawing a card from my deck. I smiled a little at the drawn card. "I sacrifice my Dark Blade in order to summon Luster Dragon #2 in attack mode!"

"Wait, where did you get that?" Zoe said, pouting a little.

"I am a master at dragon type monsters Zoe," I smiled kindly. "That's how I role. And next I equip my dragon with magic of Dragons Treasure, which raises his attack points by three hundred points, bringing it up to twenty seven hundred. Now, I attack your Swordsmen Of Landstar."

"Not unless I play this!" Zoe said, activating her facedown magic card. "I play Kuriboh Defence. Thanks to this, at a cost of one thousand Life Points, I can call out the three Kuriboh's that's in my deck and I'll use one of their abilities to shield my Life Points."

I nodded, impressed by how much her duelling skill had improved. "Impressive. So, you've managed to find a way to protect your Life Points. Okay, I end my turn."

Okay, I should've played a facedown. I mean, I had the trap card called Mirror Force in my hand, which would've reflected her monsters attack and destroyed all of her attacking monsters. But I decide to let her win this duel, since it was her birthday after all. There were duels that can't always be won (that and the fact that I was under strict orders from Annabeth to let Zoe win).

"Okay, I draw!" Zoe announced, drawing a card from her deck. When she looked at her card, she smiled excitedly. "Yes, I'm going to win with this! I sacrifice my Little Winguard to summon Cyber-Tech Alligator in attack mode! Then, I play the spell card known as Twister - by paying five hundred Life Points, I can destroy your Dragons Treasure card. Next up, I play the magic card Punishment - this lets me destroy one of you face up monsters and I choose your Vorce Raider. Finally, I play the last card in my hand known as Double Attack! This allows my Alligator to attack twice this turn! I win!"

I smiled, ruffling up Zoe's hair as she continued to smile. "Well done, Zoe. You beater me fair and square. Now, I'm guessing there was something you wanted if you won?"

She nodded her head enthusiastically. "Yeah, I want to go and see grandma tomorrow. I haven't seen her in ages!"

I chuckled. She loved my mother to bits. Every time we went over there, my mother would spoil Zoe so much it was unbelievable. Annabeth thought it was so cute seeing our daughter and Sally bond every time they made blue cookies. It kind of reminded me of the times when I use to do that with my mother. "Okay, I'll give her a call and see if we can visit her."

Just then, Annabeth came into the room holding up a cake with candles on it. She started to sing 'Happy Birthday', so I decided to join in on the singing. Zoe kept on smiling, as the cake was laid on the table and she blew out the candles.
========

"You actually let her win the duel?" Annabeth asked as she cuddled up next to me on the coach.

I looked up the stairs. We had managed to get Zoe to sleep after spending some time trying to calm her hyperactivity down. It was a lot of work to do, but having been there myself I managed to get her to sleep. "It was her birthday today. I decided to keep her happy, although I had to admit that I didn't see that Kuriboh Defence magic card of hers coming."

Annabeth smiled. "Surprised, Seaweed Brain?"

I smirked, kissing her on the forehead. "I guess I am, Wise Girl." I looked back up the stairs. "I still can't believe our little girl is seven years old."

"I know. She's growing up so fast," Annabeth said with a longing look at the stairs.

I was about to say something else, before the ground started to rumble. I frowned, getting on both of my feet so fast that it surprised Annabeth.

"What's wrong?" she asked in concern.

I held up a hand, telling her to be quiet. The ground was shaking still, which quickly drew Annabeth's attention. Before she asked what was causing the ground to shake, there was an almighty BOOM that came from outside. I quickly looked out the window of the house, and saw that there was a lot of smoke coming from the forest and that there was a plume of it rising into the sky.

"Holy Athena," Annabeth gasped when she saw the plume. "What was that?"

"I have no idea," I said, instantly grabbing my sword Riptide, "but I'm gonna check it out."

"Mommy?" Zoe asked as she came down the stairs, holding her deck. "Why was the ground shaking?"

Annabeth crouched down to her level. "It's nothing to worry about, honey. The ground was just a little upset, that's all."

My wife looked back up to me. "I'll stay with Zoe. You go and check out what that was."

I nodded and rushed out of the house, before running into the woods.
=========

"Percy!" a new voice shouted from my left. I looked over and saw Nico and Jason running towards me. "What was that? An explosion?" Jason demanded.

"I have no idea, but I'm going to check it out," I answered quickly as I ran. "Why, you want to join me?"

"I wouldn't miss it!" Nico said, as we delved deeper into the forest, where the smoke got thicker and thicker, up to the point where I almost had difficulty breathing.

We ran for maybe two minutes before we came to a clearing, where fire and smoke surrounded the area. I quickly surveyed the damaged, noticing the trees were burnt and some had collapsed to the ground. Boulders were turned to glass from the smouldering heat of the fires. I looked at all of this before I noticed the massive crater in the dead centre of the destroyed area.

"Jeez, this is a huge crater," Jason mumbled, looking at the sky. "What caused this? A meteorite?"

Nico crouched on the ground, placing a hand over a charred part of the ground, trying to sense something. He shook his head. "No, a meteorite didn't cause this. It would take something bigger than a meteorite to cause this much damage."

"Then what caused this?" I frowned, looking at the crater.

Then, out of nowhere, a blazing white light blinded us, causing us to cry out in surprise and cover our eyes. It was like that for five seconds before my eyes adjusted to the light. What I saw would leave me speechless for days.

Hovering in the light, as if the light was coming from it, was what looked like a dragon with white scales a shining blue eyes. It's wings looked mechanical in some parts - in fact, its entire body looked mechanical in futuristic terms. Along its white body were blue orbs stretching on its wings, its forehead and its chest. When it looked at me, all I saw was those crystal blue eyes. It lowered its head at me, causing me to come out of my shocked state. I stumbled backwards, landing on my back. The dragon didn't even care, as it lowered its head until its nose touched my chest, as if it were sniffing my scent. When it lifted its head, it bowed slightly and disappeared in a flash of white lightning.

The light faded drastically, until it appeared at the bottom of the crater. Jason and Nico uncovered sir eyes, squinting as they tried to see again. I on the other hand walked into the crater, my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Percy, what was that?" Jason groaned as he managed to get his sight back.

I didn't answer. Instead, I managed to reach the bottom of the crater and walked towards the flashing light. I kneeled down and picked up what looked like a capsule of some sorts.

"I think I saw a dragon appear in the light," I called to Jason and Nico. "It must've been the cause of it."

"A dragon that causes a flash of blinding white light?" Nico questioned. He frowned. "Okay, never heard of that before." He noticed the capsule in my hands, which continued to flare with a faint light. "What's that?"

"A capsule of some sorts," I said, inspecting it. It was an odd thing, though it seemed harmless enough. Then, I noticed the latch on it. I fiddled with it a little, before it snapped open. Inside, their was a stack of Duel Monster cards, which really confused me.

"Cards?" I frowned, picking up a card and turning it over. I gasped.

"Guys, this is the dragon that I saw in the light a moment ago!" I exclaimed, holding the card up.

"Whoa!" Jason said, looking at the card with deep interest. "Now that's what I call a dragon."

Nico looked slightly wary of the card, but he admitted that it looked pretty cool. "I've never seen that card before. What kind of dragon card is that?"

I looked at the card and read out the description. I had to check again because of my dyslexia, but when I finally read it, I was stunned.

"No...way!" I said, laughing with excitement. "It's called the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon!"

"Blue Eyes?" Nico said, stunned. He immediately looked at the card again. "Another member of the Blue Eyes monsters? But I've never heard of this card! Jeez, if word of this gets to Seto Kaiba and he heard about this, he'd be after it like a flock of vultures."

I nodded in agreement. I was about to say something, before my body felt strange for some reason. I shiver went through my entire spine. Jason and Nico looked at me in concern, and was about to ask what was wrong before they stiffened as well. I tried speaking but my mouth was just clenched shut.

Then I noticed that my skin and clothes were glowing and stardust was coming off them. I panicked - what in the name of Poseidon is happening?! Why am I glowing?! I noticed that Jason and Nico looked just as scared. Their eyes were darting all over the place. More stardust vented off our bodies, and I knew that something was happening. The light grew even more until it completely engulfed me and the others.

Before we vanished, I finally managed to let out a scream of pain and panic, which echoed through the entire forest. The whole world went dark and I passed out.
==========

"Hey! Are you alright? Hey, wake up sir!" a female voice called out through the muffled quietness.

I groaned, my whole body feeling stiff as hell. I squinted from the light of the setting sun above. As I got use to the light, I sat up and looked around the area. I was in some sort of city that I didn't recognise. There were some people walking along the street going to their homes, without a care in the world at what was going on around them. I looked over to my right and saw that I was outside some sort of shop: it looked like a normal house, but it was on the end of the street, next to two roads that had a few cars parked along the kerb.

I looked groggily at Jason and Nico, who were just coming out of their sleepy state and were looking just as confused.

"Hey, sir? Can you here me?" the same female voice asked to my left.

I looked over to my left and saw a teenaged girl with brown shoulder length hair and sky blue eyes. She wore a pink coat on top of a white school shirt and was wearing a denim skirt, with black leggings and pumps. She had a dark blue bow tie around her shirt collars. She carried a yellow bag pack and she was looking at me and my two cousins with concern.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked, but her voice was muffled to my ears.

"Where...wha...where am I?" I mumbled, looking between her, Jason and Nico, and the town. "What is this place? Who are you?"

"My name is Teá Gardner," the girl said. "Are you alright? You're not injured or anything?"

"I'm not sure," I answered honestly. "My head is killing me though."

"Dude, you just appeared in a flash of light, like you were tossed through it or something. That's probably why ya' head hurts," another voice said to my left. This one belonged to a teenaged guy that was slightly taller than Teá, with dirty blonde hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a dark blue jacket with a light blue t-shirt underneath it and he wore the same dark blue coloured trousers as his jacket.

Nico woke up, groaning as he sat up. "Tell the guy with the jack hammer to lay off. Oh, my head hurts!"

Jason groaned as he rubbed his head. "Damn, that hurt like hell." He then noticed that he was in a different place. "Where the hell are we?"

"You're in Domino City," Teá said calmly, a small smile appearing on her face. "The home city of Duel Monsters. Surely you must've heard of it?"

My eyes widened. Me, Jason and Nick are in Domino City? How'd we get here? Wait a second... I looked at my hand and saw that I was still holding the deck that I had retrieved from the crater. Did this deck send us here? How was that possible? Could...could that Dragon I saw earlier have something to do with it?

I started to get up, but I immediately collapsed after feeling a sharp pain in my leg. If it weren't for the blonde haired teenager, I would've fallen on my face.

"Whoa, take it easy pal," he said. "You sure don't like ya' strong enough to stand."

"My leg," I panted from the pain. "I think it's broken."

Teá and the blonde teenager looked at each other worried. Then, the blonde guy wrapped my arms around his neck. "Come in, let's get into the game shop. I'm sure Gramps won't mind."

Teá looked at her watch. "I just hope that Yugi gets home soon. He's been out duelling for so long that-"

"Wait a moment,, hold the phone," Jason said, doing a time out gesture with his hands as he stood up shakily. "Yugi? As in Yugi Muto, the King of Games?"

Teá nodded as if it were a simple question. "Yeah, that's the one."

Yugi Muto's friends? I thought to myself in shock. What the hell is going on around here?!