Téa Gardner

**Téa Gardner** is the leading female character of the original *Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters* anime*.*

## Background

Téa Gardner was born in Domino City to a hard-working couple who were also business partners. Due to the nature of their work, they often had the burden of large workload and thus were unable to spend much time with their daughter, thus Téa became very lonely for most of her childhood. However, her loneliness was greatly eased after she enrolled in high school, where she formed strong friends ships with some of her fellow students: Yugi Muto, Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor, and Bakura. She was also the first friend Yugi made in school and thus the two formed a strong bond. Sometime before the start of the series, she became aware of the spirit of the millennium puzzle, the former pharaoh Atem. They too became close friends as the years went by her developing feelings for both him and Yugi but was far too shy admit it to either of them.

## Physical appearance

Téa is a very beautiful young woman who is 15-years-old. She is very tall and Caucasian (Not as tall as Joey Wheeler and Tristan Taylor), with long and thick brown hair that almost touches her shoulders. Téa’s standard outfit consists of a light green buttoned, collard, and sleeveless shirt, a light belt, white stockings that extend to her thighs, two large blue platform-sandals and blue and pink bracelets on each wrist. At times, she can also be seen wearing a yellow handbag purse. During her encounter with the Hitotsu-Me Giants, Téa received a small cut on her left cheek from the pack’s leader.

## Isolated in CyberSpace

While on their way to the final phase of the Battle City Tournament, Téa and her friends are abducted by Noah Kaiba and the Big Five. After bringing them to his headquarters, Noah separates his captives, sending them to different parts of the Virtual World with different environments. Téa is sent to a large barren canyon in the middle of a desert, alone and with no idea where she is. Worried about her friends and with nothing else to do, she decides to walk down the canyon’s path, hoping to find someone.

As she makes her way down the path, with the hot sun shining down on her, Téa calls out for anyone to answer her. No one answers, her words merely echoing off the canyon walls and rock formations. Stopping for a moment to analyze the canyon’s formations, Téa starts pondering herself out loud; she ponders where she is, noting how the canyon is something of a virtual Grand Canyon. She then starts walking again, remarking how the eerie surroundings are creeping her out and continues pondering where her friends might be. Unbeknownst to her, however, as she continues her walk, a strange muscular creature is creeping behind one of the rocky formations watching her. In its hand is a large stone axe, held tightly as it spies on the unsuspecting girl.

Téa continues strolling down the canyon, oblivious to the stalking creature and complaining about the hot heat. Suddenly, she stops upon hearing the noise of small rocks falling off the right cliff of the canyon. Startled, Téa looks up to finally see the spying monster watching her. Now that she has seen it, the creature makes a quick retreat back behind the rocks leaving Téa scared and confused as to what she just saw. Soon after, however, Téa finds herself, to her horror, surrounded by four cyclops monsters wearing animal skin clothing and wielding clubs and axes like cavemen. The creatures are live versions of the Dual Monster Hitotsu-Me Giants.
The frightened Téa attempts to stay calm, hoping to not provoke the beasts into attacking her. She tries to make a quiet escape by calmly walking back slowly, but her attempt ends in failure with her first step. Accidentally, the back bottom-end of one of her platform sandals steps on a small pebble causing it to be loudly kicked up. The noise provokes the giants which causes one of them, their leader, to signal his friends into attacking by roaring in fury and begin their assault.

The leader of the pack, the giant she spotted earlier, begins the assault by ferociously jumping into the air from the cliff and throw its axe at Téa with lethal intent. Fortunately for her, the spinning axe does not strike her body but lands behind her feet away. *Unfortunately* for her, however, the axe strikes the ground with such force that said force causes several small rocks with sharp tips to shoot up into the air. One of these rocks heads right towards Téa, striking her as she looks back, hitting her left cheek and giving her a small cut under her left eye which causes her to *reel as she groans in real pain* while putting her cute socking-covered knees close together as she groans despite the fact that everything is supposed to be a virtual illusion (In the U.S.A. dub, Tea's cut is censored due to brutal violence).

Téa has no time to worry about her injury despite its pain. The giants move in closer to her position, causing her to flee. The terrified Téa yells with all of her voice, begging someone, anyone, to help her (In the original Japanese dub, Téa calls for Yugi Moto). Her pleas go unheard, with no one coming to her rescue as her cyclops pursuers chase after her. She tries her best to run away, managing to outpace the cyclopes after her, but her attempts prove all for naught as she has fallen into the Hitotsu-Me Giants’ trap. The whole time, the leader with only two only two other pack members have been chasing Téa towards the rock formations of the canyon. Hiding behind the rocks, is the fourth member of the pack, having hidden himself earlier when the leader made his attack. Now he is silently waiting for her to come to his position so that he may ambush her.

The monsters’ plan works perfectly, the leader and his two pack-mates force Téa towards the rocks where their fourth member is hiding where he soon reveals himself just as she attempts to run by. The monster looms over her its claws ready to strike her down as it stares down at her with murderous intent. Cornered and nowhere to run, all Téa is able to do is stare up at the beast with a look of pure and utter horror. With the girl at his mercy, the fourth Hitotsu-Me Giant slashes down at her with his claws, forcing her down hard onto the rock floor of the canyon, painfully knocked into a state of unconscious.

Soon after being incapacitated, Téa’s unconscious body is soon surrounded by her Hitotsu-Me Giant hunters. The giant who gave Téa her cut, the pack’s leader, then grabs the unconscious girl and throws her over his right shoulder, his large muscular arm pressing her socking-covered legs onto his chest to carry her steady. He then orders his pack to move out as they begin their journey back to their lair. The leader is the one in front with the others walking behind, all following as he continues to carry the insensate Téa down through the canyon, her thick beautiful hair falling upside down as she dangles down the leader’s back.

Eventually, the giants climb a large hill containing a big hole in its center which leads to the cave where they have made their den. The leader then brings Téa to the center of the cave where there is a huge stony shelf with a flat surface. With no sympathy for his lovely prey, the leader hurls Téa off his shoulder down onto the stone surface of the shelf. Landing right on her left side first, Téa strikes the stony surface releasing a loud grunt as she hits. She then starts groaning in visible pain as her body squirms from the impact. Just as she stops moving, the leader and two other pack members loom above her, visibly amused by her agony as their eyes glow an eerie red.

Hours later, drops of water from an above stalagmite fall onto Téa’s scratch, causing her to awaken. Coming to, she ponders where she is having not remembered how she arrived. Soon though, she hears the sounds of the Hitotsu-Me Giants in their den below in the bottom of the cave. The leader of the pack notices her awakening and gives her a vicious snarl causing her to briefly jump in fright, now fully remembering how the beasts attacked and carried her off to their cave. Téa’s cut however, continues to sting. Trapped on the stone shelf with her cyclops captors below with no way of escape, Téa's situation continues to worsen as her death seemed reasonably certain...

Eventually the giants start boiling a huge cauldron filled with hot water. Téa correctly deduces that the giants brought her back in order to feast on her flesh as their dinner. Using a loose vine, she manages to climb on the walls of the cave towards the hole in the ceiling. However, the giants hear her escape and soon follow after her. She manages to reach the top first and though she is nearly out of breath, she has no time to rest as the giants are halfway out of the cave. She makes a desperate run for it and manages to get very far ahead by the time they reach the top.

The giant who knocked her unconscious attempts to stop her from escaping by throwing his axe at her. Fortunately, like before, the axe misses her instead landing right before Téa’s feet. This close call causes her to run even faster as the giants charge after her. While she does manage to outrun them, her escape attempt is soon halted when she runs to a large ravine overlooking a running river. The giants continue running and though they are very far behind her, with nowhere to go, Téa will soon be back in their clutches.

However, she notices an old wooden bridge not far away and runs towards it. When she makes it, she hesitates in crossing, fearing the bridge will give out due to how obviously rigidly it is. Through the memories of her friends however, Téa builds the courage to cross and make her way to other side. But she is not even halfway across when the Hitotsu-Me Giants arrive and start crossing after her.

Téa barely manages to keep ahead of them as she cries out in fear for someone to help her. Then, just as the giants are about to reach her, the bridge gives out from their combined weight and collapses. While the screaming Téa holds onto the half of the bridge that manages to hang off the cliff, her former captors are not so lucky as they fall to their deaths in the raging river below. With the giants now dead, Téa climbs up the bridge to safety, complaining the whole way about the day and ordeals she has had.