Fanfic / YU-GI-OH GX: The Wrath of Viper

As the author puts it in his summary, this is basically Yu-Gi-Oh! GX meets Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Five years after the end of the anime series, a class reunion is held at Duel Academy. Much of the gang has a chance to catch up with each other and admit to the changes in their lives. Jesse and Blair have fallen in love and are now engaged. Bastion is the manager of the new power station on the island with Marcel as one of his deputies. Chazz has married Jasmine and taken control of his brothers' company. Zane is now a doctor. Aster has continued to be a success on the duelling circuit. Hassleberry has become a pilot. Zane and Yubel are revealed to have previously fallen in love and are seeking for a way to separate her from Jaden's body.

Enter a despondent Jaden who has grown tired of his adventures and had no such advances in his life. He has finally, partly through Yubel, come to know that he's developed feelings for Alexis and regrets how blind he has been. But he is unable to confess at the reunion as Alexis is currently not present. She, and Jesse, are working on the Project, a collaboration between Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corp to explore the Duelling Dimensions. The Project is now at a very delicate stage; the next expedition is staged to land on Dark World. When the expedition team goes missing, two of them being Chumley Huffington and Syrus Truesdale, Alexis and Jesse contact Maximillion Pegasus for help.

Back at Duel Academy, Crowler gathers the others to volunteer for the rescue mission. Despite his misgivings, Jaden volunteers and is later made captain of the new exploration vessel, the KCII Enterprise. Crowler joins him as First Officer, Bastion as chief engineer, Marcel as assistant engineer Hassleberry and Blair as pilots, Zane as ship's doctor and Fonda Fontaine as communications officer. As they embark on the rescue mission, Jaden and Yubel are unaware that the reason for the team's disappearance is an old adversary for one and a former ally for the other.

And he really wants them dead...

The fic can be found here.

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Tropes

• Adaptation Expansion: Rather than ending the story with the space battle in the Mutara Nebula, the author lengthened the conclusion by moving the action to Duel Academy, staging a multi-chapter long battle, a duel between Viper and Bonaparte, before having the final battle.
• Anyone Can Die: At least six established characters from the anime die, alongside many other fic-only characters, at the hands of Viper and his army of Dark World monsters.
• Back from the Dead: At some point during his five years in exile on Dark World, Viper discovered an unknown method of resurrecting Duel Monsters and chose to utilize that power by restoring Brron and Zure to life.
• Beta Couple: In addition to Jaden and Alexis forming the main pairing, there are at least three other major romantic couples whose love story is threaded throughout the narrative.
  • While the story spends its first half on Jaden and Alexis wondering on how either of them are going to confess their romantic feelings to each other, the love story of Jesse and Blair have the most focus. The first chapter establishes the backstory of their romance and recent engagement and how they are already missing each other, with Jesse later regretting not going to Reunion Week to support her as she is being tested for a promotion from assistant teacher to full teacher. On her side of things, when informed that Jesse might be in danger, Blair wastes no time in volunteering for the rescue expedition to bring him back home.
  • Continuing on from their innocent romance in their anime, Syrus and Mana are now deeply in love with each other but are consumed by the doubts of what kind of future they can have, with him a human and her a Duel Spirit who can only exist on Earth for a few months at a time. The experience of nearly losing Syrus to Viper however erases those doubts for Mana and she strives to find a way to make a future for her and Syrus possible. She is eventually provided with a means to do so by Dark Magician, one that will turn her into a mortal human, leaving her to decide to continue leading an eternal life as a Duel Monster or to choose a limited lifespan so she can be with the man she loves.
  • When Zane reveals there is now a woman in his life and has been for some time, Jaden had no idea whatsoever that the person in question was Yubel. Having fallen for one another back in Jaden's final days as a student at Duel Academy, Yubel has been in communication with Zane over the past five years as she collects and harnesses energy to give herself a solid body to be with him. By the time the story begins, she has gained what she needs but dreads how Jaden might feel if she were to leave him alone and she and Zane decide to wait to see how things go between Jaden and Alexis before she separates from him. Once Yubel becomes a target for Viper, Zane realises he has a personal stake in events.
• Big Bad: Thelonious Viper comes back to haunt Jaden and the others, driven by a relentless determination throughout the story to kill Jaden for having defeated him and Yubel for betraying him and leaving him for dead.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Battle at Duel Academy, a conflict spanning over a total of five chapters, involves Viper arriving on Earth instead of continuing to pursue Jaden and Yubel and laying siege to Academy Island to bring his two enemies to him. The staff, students and guests of Duel Academy unanimously elect to rise up and fight back, choosing to battle Viper and his monsters across the school grounds in a valiant bid to retake the island's conquered power station. Although both sides fight with their best effort, the growing number of losses on either one takes its toll so greatly that by the time it's over, there is no clear victor.
• Bitter Sweet Ending: Crowler, Marcel, Chumley, Sartyr, Aster and Bonaparte all die and a funeral and memorial service for them is held in Duel Academy. But Yubel is able to get separated from Jaden and start a new life with Zane, Alexis confesses her love for Jaden and both of them became a couple, and Syrus decide to get married to Mana.
• Blood Knight: Zure. The newly-resurrected Dark World monster regularly displays an insatiable thirst for combat and murder, delighting in fighting every duellist he comes across to the deadly finish. This comes to the fore for him in The Battle at Duel Academy as it gives him the chance to kill more of his master's enemies.
• The Cameo:
  • Jim Cook, Axel Brodie and Mindy are all mentioned by Jaden when he wonders if they and Jasmine will be turning up to the reunion as well. Crowler answers they wouldn't be, as Jim is opening up a wildlife park, Axel is currently serving in the army, and Mindy has been hired as an actress on a movie production in the tropics.
  • After learning of Chumley and Syrus' disappearance, Pegasus tries to get in contact with everyone he knows from the original anime to assemble a rescue team, only for him to learn for one reason or another Yugi, Kaiba and the others are all unavailable. In the same scene, he dismisses any idea of recruiting the likes of Weevil Underwood, Rex Raptor or Bandit Keith.
  • Mokuba Kaiba and Rebecca Hawkins, now married with children, appear in a short scene where the former has been informed by Kaiba Corp that the KCII Reliant has self-destructed in Earth's orbit and he rushes off to headquarters to take charge of the situation. They also have a non-speaking appearance in the story's final scene as they attend the memorial service on behalf of Kaiba Corp.
  • Seto Kaiba only appears through two short lines of dialogue spoken over the phone, once when he calls Rebecca in regards to Mokuba's whereabouts and again when he demands answers from Pegasus.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Two involving Viper's monsters from Dark World battling to conquer something for their master.
  • The storming of the starship KCII Reliant is one nightmarish bloodbath. While most of the massacre remains unseen, dead bodies of Industrial Illusions and Kaiba Corp employees are said to be littering the corridors and Zure and his forces have already reached the bridge by the time Viper is even beamed aboard the ship to participate.
  • The scene where the monsters take control of the Duel Academy Power Station. Whilst using the Reliant's destruction as a decoy, Viper and his monsters transport to Academy Island in secret and marshal near their target in the dead of night. Protecting the Power Station from invasion are a group of Kaiba Corp security guards and members of the Duel Academy Disciplinary Squad, armed with only electro-batons against the monsters' assortment of medieval weaponry and Duel Abilities. The guards are slaughtered in seconds.
• Death by Adaptation: Unlike in Wrath of Khan where they were marooned on Ceti Alpha 5 and later rescued offscreen by the Enterprise, the crew of the Reliant are massacred to nearly the last man, the only survivor being Syrus Truesdale (which doesn't count, as he's the counterpart for Chekhov in this story).
• Duel to the Death: Viper invents the handheld phaser himself in this continuity, to the point that he designs it to be integrated into Duel Monsters card duels as a feature of the standard field where, if used, it automatically shoots and kills the loser(s). Thus, all card duels involving the phaser become this.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After five years of travelling the world without ever seeing or hearing from his friends, Jaden finally returns to Duel Academy in time for a school reunion so he can meet with and confess his realised love for Alexis. Things go downhill from there when Syrus and Chumley go missing before they arrive and Jaden volunteers to head an expedition to rescue them, which gets worse when he discovers they were abducted by Viper, who has maniacally set his sights on killing Jaden and will hurt and use Jaden's loved ones to do so. Jaden is then forced to fight off every attempt of Viper's to kill him and get himself and his friends out of the situation alive.
• Expy: While there are deviations from the source material and original ideas here and there, the storyline mostly follows that of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
• Face Death with Dignity:
  • In the first battle against Viper, Marcel Bonaparte is mortally wounded when the power management station explodes during his successful attempt to restore the Enterprise's shields. Later, when attempts to save him fail, Marcel instead turns to an aggrieved Jaden and Blair and encourages them to carry on with their lives. Knowing from their short conversation that they will, Marcel smiles peacefully as he dies.
    Marcel: I am happy.
  • During The Battle at Duel Academy, Aster Phoenix proves himself as the most formidable duellist in the resistance against Viper, facing off multiple monsters and rescuing many of his friends and allies. Exhausted and worn, he engages in a final duel with Zure where it soon becomes apparent he will lose. Nonetheless he strives on, duelling to the bitter end bravely, which earns him a rare and genuine respect from his opponent.
• Happily Married:
  • Chazz and Jasmine got together during the five-year period after graduation, where the two worked together with Kaiba Corp to oust Chazz's brothers from the Princeton family company. At the time Wrath of Viper starts, the two are revealed to have tied the knot when Chazz proudly announces his marriage to his friends and that he and Jasmine are expecting a baby. Later, while Viper holds Duel Academy under siege, Chazz's motivation in fighting back is so he can return to Jasmine in one piece.
  • While they are yet to tie the knot themselves, Jesse and Blair are otherwise blissfully engaged. After graduating from Duel Academy herself, Blair attended university where she came across a despondent Jesse having trouble with his life and helped him to find joy and happiness again. This led to them falling in love over the years, with Jesse proposing marriage shortly before the beginning of the story. Later, during the rescue mission, most of everything Blair can think about is getting to Jesse before Viper does.
• Heroic BSoD: Jaden suffers from this on several occasions.
  • Although he's somewhat satisfied with the successes he's made in helping other people around the world to get in touch with duel spirits for the past five years, Jaden starts off his role in the story, tired of how lonely his life has become after the death of Pharaoh the cat from old age and the passing of Banner into the afterlife and wanting no more adventures, leading to him missing his friends and his realising he has romantic feelings for Alexis.
  • When he comes to know that Viper is the one attacking his friends, Jaden holds himself responsible for the danger they are all in, despite those around him telling him he's not. He also blames himself when any of his loved ones are either injured or killed. It takes a telling-off from Alexis for him to finally break out of it.
  • On the more minor bouts, Jaden reflects upon the mistakes he made in Dark World five years ago, displaying that the duel with Brron and his time as the Supreme King still weigh heavily on his conscience.
  • After the final battle, it seems Jaden is suffering another one because of the total number of lives lost. It is soon found out by Alexis that it's the complete opposite as Jaden, having earlier been encouraged by a dying Crowler to do so, was learning to find himself again.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • When the Enterprise's shields go down as the KCII Reliant ambushes them in a deadly assault, Marcel Bonaparte fights tooth and nail to restore them, even when he's ordered by Bastion to abandon his post for safety. He finally succeeds as the Reliant inflicts a would-be final blow, saving the Enterprise and his friends, but he sustains fatal injuries when his station cannot take any more pressure and explodes right in front of him.
  • Forced into being a mind-controlled slave to Viper, Chumley Huffington is ordered alongside Syrus to engage Alexis in a deadly card duel. With help from Dark Magician Girl, he begins to regain control of himself but not in time to stop the duel before Viper completely turns it in his favour and is able to defeat Alexis in a single turn. Left without choice, Chumley chooses Alexis' life over his own and uses what control he's mustered to surrender, resulting in him being fatally shot.
  • Vellian Crowler, in a successful attempt to foil Viper's last gambit in trying to kill Jaden and Yubel, gives up his life by activating the decontamination process in the secondary power chamber of Duel Academy's Power Station while he's still inside the room, willingly exposing himself to the deadly unrefined energy of the Sacred Beast cards as he battles to fix the damage Viper has done to the system.
• Hospital Hottie: Due to the condition his heart is in from the events of the anime, Zane quit professional duelling and chose to become a doctor to help people in similar situations to his own. Given how attractive he's made to be in the anime, he very much fills this trope.
• I'll Kill You!: Zure gets very vindictive towards Professor Sartyr in Chapter 16 when the head of the Ra dorm wounds him badly enough that Zure was unable to prevent Sartyr and Dorothy from collecting Duel Monsters cards to reinforce the Academy.
  Zure: Trust me, little man. The next time we meet, you will not survive.
• Killed Off for Real: After Viper's first attack on the Enterprise, Jaden proceeds to survey the damage, namely human casualties. When faced with the horror of the wounded and the dead in the medical bay, he compares and contrasts the tragedy with his past experiences in Dark World, and realises unlike those times, these are losses he cannot fix or take back.
• Only Sane Man: Unlike his master, Zure or the other monsters, Brron is shown having learned from his death and defeat at Jaden's hands and understands that as one fused being, Jaden and Yubel are more powerful together than separate. With this in mind, he implores Viper to stave off his desire for revenge on the two of them and instead focus on gaining more power before even thinking of taking on the two again.
• Pairing the Spares: Compared to the amount of focus Jaden and Alexis' love story gets as well as that of the three beta couples listed above, the other two occurring romances have very little to go on. For Chazz and Jasmine, the two are married and expecting children, with Chazz worrying he may not get back to her once Viper lays siege to Academy Island and Jasmine making no appearances herself whatsoever. The romance of Sartorius and Fonda Fontaine has even less information, with only the news the two are engaged breaking on the first day of Reunion Week that anything was going on, which comes as a surprise to even Aster.
• Revenge: Viper wants to kill Jaden and Yubel for leaving him for dead on Dark World. Zure also wants to kill Jaden in a duel for trouncing him so easily back on Dark World.
• Sanity Slippage: After five years in exile on Dark World, Viper is already somewhat insane when he first appears in the story but he has enough control over his mental faculties that he has not quite jumped off the slippery slope. This changes gradually over time as Jaden and Yubel manage to escape his well-laid traps and stratagems at every turn, the constant failures eroding his sanity further and further. By the time he puts a plan that threatens to destroy Academy Island into action, he's lost all sense of self-preservation as he no longer cares if he has to die himself to kill Jaden and Yubel.
• Shout-Out: Being a GX version of Wrath of Khan, this is obvious. There is however one to Search for Spock when Viper orders the Reliant to self-destruct.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In contrast to the case of Death by Adaptation above, the scientists of Regula Station avoid the grisly fates of their original counterparts and are all saved by the Enterprise.
• Take a Third Option: In what is intended to be a foolproof plan to kill Jaden and Yubel and get some sense of triumph out of it, Viper blackmails the two during their duel with Brron to duel at their best but still lose and die by threatening to blow up Academy Island through its power grid. To this end, he cuts off all safe access to the secondary power chamber capable of dismantling his potential explosive that any possible attempt to do so would be completely suicidal. The one thing he overlooked or perhaps didn't comprehend was that someone would be willing to forgo their own life for the sake of others; which Crowlerexploited to its fullest potential.
• Villain Respect: Despite his bloodthirsty nature and contempt for all of his other adversaries, including Jaden, Zure gives Aster a rare moment of kindness at the end of their duel by sincerely congratulating him for every move made and every successful battle fought, calling Aster a true warrior before he carries out the final move. The respect does not even stop there, as Zure also honours the fallen Aster by closing the duellist's eyes and giving him a salute before leaving him.
• Will They or Won't They?: Jaden spends much of the first half of the story pondering on how he will confess his feelings for Alexis and whether she will reciprocate or not. As for Alexis herself, she questions whether Jaden is now ready enough to understand the meaning of her feelings for him or that she should just bite the bullet and tell him anyway.

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