The Power Of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!) - Chapter 8 - GallusRostromegalus (2024)

Chapter Text

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He’d gotten lost again.

While not precisely an infrequent occurrence, it was still a potentially dangerous one. The Labyrinth of his mind contained all manner of perils- floors that would give way if not walked in a specific pattern, spikes that shot out of the walls if his shadow passed over their portals, rooms that erupted in flame if the door was opened, and on one occasion, a small altar that, after he had mistakenly adjusted the idol on it, set off a weighted mechanism that released a massive rolling boulder that chased him through the halls and even up the stairs until he lost it on a hairpin turn.

He sometimes thought he could still hear it rumbling through the maze.

So Yami, as he’d decided to go by, stood in front of the iron door, trying to remember if he’d opened this one before, and if he had, what was on the other side. He really should have been marking the doors, but he’d never found anything in his mind that could leave a proper mark, and he wasn’t convinced the marks wouldn’t vanish the second he stopped looking at them anyway.

He sighed. There was nothing for it- he’d never get back to the ‘throne room’ or at least, the room with the very fancy chair he could almost rest in, if he didn’t keep moving, and he’d run out of options in this section of labyrinth. He inspected the door carefully. It wasn’t particularly hot or cold to the touch. The hinges looked the way they should- the correct number and not set oddly in the wall. No suspicious grease stains on or around it. No funny brickwork on the walls, ceiling, floor, or opposite wall.

Hm.

Carefully, he took the handle and pulled, making sure to step back behind the door instead of standing directly in the doorw- ow .

Apparently this is a Push Door. He glared. I should really have a ten-foot pole for this nonsense. Alright-

He took a few paces back, coming at the door at a bit of a run to give it a good, hard kick, and immediately skidded and dove to the side.

Nothing, save the bang of the door hitting the wall on the other side.

Cautiously he peered into the doorway-

“Oh, for f*ck’s sake.” he groaned, glaring out into the shared hallway between his and Yugi’s soul rooms and hearing the brickwork behind him rearrange itself into the throne room, the Fancy Chair reappearing. He glared over his shoulder at it, the one thing made of marble and not sandstone, and gave it the extremely satisfying middle-finger gesture he’d learned from Tristan.

Still- He stepped into the hall, silent. -even if it is just me in here with him, it’s not safe to leave his mind open like this.

Yugi’s door opened inward, so he had to reach into the room if he wanted to close it- and something about it felt intrusive. It’s not like I’m entering without his permission, but- He hesitated, hand out and through the frame but not quite touching the knob. -after everything else, should I even do this? He deserves his privacy, but should I even be touching the door or-

“Yami?” Yugi called.

Yami frose, back and neck prickling. There was a shuffling of Fabric and suddenly Yugi appeared in the frame.

“Oh! It’s- you look different!” Yugi startled, then laughed.

Yami blinked at him in confusion, then looked down at himself. What had changed? This was his usual linen skirt and tunic, Even the cape was- He remembered earlier, dueling not-Seto while wearing Yugi’s short jacket and weirdly constricting pants, even when he was a ghost beside him.

“Oh! I… I guess this is what I remember wearing.” he realized. “I was just- the door was open and I-”

“I mostly meant how you look properly Egyptian.” Yugi laughed, and Yami realized he was a different color from before as well- now a rich brown instead of Yugi’s pale pink.

“...Huh.” He said, turning his hand over. “I hadn’t noticed, I mean, just now and earlier today- nothing seemed off at the time.”

They both frowned at his hands.

“Why would I look different when you’re awake?”
“Why would you look different when I’m awake?”

They both asked at once. Yugi laughed, and stepped back, beckoning him in. “We’ll add it to the list of mysteries to solve, right after ‘what the hell is going on with our hair’. Come in!”

“I was- I mean, I don’t want to intrude-” Yami mumbled, looking away from Yugi.

“I’m inviting you in! You’re worse than Bakura!” Yugi laughed, taking his hand and pulling him through the doorway. “Sorry it’s kind of a mess in here.” he sighed, kicking a few of the toys and games aside to clear a path to the bed, tugging Yami after him.

“It’s in a better state than mine.” Yami muttered, looking around- it wasn’t quite Yugi’s room, there was an extra sort of cubbyhole off to the side with even more plush toys and simple shape-matching games. A leftover from his nursery days?

“Oh no! It’s not in ruins is it?” Yugi sat on the bed, patting the mattress beside him.

“Er. No. Intact just- what’s the word- Quantum?” he tried.

“Oof.” Yugi winced. “That Amnesia must have done a real number on you. You can sleep here if it’s safer.” he offered.

Yami stared down at the boy, bewildered. “...How can you offer me something like that?”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to offend y-”

“No, no I mean-” Yami grabbed at his head, shaking it, trying to clear whatever was getting between him and his mouth. “-I’m already intruding so much! I’m using your body! I’m getting your family in trouble! I’m making out with your lover! I- I’m sorry. I didn’t want to violate your… everything.”

“...Ah.” Yugi nodded, glaring at the floor. “I mean it’s- Ugh, come join me it’s hard to explain with you just standing there like that.”

He waited as Yami sputtered and waved his hands some more, trying to object, failing, and sat down on the bed next to him, before flopping on his back beside the Pharaoh, staring at the ceiling.

“Okay, so this is… it’s weird. I’m not gonna lie, I’ve spent most of today going ‘weird weird weird-’ in the back of my head, but-” He sighed, waving his hand to beckon the words he wanted.

“...I think I’ve been peripherally aware of you for at least six months now. And in that time, I’ve gone from ‘guy that was alone all the time and regularly got the crap beaten out of him’ to ‘guy with a squad of ride-or-die friends who came to a magical hell island with him and who only got the tar beaten out of him once this year’. Which- alright. Burgerville was bad. We should not have been playing with fire. Or letting Joey play Scorpion Shoe Roulette or uh, bringing a roof down on a gang with a yo-yo, or trying to do magical brain surgery on Seto…” he counted off.

Yami winced, turning his face from Yugi to stare at a plush rabbit on the floor.

“Sorry, my point is, even with all that? My life’s gotten miles better since you came into it, and you’ve gotten better too! You’ve really backed down on the eye-for-an-eye, skulls-for-the-skull throne style justice.” He smiled weakly up at Yami. “Maybe it’s… selfish, even a little sad*stic, but before you- I’d get beat up in an alley or stalked or bullied and nothing changed, but since you started helping me- and that’s really all you’ve ever done, acted on what I thought my own best interests were, and I really, REALLY can’t fault you for that- I’ve been able to Do Something about my circ*mstances.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is- If someone’s been the danger here, it’s been me, and you’ve only ever helped me- both in terms of Not Dying and Not Being An Asshole.” Yugi sighed. “I think I like having you intruding on my life, Yami.”

“...I’ve gotten you involved in some kind of soul-stealing magical hell game Yugi.” Yami stared down at him.

Yugi shrugged. “Honestly? I remember right before I finished the puzzle last Halloween, I missed a whole week of class when Ushiyo broke my ribs and when I got back? Nobody noticed I’d been gone. All I could think about was how lonely I was, and that all I had to look forward to was another year of getting beaten up and bullied and how nobody would really miss me if I just… fell into a canal or jumped off the roof at school.”

He could almost feel Yami’s horrified stare on his skin.

“I was wrong, of course- Grandpa would have been devastated and Téa… I don’t really want to think about what she might have done. But the Brain is a Big Fat Liar sometimes and I was sure that nobody really loved me, or that I was a burden to the people who did.” He sighed, still staring at the glow-in-the-dark sticker stars on his ceiling.

“The thing that stopped me was that I hadn’t finished putting the Puzzle together, and I just couldn’t leave it undone.” he laughed, only a little bit sarcastic. “...Do you remember last Halloween? I remember waking up right around Sunset and I could see how the last three pieces went in- I had to disassemble the whole damn thing to do it, because there’s an order to how they go in? But I remember clicking the eye piece in the front in and- I’m beginning to think I wasn’t hallucinating the rush of light or wind now, but it was like something… lifted.

“I wanted to get out of my room, to go see the town for the first time in ages and it didn’t even occur to me to be scared of people lurking in alleyways or serial killers in disguise or the other violent bullsh*t that’s been parading through my life and- it was easy? Like I struggled to get up and put my coat on that morning but that night I was out the door before grandpa even noticed and I must have walked from Osaka Castle to Huntington beach. I had blisters for a week! But I felt… alive again. Not well, but… better.” He felt himself smiling at the memory. “Was that you?”

Yami was silent beside him, but he slowly laid down next to Yugi, forehead pressed to Yugi’s shoulder. “...I don’t know? I remember a night with lots of children dressed as monsters and staring out onto a completely black ocean and just… breathing. I don’t think I had breathed for a long time before that.”

“Yeah, that was Halloween.” Yugi nodded, feeling Yami’s hair against his cheek. “That- That was the night I stopped wanting to die. Even before Joey and Tristan decided to be my friends, or I got the guts to start talking to Téa again. And since then, even with Burgerville, and Seto and this- even with all the Magical Hell Games, it’s better than I was.”

Yami shivered, shoving his face into the crook of Yugi’s neck and holding him close in a death-grip.

“Hey- hey, I’m okay now.” Yugi rolled over to face him, stroking his hair. “..It is kinda f*cked up when I say it out loud like that.” Yugi admitted before turning to face Yami. “But really. This is an improvement, overall. I like having you here.”

He wrapped his arms around Yami’s shoulders, “I like you.” he admitted, not quite able to look at Yami either.

“...I was dead.” Yami whispered.

Yugi squeezed him back, waiting for the rest of it.

“I was dead and you brought me back from death.” he mumbled, voice strained. He rolled over so Yugi was on his back, Yami’s forehead pressed to his, the King’s eyes still closed. “My gratitude and devotion to you are eternal. I am to you as Osiris is to Isis.”

Yugi stared up at Yami, too close to be in focus. “...They’re married, right?” Yugi tried to remember. Grandpa had tried to explain the Egyptian Pantheon before but after a while the murder and incest and solar-lunar cycle started to run together.

“Yes, Beloved.” Yami smiled, and delicately shifted position to give Yugi a gentle, chaste kiss. “I like you too.” He teased.

Yugi laughed, leaning up to return Yami’s kiss and for a moment, it was all they could do to hold each other, no longer alone. Gentle kisses- Yami was fond of kissing Yugi’s eyes and neck, Yugi his mouth and forehead- arms wrapped around each other, legs tangled, tears of relief blotting the sheets. Gradually, hands began to explore- Yugi ran his hands over Yami’s more-developed back muscles, digging his fingers into them and reveling in Yami’s carnal groan. Yami sat up some to nuzzle at the soft skin of Yugi’s abdomen, reveling in the softness of his body-

“Wait-” Yugi grunted, sitting up, hand on Yami’s shoulder. “What direction were we facing when we fell asleep?”

“Uh-” Yami had to stop and think. “On your right? The not-broken arm.”

“I mean- who was in front of us?”

“Bakura. Why?” Yami co*cked his head, confused.

“We better stop for now.” Yugi sighed, disappointed. “Téa would probably find waking up with a boner jabbing into her leg really funny, but I genuinely don’t know what Bakura’s deal is.”

“Ah.” Yami nodded. “That is probably wise.” He climbed back onto the bed, stretching out beside Yugi. Yugi wiggled until he could stretch out on his side, sprawled a bit over Yami, head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. They lay for a while, just resting.

“I have a… not a question, exactly.” Yami murmured, stroking Yugi’s hair. “-But what ARE the sexual mores of this time? I may be rather out-of-date when it comes to taboos and… practices.”

Yugi snorted with laughter. “Okay yeah uh- so you might have noticed that I, uh. Like people. Of several genders. Girls. Boys. Whatever Bakura has going on.”

“Your fantasies are exceptionally loud and vivid, yes.” Yami nodded and Yugi wheezed, turning scarlet. “It helped, actually. My mind is a labyrinth and the moaning helped locate the exit.”

“Oh joy.” Yugi groaned. “That’s me. The Moanitaur.”

“PFFBBth-” Yami choked a bit, laughing now. “-I can almost see it as a duel monsters card. For some sort of adults-only joke deck.” He teased, stroking Yugi’s back. “But this sounds familiar- I think- If I was King, that my sex life would have been highly political. I can’t recall-” he paused, chewing his lip, searching for words. He sat up on one elbow, lazily drawing shapes on Yugi’s chest with his fingertips.

“-I couldn’t tell you names, or what they really looked like, beyond ‘Tall and Brunette’, but there were lovers. Mostly male. I think… I think it was perhaps encouraged that I go sow wild oats with the boys around the palace rather than potentially muddy the line of succession with the maid or the wrong noble’s daughter. Very different from what was expected of say, a bricklayer, who’d be encouraged to marry and have children as soon as possible in case he became injured and needed to be looked after.”

“Hm.” Yugi nodded. “The thing is… Ok, being into lots of people and lots of people at the same time, rather than monogamy is… Well, it’s not Illegal, not anymore, but it’s still sort of taboo.”

“You’re telling me to use caution with who I express our preferences to?” Yami asked, pausing his doodling. “I remember your Physical Education teacher threatening poor Bakura for not conforming to his ideas of masculinity.”

“Ugh, f*ck.” Yugi groaned. “You know he’s still employed at the school after everything? At least he’s stopped trying to make Bakura do push-ups.”

“Hmm…” Yami considered.

“NO.” Yugi glared up at him. “No Shadow Games On Civilians. Or like. People who aren’t magically equipped in their own right, no matter how much they deserve it. Not… Not after what happened to Seto.” He winced.

“Of course not, Beloved. I was thinking more in terms of an elaborate and cunning but perfectly mundane practical joke.” Yami leaned down to kiss his forehead. “...Do you think it’s possible Seto will recover?”

Yugi stared up past him at the stars, silent. Yami felt a heaviness about them, almost tactile. In Yugi’s soul room, the weight of guilt felt like gravity increasing around them, making it hard to stand and breathe. He looked out Yugi’s window-

There was a giant chess piece outside.
A black knight, the size of an apartment building.
It also appeared to be moving, drifting slowly through the span of the aperture like a cloud through the sky.

It was occurring to Yami that he had, initially and incorrectly, assumed that the relative smallness and simplicity of Yugi’s soul room was indicative of a relative smallness and simplicity of their Souls, and Secondly, that he might have been slightly correct about the complexity of the room correlating to the complexity of the soul as he sat up all the way to look out the window and realized Yugi’s home was sitting in the middle of a game board larger than Domino City, possibly even larger than the entire Los Osaka Basin, with pieces large and small of every game imaginable, moving independently of Yugi’s direction, like contemplating a problem in the back of one’s mind, rules glittering like shimmering roads and bridges and other infrastructure, all part of a Great Game that Yami wasn’t entirely sure he was capable of understanding.

By comparison, the ever-shifting maze of his own mind looked positively childish.

“I don’t know.” Yugi sighed beside him and Yami had to fight to not startle. “People do wake up from comas, but that’s usually within a day or two, and it’s been almost over a month now. And even if he does come back there’s no guarantee he hasn’t got permanent brain damage, especially if Pegasus was able to pull something that… complete out of the shadow realm. We tore out an enormous piece of him, even if it was a tumor, and- Well, people don’t recover from stuff like that without Divine Intervention, and after what I’ve seen of Divine Intervention today, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone someone I’d hoped might be my friend.”

Yugi sat up, following Yami’s gaze. “Oh yeah.” Yugi laughed. “The Perfect Game. I think I’ve been trying to build that in the back of my head for even longer than I was trying to solve the puzzle.” He shrugged, as though it were a mere amusem*nt, a thought that gave Yami the same chill of fear that he’d felt earlier that day when he saw Yugi’s face peering through the crack in the door.

“Best-Case Scenario? Even if he wakes up tomorrow, perfectly functional and able to live his life without issue? I don’t think he’ll want to hear an apology. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if he sent assassins after me and grandpa or something.” Yugi laughed, depressed. “He’s certainly not about to drop in and make friends with us after all that.”

“Hm.” Yami nodded, still ill over what he’d done… completely thoughtlessly. The possibility that the action could have consequences- or anything beyond his own rage and desire for this harassment to end- simply hadn’t occurred to him. He could feel his heart racing, room beginning to spin as he silently berated himself for ruining a man’s life over- over what, really? A Card? Was this really all so important that the magic and ritual and risk was justified or was he trying to comfort his own conscience-?

“What’s that noise?” Yugi glared up at the ceiling.

“I am sorry- I am much disquieted and perhaps in the intimacy of the soul rooms, you can hear my fearful heart-” Yami muttered, eyes shifting in paranoia.

“No, no, that’s not it.” Yugi waved, getting up and glaring at the ceiling, climbing on his desk to peer out the skylight. “...It sounds like a Helicopter?

*

“Alright Business, so here is how to jump out of moving aircraft without dying- First, spread out arms and legs like flying squirrel.” Sergei demonstrated.

Bewildered, lost for context and slightly intoxicated out of his usual contrarian nature, Seto copied him.

“Excellent! Right, now stand in front of door like that, and when Misha makes the next pass, I’ll kick you out at lowest point.” Sergei explained, moving Seto into place. “You won’t have much room to aim, but try to glide onto anything that will crumple when you hit it- bushes, the tent- because that’s how you don’t break your everything. Do not aim for water! Water does not crumple!”

“Flying squirrel, aim for the tent.” Seto repeated, nodding like he remotely understood what was happening.

“Yes!” Cheered Sergei with entirely unwarranted confidence. “When you get close, curl into a ball like in nuclear attack drill, like from elementary school? Cover head with hands, and just roll whenever you make contact.”

“We had earthquake drills.” Said Seto. “They always told us to get in a doorframe.”

“Well, when jumping out of moving helicopter without parachute or in event of nuclear apocalypse, crouch and cover your head before anything makes impact. Got it?”

“Squirrel, tent, crouch like the world is ending?” Seto tried, still standing in front of the Helicopter door with his arms and legs spread.

“Perfect!” Applauded Sergei. “Here, take briefcase with your techno-frisbees, and this-” He handed Seto the briefcase and wedged something that felt like a beer bottle wrapped in a dishtowel into his pants pocket. “-Only for emergencies or major celebrations, OK?” he said, patting the thing Seto was now worried might be an improvised chemical weapon and/or homemade alcoholic beverage.

And then he was falling. It was freezing cold and dark and the wind seemed determined to rip his eyes out of his skull, but Adrenaline was a hell of a drug, and he found the small purple tent, tilting forward to glide toward it.

I should add a flight mechanic to the Virtual Reality Game, this is actually kind of fun. He thought, eyes focused on the tent. Right. Squirrel. Tent. Then- uh-

Fortunately, the more primeval parts of Seto’s brain still remembered his previous lives as an arboreal primate and he managed to get into a face-covering crouch in time before he slammed into the tent, feeling the rainfly tear, poles snap, and the protesting of what felt like half a dozen people under him.

I was wrong. Flying’s fun. Landing sucks. He mused, having come to a stop upside-down, tangled in the remains of the rainfly, and with his back against a large log, glaring at the tent as its inhabitants extracted themselves from the remains of the shelter, cursing and staring him down with some incredulity.

It’s a good thing I don’t know anyone here. He thought, pointedly ignoring his back pain as he tried to get loose from his ripstop nylon prison. The last thing I need is to be seen like this by-

“SETO?” shouted an alarmingly familiar hairstyle.

…by Yugi. Seto froze like the badly taxidermied deer Gozaboro had in his smoking room that looked less like the tycoon had shot it and more like it had been drunkenly run over by a golf cart. Yugi certainly hit him with the force of a battery-operated car with a top speed of a ‘tepid’, but what he lacked in physical inertia he more than made up for in emotional impact.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!” the little calico man screamed, cutting through the Nylon with startling efficiency and an even more startlingly sharp switchblade that had come out of nowhere and was now inches from Seto’s groin and Femoral Artery. Seto was barely managing to process that particular unidentifiable emotion when more people began to emerge from the tent, and he recognized some of those hairstyles as well.

“YOU DUMBsh*t BASTARD!” Shouted Yugi’s friend with the budding pompadour. “YOU’RE GODDAMNED LUCKY I HAD CLOSED THE ALCHEMY KIT WHEN YOU HIT, I COULD HAVE TURNED YOU INTO A NEWT!”

“Oh.” Seto said, still upside-down and limbs sluggish to respond to him. “You’re the guy that shot McGuire and Crazy Eddie at Death-T.”

“YOU’RE LUCKY I DON’T BLOW YOUR BALLS OFF RIGHT NOW YOU RAT BASTARD.” Tristan shouted, and Seto finally noticed the chest holster he was wearing for… He wasn’t sure exactly what make and model from this angle and the darkness, but something of that Caliber would blow off his entire pelvis up close.

“What’s Death-T?” asked a stranger… maybe. Yugi had a lot of friends and only one or two of them had normal hair, but he didn’t remember an Albino. He didn’t remember Yugi being this handy with a knife either, or his hands being so warm on his face as he tried to help Seto up and-

“You okay Mai?” Oh Hell it’s Wheeler.

“Yes, thanks Sweetheart.” Said another distressingly familiar voice. “What the hell hit us, it felt like we got run over by a moos- SETO?”

“Hello Miss Valentine.” Seto growled.

“You two know each other?” Joey asked, remarkably amiable considering the circ*mstances, but Seto suspected Wheeler was the result of an experiment of putting dog brains into human bodies.

“Oh yeah, we know each other from the tournament circuit.” Mai waved cheerfully. “- Weren’t you in a coma? What are you doing falling out of the sky? You’re not seeing double or experiencing nausea, right?”

“...I got better.” Seto grunted, finally getting himself upright and almost getting his bearings before he was suddenly and forcibly hugged about his midsection by Yugi.

“I am so, so sorry for what I did to you.” Yugi apologized, voice muffled by how hard he had his face pressed into Seto’s middle and it made his stomach flip in a way that even diving out of the helicopter hadn’t been able to do.

“Here-” Yugi let go of him, running back to the tent that Téa and Joey were attempting to set up again and grabbing his backpack with an apology. He returned, pressing something into Seto’s hand and he looked down to see…

The Blue Eyes White Dragon. His deck. I knew Pegasus had stolen my deck but… how did Yugi get it, and why just. Hand it back to me? Unless he took- no, all three of them are here. None of my cards look marked or damaged either…

“-Technically Bakura found them but it’s been a crazy night and I thought you might want them back as soon as possible. Uh, if you want, I think we have some leftover curry you can eat and there’s probably room for you to squeeze into the tent until morning-” Yugi was babbling.

“Whatever, it was a fluke and I can defeat you any time-” Seto huffed. “-But I don’t have time for old scores now, I need to find Mokuba.” he stood up, pocketing his deck and turning on his heel.

Yugi was right beside him, following his turn like a Corgi at the hocks of a Bull.

“Well, Mokuba escaped from- I mean, Pegasus- Well, it’s kind of a long story but- Okay, I’m reasonably sure Mokuba got away clean from Pegasus’ goons and he’s on his way to a safe location on the island but it’s after midnight and pitch black out, how are you going to find him in-”

“Mokuba has a cellular tracker in his ankle. I just need to find a satellite-enabled device and I’ll be able to locate him in seconds.” Seto growled, trying to step around Yugi and failing.

“Oh! I’ve got a satellite laptop! … somewhere up the hill in that direction.” Mai offered, then faltered.

“Gimmie a Minute.” Joey said, disappearing into the bushes. Of course he loves playing fetch.

“You TAGGED your brother?” Tristan asked, still bewildered and furious. “YOU TAGGED HIM LIKE A WOLVERINE??”

“...This isn’t the first time he’s been kidnapped.” Seto admitted.

-

Odion was sitting at the radio of The Chariot of Ra, waiting for the Kua Bay Port Authority to give him clearance to dock. Apparently some cruise liner had turned up unexpectedly and it was creating a snarl of Red Tape that was taking ages to sort out. He looked fondly down at Marik, leaning over the bow and excitedly pointing at the jellyfish in the water around the boat while Hodgekiss kept a hand on him to prevent him accidentally going overboard and Stephannie kept a hand on both of them.

Odion sneezed suddenly, and was hit with a violent flashback to the first time he and Marik had ended up in Verona and gotten separated. Odion had suffered a three-day panic attack scouring the city for his brother, and Marik had a wild three-day weekend where he somehow convinced the gang that had kidnapped him for unspeakable purposes to come work for him instead, which is when they’d acquired DiCinello and Watts.

Specifically, Odion vividly recalled having an unhinged conversation with an even less hinged veterinarian after the fact about Subdermal GPS tracking microchips and if the device could plausibly be snuck into certain wayward blondes if hidden in the middle of “vaccine booster shots”.

“...What the hell brought that on?” he glared into the distance.

Hayfever? Suggested Mousetrap, doing an excellent shrug for something without shoulders.

-

“Alright.” Said Yugi with an annoyingly patronizing tone people always took when Seto was trying to get something done already, stop slowing him down. “Joey will get Mai’s laptop and we can figure out where Mokuba is, and THEN we’ll make a plan, alright? Please sit down, you just got out of a coma and- how did you even get here?”

“None of your business, nerd.” Seto growled, trying to sidestep Yugi again and failing. Beside him, Tristan was muttering something to the albino kid- Bakura? Whatever. “Wheeler couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map, get out of my way-”

He shoved Yugi back, to a chorus of dismayed “HEY!”s behind him, the boy glaring up at him and-

“Seto.” Yugi growled, more menacingly than someone the size of a carnival plushie should be able to, getting up. “Sit Down.”

“Make me.” Seto leered, looming over Yugi.

There was a blur of motion, and suddenly Yugi’s left hand was in his collar and Seto was sharply pulled down onto one knee in front of his rival, eye-to-eye with the enraged little man.

“Look, I’m really, really sorry I put you in a coma and I will never hurt you again, and that means not letting you hurt yourself either, you f*cking moron!” Yugi barked, nose-to-nose with Seto. “It’s late, it’s dark, there’s clowns and giant hellhounds and maybe a chupacabra roaming the island, and again- You. Just. Got. Out. Of. A. f*cking. Coma. So shut up, sit down, eat something and we’ll figure out how to find Mokuba in a reasonable way, instead of just charging off into the bush like Animals.” Yugi’s breath was hot on Seto’s face and gaze unflinching. He twisted his hand in Seto’s collar, pulling it tight around his throat and up under his chin, forcing Seto to look at him back, his heart racing with fear and-

“f*ck! ALRIGHT!” Seto yelped, flinching first. Embarrassing. But Yugi relaxed his grip, glaring at Seto for a moment before letting go and taking his hand instead, leading him back to the smoldering remains of the campfire.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Seto muttered, rubbing his neck and trying to ignore how easy it was for Yugi to pull him along.

“You first, asshole.” Yugi glared up at him, before he forcibly stopped himself, sighing. “I- I’m sorry.” he muttered, back to his usual shrinking violet act.

Seto pointedly didn’t look at Yugi either as he sat down. “-And you didn’t put me in a Coma.” He huffed by way of reassurance. Of all the things Yugi did to me, he picks something that didn’t happen to feel bad about..?

“What?” Yugi asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

“I’ll admit, losing to you was… unpleasant.” Seto rolled his eyes- he had to look up to avoid Yugi’s gaze. “But whoever heard of going into a coma over losing a card game?”

Yugi and Bakura shared a Pointed Look that Seto decided he didn’t want to actually hear the context for. Probably more Heart of the Cards Bullcrap.

“Okay…” Yugi nodded slowly. “If it wasn’t the game, what was it?”

“I had a stroke.” Seto said with utmost confidence. Wait. I had a STROKE?

“You had a stroke?” Yugi asked, not-so-guileless eyes wide. “-at seventeen?”

“WHAT.” Mai repeated.

“I have a very stressful job.” Seto huffed. “...and I. Might not have been entirely. In control of my senses at the time. And. Overreacted. A bit.”

“A BIT-?” Téa shouted, right in his ear, making him jump. “BITCH, YOU DAMN NEAR MURDERED US OVER A f*ckING CARD GAME!!” She roared, arm pulled back to knock his teeth out.

“Téa-!” Yugi cautioned, standing up and between them as Bakura shuffled to the other end of the log with almost cartoonish speed.

“~TA-DA!!” sang Joey, sliding down the hill and to the other side of the campfire in a dramatic pose, Mai’s satellite laptop held aloft over his head.

Everyone froze.

“What?” Joey asked. “Oh! Is it ‘Beat Kaiba’s Scrawny Ass For Tryin’ To Kill Us’ time?”

“NO! NOBODY’S BEATING ANYBODY UP AFTER I WENT THROUGH HALF THE FIRST-AID KIT PATCHING YOU UP ALREADY.” Mai snapped, and even Téa jumped to attention. “Alright, Seto, do the thing with the Laptop to find Mokuba. Yugi- you help him. Tristan, we’re all still hangry, what else did you pack that doesn’t need heating up?”

“Coupla Giggles bars and Twunkies.” He muttered.

“-Go get those. Joey, you’re on lookout, we don’t need another clown incident. Téa, you explain to me and Bakura what the f*ck is happening here.” She glared imperiously down at them.

“Yes’m.” Muttered the gang.

“Clown Incident?” Asked Bakura.

“My ass isn’t scrawny.” Seto pouted.

“LAPTOP!” Mai barked, shoving the device into his lap.

“FINE!” he barked back, opening the computer and waiting for it to boot. “f*ck, everyone’s in a real pissy mood.”

“Like I said, it was a sh*t day, you did try to murder most of us last time we met, and you woke us up with a flying bodyslam at 1 AM.” Yugi yawned. He studied Seto, considering something and Seto pretended he wasn’t about to jump out of his skin being scrutinized like this.

“...A Stroke?” Yugi said with quiet, polite incredulity.

“Shut. Up.” grunted Seto, glaring at the code on the screen and typing furiously.

Yugi sat in silence a while longer, the only sound being Téa attempting to explain to Bakura that she had very nearly kicked a man to death earlier tonight, much to his delight.

“...Promise not to build another one?” Yugi asked, voice low and soft.

“What?” Seto blinked. “Oh, another Death-T. No, I won’t. It didn’t work, and I’ll probably lose the company entirely if I pull another stunt like that.” He shrugged.

Yugi’s stare didn’t waver from his face.

“-and I don’t really want to kill you anyway.” He shrugged, ears and neck burning.

“I never wanted to hurt you either, Seto.” Yugi said, voice soft in that way that hurt Seto to listen to, for some reason. “I’m sorry.”

Seto sighed, eyes screwed shut. Why? What the hell is this? I feel like I got kicked in the stomach, but worse. It’s everywhere, like-

“I’m sorry too, okay?” He snapped, hissing the words lest anyone else hear. “Now stop f*cking apologizing for something you didn’t do.”

Yugi’s incomprehensible stare lasted a moment more, as though having an argument with himself, before he finally looked away and Seto had to fight to not immediately sigh with relief. Yugi then shoved his arm up, pulled his coat open and scooted in close enough to huddle under Seto’s coat with him.

He- He just- The Audacity of this little bastard-! Seto froze at the invasion, ready to shove Yugi off the log but-

He felt it again, consciously this time.

Yugi was shivering.

…Goddamnit.

Seto groaned a deep and aggravated sigh, shifting his weight to pull more of his coat around Yugi, and tucking the small man under his arm, roughly rubbing Yugi’s shoulder to warm him up. “You f*cking dumbass, don’t you own a real coat?”

Yugi smirked a bit, not quite looking up at him.

“Shut up.” Seto glared.

“I said nothing! But no, this is the warmest one I have.” Yugi smiled quietly. “Thank you.”

“I said shut up.” Seto muttered, awkwardly typing around Yugi under his arm. “Miss Valentine, your Laptop’s satellite connection sucks ass.”

“It’s because I’m f*cking poor, sweetie.” She called. “-Also, you need better hobbies, what the hell.”

“Oh, is Death-T that Murderhouse thing you were telling me about while we were on the way to Yugi’s house to watch the regionals? Téa’’s description of the rhythm block chamber makes it sound rather inspired, actually!” Chirped Bakura.

“IT WAS NOT, ASSHOLE.” Growled Tristan, shoving a Twunkie into Bakura’s mouth to shut him up.

“What the f*ck is wrong with your friend, Yugi?” Seto muttered, warily eyeing Bakura.

“He’s been designing a Tabletop RPG as a hobby.” Yugi explained.

“Ah.” Seto nodded. The paper-and-dice people were a breed apart.

“He’s actually a really good Dungeon Master when he’s not possessed.” Yugi nodded.

Seto heard the word ‘possessed’, then decided he didn’t actually. “I thought a Dungeon Master was the guy at a BDSM club with the leather bodysuit.” He teased, watching the connection upload bar on Mai’s laptop crawl at an agonizingly slow pace.

“Nah that’s more my thing.” Grinned Yugi, flicking his collar and winking playfully up at Seto.

“Dude you okay?” Joey asked as Seto broke out in a sudden coughing fit that very nearly dumped Mai’s laptop into the remains of the campfire.

“OH LOOK AT THAT, IT FINALLY f*ckING CONNECTED, WHERE THE HELL IS MOKUBA.” Shouted Seto, scrolling furiously through the Map- there were a ton of cell phones on the island, and all the duel arenas were geotagged too, but- “Here, on the far North end of the island, near the castle-” He zoomed in, confirming Mokuba, or at least his left foot, was actually on the beach and not in Pegasus’ castle.

“Oh good, that’s the route Kemo told him to take, he should be meeting up with the Gardener any time now.” Tristan said, peering over Seto’s shoulder at the map and offering him a Giggles Candy Bar.

“I don’t have time for Candy, I need to get to Mokuba!” He shouted, trying to stand only to find Yugi’s hand twisted in his collar again. Yugi glared up at him until he sat back down again, eyeing the small man warily. Yugi nodded, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a SamSong phone.

“Here, can you call this cell signal right next to Mokuba?” Yugi pointed to a cell signal that looked like it was only a few feet from Mokbua. “It’s not a Nihofornia area code, so whoever it is isn’t one of Pegasus’ goons. We can call him, and he can see if Mokuba is OK. It’s a lot faster and safer than running through the woods at night.”

Seto glared furiously at him, but took the phone and carefully dialed the number.

*

"Thief King, Haunted Ring, Lord of Shadow-

Snow-haired, storm-eyed, …Something that rhymes with shadow.
Sanguine Robe,

Ghost Of The Globe,

Star-sailor, Demon-Jailor… What the hell are you?” he paused, lifting up the large, brightly colored flowers from where they had been uprooted and tossed into the pews in the chaos of Necrophades’ departure.

The Thief had been composing a poem of his names- or, titles, at least, as he remembered them, hoping the rhyme would continue to remind him as he tried to get the ruins of his mind together. So far, he’d recognized all the memories he’d managed to dredge from the rubble and ichor- Here, the marble statues he’d graffitied with Old Dio, the innermost robe that Murasaki No Kimi wore at court, Buccy’s bridle…

These, however, were new. Several large, leafy shrubs with weirdly geometric flowers the size of his whole face. Most plants he knew- you didn’t spend a lifetime with Nebuchadnezzar’s Gardener and NOT leave with an encyclopedic knowledge of botany. But the Bloom in his hands was entirely novel to his (admittedly, trashed) recollection.

“A shame, Balthazar would have f*cking loved you.” He said, turning the bloom in his hand, studying it. “But if this isn’t MY memory, then-?”

He glared over his shoulder at The Gateway.

He was very sure that hadn’t been there earlier- for one thing, the middle of the altar in his personal temple was a space he’d deliberately left unoccupied, having nothing worth worshiping. But now there was a gateway there- not even a gate set in the frame, just an open portal with shadow and faint metallic glints beyond. He turned, standing in the nave before the altar and stalked up to it like a leopard trying to decide if this new interloper was predator or prey.

“I well know what passage to which you lead, for such aperture as yours I have met nearly five score times before.” he muttered to the gateway and the shadows beyond it. “And under less trying times I should rejoice at your appearance and rush to greet the adjoining soul, but having glimpsed he who lives on the other side, I find myself… reserved.”

“It is to the house of Blackwood that I am by Divine Providence bound, and perhaps it should not be surprising if the familial resemblance of my host bears out in such fashion-” he waved, conversational. There had been a lot of soliloquizing to the furniture in his imprisonment. “-and I should rejoice if this is my Destiny made flesh, but I was charged with being his caretaker and I have been absent at best, and a charge of negligence would fit better still. What would for me be the cause of joy might to my host be the cause of much sorrow. My own face was used by his tormentor, he wouldn’t know me from The Devil Itself given his circ*mstances.”

He stopped short, about to step on something wooden on the floor. A Painting set in a frame? He didn’t have many of those. “Bill?” he asked, picking up the corner.

Instead of his Bard, he found the portrait of a young boy and girl in an elaborately frilly dress, their features perhaps a little romanticized, but those large black eyes and white manes were unmistakable.

“HAH! No Blackwood ever had Rosy Cheeks like that. A corpse would have been a more accurate model.” he laughed, setting the painting upright and studying it. He delicately touched the cheek of the boy. “Be this you Love, from some happier time? Not anymore, since you were beset by that Demon- In less than a week I had crumbled to all but dust under Its vile presence, but you- You have grown into a most fearsome man under the burden of Its assault. You are a far stronger man than I, able to fight It for years and then free yourself from Its influence. Will you dispatch me for my failures with such violence as well?”

In one of the pews, the greek marble he’d set there for safekeeping scraped loudy against the wood as she shifted to the side, her recumbent posture making her appear to glare at him.

“A well-reasoned objection, fair Venus,” he nodded. “It is not his potential rejection that I fear to face, but my own guilt.” he sighed, delicately stroking the cheek of the boy.

He stood up and shook himself like a dog. “Cowardice! Cowardice and petty philosophy! Who am I? I am the King of All Thieves and the Lord of Love and no just monarch engages in such unseemly dithering!” he declared, thumping his fist to his chest. “There is no place that may deny me entrance, and no heart I cannot steal! I am Eros and Apollo, and you will be loved as you have never been loved before!” he declared with a dramatic flap of his robe, tucking both the portrait and strange flora under his arm and running up the steps to his altar, through the gate-

-and directly into a barrier that shocked him like a bolt of lightning. The blow was visceral, crackling between his teeth and sending him flying back out the gate and tumbling down the steps, rolling head-over-heels down the nave.

“Devilry! Alchemy! Bullsh*t!” he roared, jumping to his feet and rolling his sleeves back. He returned more carefully to the altar, glaring at the lattice of wire and- Well, he wasn’t sure what this gray, sticky-on-one-side-and-waterproof-on-the-other bandage was, only that he wanted several dozen yards of it- that criss-crossed the far side of the gateway, faintly glowing with arcane energy, decorated with protective charms and amulets and powered by an exceptionally stubborn force of will.

“Ah. Whatshisface. Tristan.” He sighed, the connection of Memory between him and his host not blocked by that barrier at least. “No nemesis will do such harm as a well-meaning Ally.” he muttered, glaring at the charms, trying to divine what divinity they were drawing power from by shape alone, having to view them from behind…

…From Behind.

“Ah! No wonder I couldn’t recognize your sigil at first. And weaving it directly into the wire- very adept, that’d strengthen the effect of your ward to an incredible degree without much energy on your part! An excellent jailer you might make, Master Taylor.” he snickered, bounding down the steps to gather the partially-digested remains of a wool tapestry and a set of copper embalming tools. “-If you could remember to put the lock on the correct side!”

It took some time to unravel the tapestry back into the skein of yarn it was made from, tie it to the end of the copper nasal hook, and spool the yarn out from the gateway, out through the entrance to the temple and into the reflecting pool in front of it, pouring water over the thread on his way back to make sure it was thoroughly soaked. Using two sticks of scrap wood, he carefully- carefully! Picked up the copper hook, and delicately hooked it through the loop made by the final tie-off in the sigil Tristan had woven into the wire, being careful to not touch the two until the last possible second, when he let go of the wood and dove for cover.

The resulting ZAP left lights dancing in his eyes even though he’d closed and covered them, and set the soaked wool alight with a hiss of steam and the vile smell of burning lanolin.

“HA! My genius remains unparalleled!” he grinned, sauntering up to the at-least-temporarily-blown magical barrier, which was faintly smoking. He wrapped his hands in the corners of his cotton robe to protect them from the heat, and pulled the wires apart, until he could wedge bits of what looked like broken chariot in between them to make a suitable hole through which to pass, even if the barrier re-charged in his absence. He retrieved the strange flowers and the painting, carefully passing them through the hole before exiting himself.

His caution was well-warranted, because where there was normally a hall barely the width of a stride, there was instead a massive chasm, connection between Ring and Bearer rent apart in the battle between the Demon and his host. He stood in silence for a moment, observing the gap, and the abyssal shadows at the bottom that suggested that there might not be a bottom at all.

“Cunning and Brutal I may be but neither brains nor brawn alone will serve me here.” he sighed, taking off his coat. He turned it around, holding it aloft so the gold embroidery on the back glittered in the faint light.

“Now, you and I both know I don’t go in for Worship, but I know when to ask for help.” he addressed the Goddess on the back, whose wings stretched across the shoulders. “-and you are a duty-bound protector of children and the sick. Given that he was left unprotected as a child and is healthy as a horse these days, I think you and I both owe him one. So help me help him, yeah?” He glared at Isis, Goddess of Life and Magic. “I’m going to take a flying leap across that hole, and you make sure I actually fly-” he pointed. “-And I’ll make sure he knows it was you that helped, yeah? I’m sure he’s a Good Pagan Boy who’ll know how to thank you appropriately.”

When he was not immediately struck by lightning again, he took it as an assent and he put the coat back on, picked up the painting and the flowers, backed up as far along the ledge as he could, and ran. He leapt, first onto the wall to his internal city, then launched himself off it across the chasm. He floated for a moment, then began to sink, the memory of his stomach taking a dip, shutting his eyes tight as he fell before-

His momentum shifted and he was moving forward again, barely managing to get a toe on the far ledge to pitch himself forward through the gateway on the far side, landing face-first in the dirt.

“THANK YOU!” He shouted, just a bit bitter and with a mouth full of dust, but she was a Goddess, she’d hear him. He sat up and spat out the soil, rubbing it off his face and away from his eyes with his sleeve, blinking slowly and squinting at his surroundings.

It was then, and only then, that he got a good look at the state of the home of his host’s soul.

“Oh, Love.” he whispered, forlorn.

The reason there had been no Gates in the Gateway was because The Demon had torn them clean off from the stone their hinges had been set in, the twisted metal lying on either side of the road on his host’s side of the Gate. The road itself was torn and rent by the great claws of the Demon who looked like it had had to fight literally tooth and nail to crawl up to-

“It cannot be-” He gasped.

“Well, perhaps it can?” He wondered, running up beside the road, darting from shadow to shadow out of habit, approaching the building. “I know not how long I was imprisoned but a house may burn and be rebuilt within the span of three years, and I might expect a few advances in architecture in the meantime…” He considered, squinting up the great hall in front of him. He turned around, surveying the surrounding landscape. “...The city is larger, and the river has moved but- yes! Yes! These are those hills, that is that great briar hedge, those are the towers of the college and- Yes! It is Oxfordshire!” he yelped with joy.

He approached the Great house now, unafraid. The grounds around him were shifting, broken architecture repairing itself, plants regrowing and the last of the ichor burning away. Above the front door, a familiar bit of heraldry- A black rabbit wreathed in Magnolia blossoms.

“Oxford!” he beamed, stepping through the doorway to set the painting down inside- his host would know where it went, if the house didn’t return it to its proper place for him. “I know, I know it’s the memory of your home, not the home itself, but that wouldn’t stop you, would it? Where are you hiding?”

He made his way out to the gardens, both to replant the strange blooms and to look for his friend. “Oxford!” he called again. “Oxford? Ollie-Ollen Oxford? Strange.” he frowned, the Great Beast nowhere to be seen.

He co*cked his head at the sound of shouting and realized it was the sound of the waking world, the voices of Tristan and his host’s other friends berating some poor bastard about his lack of manners and stubbornness about searching for something in the middle of the night. “Ah, you are awake my Love.” he nodded. “I can replant these and search the grounds without fear of detection for now.” he nodded, examining a hole in the gardens and trying to determine if it was the result of missing plants or the demon’s assault.

“We shall not meet tonight, I think- it is far too much to hope that you might adore me on sight as I adore you.”

*

“...I think it’s a seal.” Said Bonz.

The Mystery Skulls were standing at the entrance to the cave that housed their Super-Awesome Secret Hideout, debating the… pet? Of a man who had apparently been setting fireworks off on the beach. Keith had run out to yell at him about fire safety on the island, but the tone of voices carrying over her bulk had quickly turned amiable.

“How the balls does that look like a seal?” Syd demanded, gesturing at the beast currently loafing at the entrance of the cave. “It’s HUGE!”

“It’s one of those… you know, what are they called? Elephant seals!” Bonz nodded.

“I don’t think she has a sufficient amount of proboscis.” frowned Zygor. “Also, seals don’t have scales.”

“Yeah, ‘e’s right Bonz.” Nodded Syd. “Also, I think seals are supposed to have flippers, and those are clearly… right, I don’t know what kind of paws those are, but they’re not flippers!”

“Alright, smartass, what do you think it is?” Glared Bonz.

“It’s clearly a Komodo Dragon!” Declared Syd.

“...Yeah I don’t think it’s a Lizard.” sighed Bonz. “Lizards don’t have ears.”

“She’s much larger than any member of the Varanus genus, even the extinct Varanus priscus .” Zygor shook his head.

“She’s a DRAGON, they’re supposed to be ‘uge!” Syd protested gesturing at the creature. “Fine then, what the hell do you think she is?”

Zygor frowned contemplatively at the beast, considering. “I think… She’s a Chimera.”

The Beast arched an interested brow at him.

“YOU DUMBASS!” Bonz shouted. “EVERYONE KNOWS THAT A CHIMERA IS A COMBINATION OF A LION, A DRAGON AND A GOAT, AND THERE IS CLEARLY NO f*ckING GOAT IN THIS CREATURE.”

The beast chuffed in agreement, nodding sagely.

“LANGUAGE!” shouted Keith, squeezing past the beast and back into the cave. “Sorry, you know what kids are like- anyway, here’s camp.” he gestured to the Mystery Skull’s Super-Secret Awesome Hideout, which consisted entirely of:

1. A campfire in a steel ring (As per National Park regulations)
2. Half a dozen lawn chairs. One for each of the Skulls, a guest, and one for the Beer Cooler
3. A Beer Cooler
4. Second, identical save for the word “KIDS” Sharpie’d onto it, cooler full of pop and snacks
5. A large flag of the Mystery Skulls Emblem, which appeared to be hand-painted on a leopard-print bedsheet.
6. A boom box, which seemed to be playing Michael Jackson’s Thriller on loop.

“...Very nice.” Shadi nodded approvingly as he followed Keith past Ammit, carrying a groggy Mokuba wrapped up in his cloak.

“Here, I’ll move the beer so you can take a seat. Boys, this is Shadi Shin, and he’s here to kick Pegasus’ butt too!”

“NICE.” Bonz gave him an approving thumbs up. “Who’s the kid?”

“THAT-!” Keith held up a dramatic finger to his face “-Is a Secret!”

“Oh hey it’s Mokuba Kaiba, Seto Kaiba’s younger brother and heir to the Kaiba Corporation!” Said Zygor.

“...You really suck at the whole ‘secrets’ thing Ziggy.” Sighed Keith, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But yes, this is Mokuba Kaiba, who is ALSO here to kick Pegasus’ butt, though I don’t think he’s tall enough. Maybe he can kick Pegasus in the shins then?”

“f*ck you.” Mokuba grumbled, sitting up in Shadi’s arms to glare at Keith.

“LANGUAGE!” Keith and Shadi barked, only for Mokuba to roll his eyes at them.

Shadi sighed, plopped the boy down in one of the open chairs close to the campfire, before turning his attention to the cooler. “Beer?”

“Ye- OH sh*t.” Keith realized. “Muslim people aren’t supposed to have alcohol-Uh, there’s pop and milk drinks in the other cooler-”

“Good thing I’m Khemetic then! We invented Beer.” Shadi grinned, opening up the cooler and examining the contents. “Ah. I realize I’m in the minority opinion here, but the more like drinking a loaf of bread the better, so which of these- Mr. Howard?” he paused, looking up at Keith.

The man had frozen in place, staring at him. Slowly, Keith removed his sunglasses, eyes watering with emotion, and he roughly grabbed Shadi’s shoulder.

“Sir.” he breathed, reverent. “That’s the single greatest cultural achievement of human history. I cannot thank your ancestors enough.”

“Oh! Not my ancestors- I’m 5,028.” Shadi laughed, picking out an ale. “When I say ‘We’ I mean me and my contemporaries in the Royal Alchemical Sciences Guild.”

Keith’s jaw dropped, and he slowly melted onto the floor. “I’m not worthy…”

“I thought the Sumerians invented beer six thousand years ago?” said Zygor.

“The Sumerians are a bunch of lying whor*s with body odor who invented Grog, at best.” Declared Shadi, opening the bottle bare-handed and gesturing with it. “ We invented Beer .”

Keith squeaked with joy as Shadi handed him a lager and toasted, clinking the bottles together.

Mokuba made a disgruntled noise and curled into a ball in the chair.

“Uh, Question?” Said Bonz, raising his hand.

“Yes, Mr.-?” Shadi turned his attention to the diminutive and gaunt child.

“Oh! My name’s Bonz! With a Z!” he nodded. “Anyway, uh- okay, two questions, actually. Firstly- how are you over 5,000 years old?”

“I am an Ushabti, and do not age like a human, Mr. Zbones.” Said Shadi, completely misjudging where the Z went, but pronouncing it correctly, assuming the Z was silent.

“What’s an Ushabti?” Bonz co*cked his head at Shadi.

“It’s a Debian-based Open Source Operating System distributed by Linux.” Muttered Mokuba, sitting up and wrapping Shadi’s cloak around his shoulders.

“No, that’s Ubuntu, an Ushabti is a russian fur-lined cap with ear flaps that can be tied over the crown or under the chin.” nodded Zygor.

“Nah, you’re thinkin’ of an Ushanka, Ushabti is that rapper that had that song ‘Nice & Slow’ all over the top 40’s back in January!” Said Sid.

“Dude, that’s Usher.” Keith rolled his eyes, teasing. “Ushabti is the videogame company that made Rayman and that SAWCON game.”

“...Okay I remember Ubisoft's Rayman, but what’s SAWCON?” Glared Bonz.

“-Have mercy on the child.” Shadi scolded before Keith could finish the joke. “An Ushabti is an artificial person, created to carry out a specific task. Mine is a… Long-term assignment.”

“Oh!” Bonz said, slapping his fist into his palm in recognition. “Like The Iron Giant out in Rockwell Maine! He makes sure they don’t get bombed.”

“...Sure.” Shadi nodded. “What was your other question?”

“-What the hell is that thing?” he pointed over to Ammit, who was lounging in front of the cave, as Syd and Zygor joyfully tossed Marshmallows into her open maw.

“That is Ammit, Devourer of the Wicked.” Said Shadi. “And apparently marshmallows.”

“Hey! Save some of those for s’mores!” Keith hollered.

“Yeah, but like. What IS she?” Bonz tried again.

Shadi looked between the Goddess, enjoying the first genuine sacrifices to her in Millennia, and turned his gaze back to Bonz.

“A Horse.” he grinned.

“...she doesn’t really look like a horse.” Bonz glared.

“The Horse Aquatic, Mr. Zbones.” Shadi Teased. He leaned closer. “- A Hippopotamus.”

Bonz looked at Ammit again. “...Real Weird Hippo.”

“She’s from a Very Strange River.” Shadi took a sip of beer. “Oh, this is very good!”

Bonz rolled his eyes at Shadi and turned to skulk back to the head of the cave, and grab a bag of Marshmallows away from Sid and Zygor before they fed all of them to the ‘Hippo’.

“Thin Tire, from New Holland Brewery.” Keith nodded. “So, what’s your exact beef with Max?”

“Hm.” Shadi nodded. “I am not convinced that my grudge is with this ‘Maximillion’, actually.” he frowned. “The person known as Pegasus is in possession of a powerful magical Item, but the Item contains the spirit of a wicked thief and a murderer, who I have been chasing for millennia now. It is entirely possible that the spirit has possessed Maximillion entirely, and the painter is prisoner in his own mind.”

“...Well damn.” Keith nodded, taking a drink. “...Doesn’t surprise me actually, he’s got all kinds of occult shi- stuff up in that castle- mostly Egyptian, probably stolen. Definitely stolen if he’s possessed by your thief.”

“Hm.” Nodded Shadi, swallowing his own. “This Maximillion of yours- Theatrical type, prone to rages and unwarranted violence?”

“His wardrobe looks like the costume department of a Wideway Musical.” Keith nodded. “He was screaming bloody murder at the coast guard just this morning, and the stories Kemo’s told me- Kemo’s the guy that does all the f- all the work around here- Stories he’s told me about Max when he really gets sauced- Did you know Max bullied his last Personal Assistant right into rehab! At least she got to rehab, you know? Could’ve been the afterlife.”

Shadi frowned, taking another sip, and glaring into the fire. “...Two for three. The wardrobe and bellowing certainly sounds like him, but the Thief was more… visceral than psychological with his violence. I would have expected the disembowelment of a rival executive, not the bullying of an assistant.”

“He had a wife too-” Keith pondered, gesturing with his beer bottle. “They married young, she died, he had a breakdown, traveled abroad and came back to found Industrial Illusions and make Duel monsters-” Keith sat up with a snap of his fingers “-That’s when he came back with all that Egyptian stuff! Croquet- his Butler, weird guy- told me about being so happy Max was back that he unloaded the plane himself. I bet he found your possessed whatsit while he was abroad and having a breakdown. Easy time to get possessed, when you’re having a breakdown.”

“How do you know so much about cursed artifacts?” Bonz asked, roasting his own marshmallows over the fire beside Mokuba, who stirred and reached a hand out. “Dude, go get your own stick.” Bonz muttered.

“Dude, I’m from DETROIT. I don’t think there’s a more cursed place on the continent, ‘cept maybe Gary, Indiana.” Keith laughed.

“What do I need a stick for? I just wanted a marshmallow?” Mokuba muttered, sitting all the way up and rubbing his eyes.

Bonz stared at him, even more haunted-looking than usual. “...Have. Have you never had a S’more before?”

“A What?” Mokuba stared back in equal bewilderment.

“Oooooohhhhhhmygod.” Bonz groaned. “Okay, we gotta fix this. C’mon, lets go get you a stick.”

Keith took another drink as the boys squeezed past Ammit to look for a suitable piece of driftwood. “S’why I like machines so much- being surrounded by that much iron makes it hard for the fairies and spooks to getchya.”

“You know about machines?” Shadi asked with sudden interest. “I have a broken piece of… Something that I can’t Identify.”

“Yeah, I’ll take a look at it. No promises though.” Keith nodded.

Shadi reached into his armor and pulled out half of what looked like a metal Rubik’s cube that had been broken diagonally. Inside was a complex collection of torn golden solder, cracked discs with finely-pitted markings, and smeared-to-illegibility glyphs. Keith took it, turned it over a few times, squinted at the abstract symbols on the exterior, and glared at the inside.

“...Huh.” he muttered after a minute. “Well, this is weird as hell, but it looks like half of a hard drive disc set someone hit with a sledgehammer.”

“...It was a sword.” Shadi corrected, wincing.

“Welp. sh*t.” Nodded Keith. “Hope there wasn’t anything important stored on here, because once these things break, they cannot be fixed.”

Shadi stared blankly into a fire for a long moment. “...I might need another beer.”

“Okay, so the Most Impor- PAY ATTENTION! Okay, the Most Important Part is when your marshmallow catches on fire-” Bonz and Mokuba had returned, Squeezing past Ammit, who snuffed at the marshmallows Mokuba held.

“I’m not gonna set mine on fire!” Mokuba protested, shoving her massive muzzle aside.

“-Shut up, everyone does it at least once.” Bonz sighed. “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.”

“...Okay, that’s a new threat.” Mokuba nodded. “You should be proud- I get threatened with grievous bodily harm a lot!”

“Mood.” Laughed Bonz. “Right, even if the marshmallow gets burnt, it’s still good. So blow it out, put it on the half Kellogg’s Cracker with the chocolate, and the other half of the cracker on top so it makes a sandwich, and eat it! Oh! But pull the stick out before you bite in.”

“I’d be insulted, but I’ve seen enough customer bug reports to know how stupid the average person is.” Mokuba sighed.

“And half of them are even dumber than that!” Bonz laughed.

BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP! Echoed around the cave like a furious electronic ghost.

“-The f*ck?” asked Bonz.

BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP! The noise continued.

“LANGUAGE!” Shouted Keith. “But seriously, what’s making that noise?”

BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP! Even Ammit took offense, snapping her jaw shut with a thunderous clap of displeasure.

“Mokuba?” Shadi asked, pulling out his brick of a cell phone. “Why is my music player acting like a fire alarm?”

“Someone’s calling you?” Mokuba co*cked his head, planting the unmallowed end of his stick in the sand on the cave floor and getting up to look. “Who the hell has your n-”

BEEEP! BEEEP! BEEEP!

“Oh, nevermind! Just push the green button and say ‘Hello’!” Mokuba pointed.

Cautiously, Shadi pressed the green ‘TALK’ button. “Hello?” he asked, speaking over the phone rather than into it.

“WHERE THE HELL IS MY BROTHER?” bellowed a young man with a voice like a sandpaper-covered sinus headache on the other end of the connection.

“SETO! THAT’S NOT HOW YOU ASK PEOPLE FOR HELP!” Shouted a second young man with a much softer but equally agitated-sounding voice. There was some thumping and static and the second young man spoke again. “I’m really sorry to call you this late, but we’re looking for a missing child and we think you might be near him-” he apologized. Shadi squinted at the phone, something about the second voice strangely familiar. The phone was suddenly yanked out of his hands by Mokuba, who held it up to his cheek and temple, tears streaming down his face.

“SETO? YUGI?” he cried.

“MOKUBA!!” shouted a chorus of voices on the other end.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEEEEEEEAAAAD!” Mokuba sobbed, dropping to his knees, Bonz pulling his s’more stick aside for the moment.

“WHERE ARE YOU? WHOSE PHONE IS THIS? ARE YOU SAFE??” Seto demanded, sounding as hysterical as his brother. Mokuba continued to sob loudly.

“Here, lemme- Thanks.” Keith sighed, taking the phone. “Seto Kaiba? Yeah, this is Bandit Keith. We met at the intercontinental championships last year?”

“I remember. Pegasus humiliated you in front of the entire stadium and on TV.” Seto said.

“For the Love Of-!” Shouted the other young man. “-It’s my phone and if you can’t be civil, you can’t use it- Sorry, this is Yugi Moto. Mr. Keith? Is Mokuba alright?”

Shadi flinched at the name, and Keith co*cked an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah! Kid’s fiiiiine.” Keith lounged back in his chair. “-Friend of mine was teachin’ him how to make s’mores when you called. I’m gonna guess that Pegasus has done something extremely bas- Language, dummy- Something Cruel and Unusual to you guys?”

“Kidnapped Mokuba while Seto was in a coma in an attempt to steal KaibaCorp.” Yugi sighed.

“And sent Assassins to kill me while I was in said Coma.” Seto added.

“ASSASSINS?” screamed Mokuba, grabbing the phone. “I’M FINE, ARE YOU f*ckING OKAY?” He demanded.

“LANGUAGE!” Shouted Shadi and the Mystery Skulls.

“Were you raised by wolverines ?” asked Bonz.

Seto made a very disgruntled squawking noise but no counter.

“I’m really, really glad you’re safe Mokuba.” Said Yugi, having regained control of the phone. “Look, Mr. Keith? I need to ask a huge favor of you, there’s uh, a gardener or someone that Kemo told Mokuba to meet because he hates Pegasus too-”

Keith threw his head back laughing for a minute. “KEMO? OH Man- Nah, nah, it’s good kid-” he hooted for a moment. “Yeah, it’s fine- I’m The Gardener . I pulled a real sneaky one on Pegasus and I’ve been snooping around in his castle for the last year without him noticing! But yeah, I can watch Mokuba until you guys can meet up and get off the island.”

“...That’s remarkably insidious of you, actually.” Said Yugi, sounding impressed. “And thanks, this fool wanted to go running through the woods at night. Where’s a good place to meet you tomorrow?”

“Mmmm- I got a thing in the morning I need to be at, but if you can get to the east side of the island, there’s a trail through the really dense part of the woods along the cliff- Okay, more of a goat-path but Max never checks it and it leads to the cave we have our camp in.”

There were a few moments of muffled discussion on the other end and Keith turned to Shadi. “You look like you’ve got a rat crawling up your ass.” he muttered to the older man.

“I… have met Mr. Moto on a previous occasion and.” Shadi leaned forward on his elbows, hands folded in front of his mouth, orange eyes glittering in the firelight. “-I was quite rude to him. Cruel, even, and it was entirely undeserved. I was in error and had misjudged the nature of his character entirely.”

More muffled arguing on the other end.

“Yugi? Yugi Moto? With the hair?” Keith asked.

Shadi nodded. “My misjudgment very nearly cost me my life.”

“Your life? That little guy?” Keith arched an eyebrow at him.

“HA! Uh, yeah.” Mokuba was scratching the back of his head, embarrassed. “I’ve tangled with him before too, he’s MEAN if you back him into a corner.”

Keith frowned as the arguing continued. “- This all’s got something to do with the ‘Hippo’ up there, doesn’t it?”

Shadi glared a warning at him.

“I’m stopping asking questions right now, I know when I’m about to learn something cursed.” Keith said, putting his hands up.

“Don’t tell him I’m here?” Shadi asked, and Mokuba and Keith nodded.

“Yeah, is that the cave Kemo marked on the map he gave Mokuba? We can get there by… by the afternoon, probably.” Yugi agreed.

“That’s the place.” Keith nodded. “Yeah don’t worry, I got a couple other little punks with me, turn it into a regular campout. See you here by 3?”

“Probably more like 4, but we’ll try to get there as soon as possible.” Yugi sighed. “Thank you so much. Can we call you back on this line if something comes up?”

“Uhh- No.” Keith watched as Shadi crossed his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Sorry, you actually called one of the kid’s phones. Mine’s Area Code (555) 867-5309.”

“Got it.” Said Yugi. “Can you put Mokuba back on? Seto wants to talk to him.”

“Sure, Here ya go punk.” Keith handed the phone to Mokuba, who wiped his face on his sleeve and took the bulky phone, cradling it like a kitten. Because it was nearly as big as one.

“Seto?” Mokuba sniffled. “You’re really okay, right? And not trying to make me feel better?”

“I really am alright.” Seto sighed, voice softening. “My pants aren’t, but I am. It was a soft landing.” He laughed quietly.

“I’m glad my intestines could be of service.” Grumbled an accented voice Mokuba didn’t recognize.

“Keith?” Seto asked, speakers on the ancient device loud enough to carry. “I take it you’ve got an interest in seeing Pegasus humiliated?”

“S’why I’ve been here, Kid.” Keith laughed.

“Take care of Mokuba, and you’ll have a front-row seat to his complete destruction.” Seto promised.

Keith laughed, shaking his head. “Jeez you guys are intense. Should I get an umbrella for this? Because you’re making it sound like I’m gonna be sitting in the splash zone.”

“Please.” Seto huffed, grin audible. “I’m not an animal. You may want a camcorder though, to replay the moment his soul actually leaves his bod-OW!”

“No joking about that.” Yugi growled.

“About what?” Seto yelped, bewildered. “Look, Keith. You know what Pegasus is like, you know what I’m like. Take good care of Mokuba.” he returned to his usual gravel-pit growl.

“Roger Roger.” Keith nodded.

“Good.” Seto grunted. “Mokuba?”

“Yeah?” Mokuba sniffled.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, I promise. Nobody bullies you and gets away with it, not even Pegasus.” he growled with immense fondness. “You get some sleep and don’t give Mr. Howard too much trouble, alright?”

Mokuba sniffled. “Okay. You be careful too, okay? Pegasus is really, really messed up.”

“I will.” Seto sighed. There was a pause- nothing left to say, but reluctant to cut the connection.

“Sorry to end the call, but I only have so much battery on this, okay?” Said Yugi. “Goodnight Mokuba. And thank you Mr. Howard.”

“Yer Welcome Kid.” Keith said, picking up the brick of a phone and hanging up before anyone could protest, and handing it back to Shadi. “Alright Scampi, ONE S’more and then you gotta go to bed. You’re all up way too late as it is.”

“It’s pronounced ‘scamp’.” Mokuba frowned at Keith, picking up his S’more stick and lowering it towards the flames.

"Nah, it’s Scampi,‘cos you’re a shrimp.” Keith teased affectionately, Shadi snorting into his beer.

“I AM NOT A SHRIMP-” Mokuba shouted, rounding on the adults, and plunging his Marshmallow into the fire.

“Ah goddammit.” Groaned Bonz, ducking for cover.

“-JUST BECAUSE SETO TURNED THIRTEEN AND INTO A f*ckING GIRAFFE DOESN’T MEAN I WON’T TOO WHEN I GET THERE!” He continued, bringing the flaming marshmallow stick with him-

“MOKUBA!” Shadi shouted, grabbing the stick moments before it hit Bonz. Or, where it would have hit him, if Keith hadn’t grabbed the boy and hoisted him aloft. Carefully, Shadi blew out the Marshmallow, before letting go of the stick. “Please, be careful.”

Mokuba stared at Shadi’s unblemished hand, which had been less than a centimeter from the flames, and quietly backed down.

“Good Dad instincts on ya.” Keith nodded, setting Bonz down, who sighed heavily and Showed Mokuba how to finish constructing the S’more.

“I… used to have children.” He sighed, sitting back. “There was a divorce- not mine, but in the family- and after that I wasn’t really welcome back at my home so I’ve been traveling since. I tried to reconcile with some of their descendants recently but…” He opted to finish his beer instead of the sentence. “You as well!” he tried to compliment Keith.

“Oldest of five siblings, oldest of twelve once you count all the cousins that pretty much live at my house too. I was the point man to tell Mom about a broken arm ONCE and she put the fear of God into me for not stopping them so hard I think he blessed me with superpowers.” he nodded.

“Boss?” Called Syd. “We’re outta Marshmallows.”

“Your Hippo ain’t gonna get sick from all that, right?” Keith asked, and Shadi laughed.

“Believe me, she’s eaten MUCH worse.” Shadi set the empty bottle down. “If you have everything in hand, I want to get to the castle as soon as possible.”

“Hang on, I got Maps N’ Stuff.” Keith waved, getting up.

“You don’t have to go right away, do you?” asked Mokuba, face smeared with chocolate, and a second, illicit marshmallow on his stick, now being held by Bonz.

Shadi ruffled his hair affectionately. “The sooner I ascertain the situation with Pegasus, the safer your brother will be confronting him.” He smiled. Not that he had any intention of letting this Impulsive and Slow-To-Learn Seto anywhere near the man. Surely, if he’s hanging out with Yugi Moto, he understands just how dangerous the Millennium Items are. Why would he want to do battle with another wielder?

“Okay…” Mokuba sulked.

“Okay, here we go- copy of a map of the castle, the key codes for all the locked doors, the security rota, and he’s got this toy rabbit that makes my skin crawl, if you wanted to exorcize it or something? Nah, you deal with the Egyptian Whatsit first.” Keith said, handing him a stack of papers.

At the entrance of the Cave, Ammit grunted as she got to her feet, Syd and Zygor finally convincing her that there were no more marshmallows to be had.

“Thank you, Mr. Howard.” Shadi bowed his head, tucking the notes and map into his armor. “I must take my leave of you now. Mokuba, Mr. Zbones.” He nodded.

“Chee-yow.” drawled Keith.

“Bye Shadi!” said Mokuba. “You- You can come to my house after this if you want?”

“Thank you, I will if there is time.” He smiled, before heading to the entrance of the cave and following Ammit into the night.

“...I didn’t give him my address.” Mokuba realized.

“Yeah, I don’t think a guy like him needs addresses.” Said Keith. “Hey! I said ONE S’more, Scampi! Jeez, you really were raised by wolverines.”

*

“You’ve Got Mail!” The computer chirped happily. It sat in the kitchen of a charming cottage in Oxford, not quite at the University, but within walking distance. It was a beautiful English spring morning with chirping robins, blooming crocuses and rain pouring down like a firehose left unattended by an uncaring municipal fire department.

“Hm?” The archeologist looked up from the kitchen table where he’d been studying the latest analysis of an early-kingdom manuscript with the world’s foremost scholar on the matter.

Professor Arthur Hawkins looked exactly like his name suggested- An eldery gentleman with a well-cultivated mustache, gone silver with his age along with his hair, in a tweed suit with leather elbow patches and a bow tie. He turned in his chair to awkwardly prod the computer mouse and squint at the screen. “Oh! It’s from Solomon! You remember Solomon? We met him back in Karnak in ‘56, He works with your colleague now- Yes, of course.” Arthur flustered as his companion gave him a slow, stately nod.

“-er,” Arthur frowned at the subject line of the message. “-Given Solomon’s knack for getting himself into the worst kind of mischief, Perhaps I should read this right now.”

Another stately nod, and The Scholar got up, picking up the teakettle to refill it while Arthur read.

To: [emailprotected] From: [emailprotected]

Subject: I Need Your Help Getting Some Answers Out Of A Bitch

“Oh Dear.” Muttered Arthur. “Do you remember the Millennium Items?”

There was a pause in the tea-making sounds in the kitchen and The Scholar chirped interrogatively.

“Well, it seems Solomon has run afo- Pardon, run into some trouble with Maximillion Pegasus, the wielder of the Millennium Eye, and now his Soul is trapped in his …television set? And his Grandson- You remember Yugi? With the hair? Yes, that’s him next to Solomon in the front hall gallery. Well, Yugi has… Assembled some kind of Puzzle? And has gone off to Duel Pegasus on an Island? And, well- no shame to your colleague but Solomon is Rather Worried -”

There was a loud bang in the kitchen of the kettle being thrown onto the stove with force and the scholar scrambled out of the kitchen with a furious squawk, running up to read the message, one hand on Arthur’s shoulder, beak clinking against the screen as he read.

THAT ASSHOLE SAID HE WAS ‘HANDLING IT’! Bellowed Thoth, grabbing his head and dramatically arching back with distress. YOU’D THINK I’D KNOW BETTER AFTER FIVE MILLENNIA THAN TO LEAVE HIM UNSUPERVISED-!!

Arthur sighed at the God’s continued hysterics, getting up from the computer and climbing the stairs to his granddaughter's room, knocking before entering. “Rebecca?” he called.

A young girl in blonde pigtails and a Lisa Frank jacket featuring some kind of LSD-Inspired technicolor leopard opened the door. “What’s he on about now?” She glared.

“Task Delegation issue, don’t worry about it Darling.” He smiled indulgently down at her. “How do you feel about coming along on a little trip abroad to see an old friend of mine?”

THIS IS GOING TO BE LIKE THAT WHOLE DEBACLE WITH THE LETTUCE ALL OVER AGAIN, I CAN FEEL IT! Wailed Thoth.

“I call dibs on the airplane window seat.” Grumbled Rebecca.

*

Seto was feeling.

…Something.

It was different than his usual state of constant but low-effort vigilance. Between the six of them, there were at least twenty-three conversations going on, which would have been easy enough to keep track of, but he didn’t particularly feel the need to.

Yugi was beside him, no longer shivering, and Téa beside Yugi, no longer shooting him Death Glares. She was instead fussing over Yugi’s hands and face, gestures blatantly intimate. They could only have been more obvious if she physically pulled Yugi into her lap.

Which was an urge that Seto felt, circling him like the fin of a shark he didn’t really want to think about too much. And he decided to focus on how peculiarly not-on-edge he felt, and discerning how much of that was the result of Babushka’s Hangover Cure versus…

I can be honest with myself. He lied. I’ve been obsessed with Yugi. I mean it was only a damn card game but I ended up building an elaborate murder-house and having a nervous breakdown about it. What is this? It’s like. The fun version of Obsession?

He studied Yugi as he watched Joey, Tristan and Bakura argue about their route to Mokuba tomorrow. Most of the debate seemed to center on Joey’s inability to use cardinal directions and instead keep describing every direction as ‘Left’. But that was not nearly as diverting as the details of Yugi Up Close. I only ever saw him on security cameras or the far end of an arena. I didn’t realize he wears more eyeliner than Valentine does. Does it itch, smeared like that? What heritage of traits leads to both epicanthal folds and a high nosebridge like that? -Oh. It was broken and healed. How the HELL is his hair doing that?

Yugi rubbed his eye and winced when he touched the red flush across his cheeks. Ah. Sunburn. Yeah, he’s like a declawed cat. Indoors only, no business camping out on an island like-

“What the hell are you even doing here?” He realized between bites of a disconcertingly yellow pastry Tristan had insisted on foisting onto him. It wasn’t bad per se, just violently artificial, like whatever this …camaraderie? was. “You don’t compete on the tournament circuit, how did you even get an Invite?”

There was a moment of silence as everyone around him opened their mouths to speak, then stopped, unsure where to start. Except for Joey, who was busy swallowing his fourth Twunkie in as many minutes, abandoning chewing and swallowing it whole like a particularly ambitious seagull with a hot dog.

“OKAY, SO-” Joey began as soon as the outline of the pastry had vanished from his throat.

“That was Rhetorical, actually.” Seto winced with growing horror.

“Too late.” Said Yugi.

“ -Okay, last week we were at Yugi’s house to watch the regional championships and we had Pizza which we got from Celestino’s because it’s pretty good, not as good as Pizza Casbah, but there was some kind of sports thing on so Pizza Casbah was swamped, but Celestino’s is pretty great too, not like f*cking Beau Jo’s which like, just eat a loaf of bread at that point, you know? -anyway, we were watching the finals- except Bakura because he had to leave early to go see the Blood Doctor because his blood’s haunted because he’s English or something, and Yugi got this package from Industrial Illusions which had this videotape in it and like, for a hot moment I thought Pegasus mailed him Duel Monsters p*rn for some reason but it was much worse because apparently it was a cursed videotape and Yugi had to duel Pegasus through the TV and lost because Pegasus is a cheating bastard that reads minds, and then Pegasus trapped Grandpa’s soul inside his TV and dared him to come here because he wants Yugi’s Millennium Puzzle, so we hooked Grandpa up to the internet so he wouldn’t get bored and I really hope he’s not hacking the Pentagon again because last time he went and added a bunch of crimes to his rap sheet, but anyway my sister is going blind and needs an operation but I’m f*cking poor and this country is the world’s unfunniest joke when it comes to healthcare so Yugi figured out how to commit art fraud because his second-grade teacher was a jerk and his neighbor had a puppy called Mr. Peanutbutter and got me an invite too so at least one of us walks away with the Prize money and Tristan and Téa snuck onto the boat too and they met Mai beating up Pegasus’ security team for some reason I’m sure they had it coming it’s fine, but then Weevil Underwood threw Yugi’s deck in the ocean so like an idiot I jumped in after it and I got bitten by a Seal but Tristan thinks it was a Chupacabra now, only Yugi’s deck was in his belt the whole time and we were ready to kick Weevil’s ass and set the whole island on fire when we got here but it turns out there’s some kind of super-rare beetle here and the whole island is a National park so they’re really strict about fire safety even if they let Pegasus live here for some reason, and Weevil wanted to show it to his boyfriend, Rex Raptor, so Yugi beat Weevil and I beat Rex with like, the worst joke I’ve ever made and Rex chased me with a knife but honestly I had it coming, and they went back to the boat and then we met this guy called Mako whose Dad got kidnapped by dolphins which are like, so much scarier than I thought- Maybe I got bitten by a Dolphin? Anyway, Mako wanted the prize money for a boat to go find his Dad, but Yugi’s really smart and pointed out that Pegasus has a boat Right There, so he stole the boat with Rex and Weevil and now they’re in Hawaii and it’s really romantic but then we ran into Mokuba and were trying to keep him away from Pegasus, but did some f*cked up magic and summoned a more-eviller Clown Version you from the hell dimension the Millennium Items draw their magic from and Yugi dueled him and got Weevil to blow the horn on the boat and distract Pegasus so the evil clown version of you started going all End of Akira until he exploded and we won, and we were gonna get your deck then, but them Pegasus sent like a sh*tload of guys to just f*cking kill us with guns and there was a whole shootout and we got seperated from Mokuba when Yugi sort of accidentally summoned the Egyptian God Anubis using the Puzzle and He started f*cking eating people, then Mai found us and did some really great first aid which is really awesome and sexy of her and then Yugi explained that his Puzzle is haunted by the ghost of an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh called Yami and he’s got amnesia and sometimes possesses Yugi’s Body but he’s really cool actually, and we were all like ‘Wow, this is really f*cked up and it’s gonna be way harder to beat up and rob Pegasus than we thought, it’d be cool if our friend Bakura was here because he knows all about castles and creepy magical bullsh*t,’ and Boom! Bakura is suddenly here, but he ALSO has a Millennium Item and it’s ALSO haunted but his ghost sucks, so Yugi challenged the sh*tty ghost to a Magical Hell Game to give Bakura control of his body again but then Téa said that Mai got kidnapped by a giant evil clown so I had to go help Mai while Yugi and Tristan did the Hell Game, and we found the clown and he’d hit Mai so Téa and I decided we were gonna beat the crap out of him, so I was bait and Téa kicked his ribs in and it was really cool but he had all Mai’s starchips so we had to Duel him to get her back in the tournament, so Téa kicked his ass in like three turns because she’s scary good at Duel Monsters if you ever want to lose again, but then the clown set the whole f*cking arena on fire and that really pissed Téa off, so she jumped across the arena and was gonna go all cassowary on his ass, but then Yugi ran outta the bushes right in time and stopped her from kicking him to death, which is great because I probably already have PTSD from this little trip and honestly I didn’t need to add “Bestie Committed A Clown Murder” to the list of things I need to discuss with my therapist, if I ever get one, and Mai was really impressed with me being bait and making sure she didn’t get set on fire but a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, you know? And then YOU fell out of the f*cking sky- which you really need to explain- and now you’re all caught up!” Finished Joey, having recounted all of that in a single breath.

“...What.” Said Seto.

“Which part didn’t you understand?” Teased Mai.

“You forgot that there’s also a Chupacabra roaming the island and attacking Duelists, so no running off into the woods alone at night.” Added Tristan.

“Oh yeah, there’s also a Chalupacabra.” Said Joey.

Seto stared blankly at Joey, still processing “Solomon Moto has hacked the Pentagon Before and Added MORE crimes to his profile”. The rest was going to take a while.

“So what are you doing here, Seto?” Mai asked, sitting down on his Non-Yugi side and poking him in the shoulder. “Rescuing Mokuba, obviously, which is very noble of you, but you never have just one iron in the fire, Coma or not.”

Seto glared at where she’d poked him, but decided to humor her rather than contemplate the rest of Wheeler’s story. “I’m going to steal Industrial Illusions from Pegasus. If he wants to steal the most important thing in my life, I can do the same to him.” he glared into the embers of the campfire.

“...How, exactly?” She squinted at him suspiciously.

“Combination of targeted stock crash, leveraged buyout and a couple of fire sales.” he shrugged, as though this were the sort of thing he did for fun. Which was not entirely inaccurate. “Basically, Sell Kaibacorp to my board of directors, the board sells Kaibacorp to him, I use the cash from the buyout and beat Pegasus’s sorry ass until his stock price is in the basem*nt, and buy both Kaibacorp and Industrial Illusions out from under him leaving him ruined.” He grinned.

Mai didn’t look impressed. Everyone else just looked confused. Truly, his genius was wasted like high-level Monsters before the Crush Card Virus.

“I estimate that I will own 99% of Industrial Illusions by Tuesday morning. There’s a mystery shareholder that owns the final 1% but I can track them down and ‘convince’ them later.” He added.

Mai went from looking unimpressed to Actually Angry.

“Look, there’s no love lost between me and my Brother-In-Law, but the last thing I need is the one good thing he did for me being trashed right before the trust runs out, you little twerp.” She glared.

“... What?” He asked again for the second time in as many minutes.

“I’m the Mystery Shareholder, and I can’t say I appreciate your efforts to tank the price of my inheritance right before I finally get control of the trust.” She growled, leaning in and pushing him back, forcing him to bend backwards over Yugi.

“Ah.” he realized. “Well if you agree to the terms of ownership, I can convert your shares of Industrial Illusions into Kaibacorp shares after the takeover instead of giving you a buyout while they’re low, and then you’ll be an investor, and I can promise you a much better return?” He didn’t like emergency deals like this, but something about Valentine’s glare and the way he’d seen her duel before made him certain that if he didn’t play nice, she’d take her buyout in the form of his kidneys.

“I want it in writing.” She sat back, still glaring down at him. “I want a 500% return on last week’s Industrial Illusions stock price in 12 months or you’ll pay me the difference in a buyout.”

“200%” he counteroffered.

There was a loud click near Seto’s abdomen.

“When the hell did you get my knife?” shouted Joey.

“250%.” Said Seto. “-And artistic direction on the next release of duel monsters cards to buff your Harpy deck.”

“I KNEW YOU REMEMBERED ME!” Mai beamed, closing the switchblade and handing it back to Joey. “Deal. Does someone have something to write with?”

“How do you two know each other?” Téa asked as Tristan went rifling through his backpack again, returning with a pad of legal paper and a Salutations Puppy Glitter Gel Pen.

“We met at the reception at the Duel Monsters Intercontinental Championships last year when that whole Debacle with Keith happened. Be careful if you go up against him, he’s a damn good collector and built himself a tight deck of powerful machine cards. He’ll trash any magic-based decks you might have.” Mai said, writing out their agreement in sparkly, adorable cursive.

“Yeah I remember you, you were hanging off my arm like a leech all night.” Seto grumbled. “You’re normally a great cold-reader in the field, I thought you would have noticed my lack of interest if you were gold-digging.” He huffed.

Mai stopped, looking up blankly at him before laughing. “Oh sweetheart.” She said, patting his shoulder. “You were barely Sixteen then, I was hanging onto you all night because you were an unaccompanied minor and I remember how much getting groped, leered at and propositioned by the business creeps at those events sucked when I was your age.”

Seto stared blankly at her as she resumed writing the contract. Minor?? She thinks of me as a KID?? I own a goddamn multibillion dollar company- he felt himself riling up, but then he remembered. She hadn’t been hanging off his arm. She’d had her arm wrapped around his, constantly pulling him away from conversations to the other side of the room to introduce him to some hack duelist or another, shoving herself between other businessmen and him, pulling his drink out of his hand and replacing it like half a dozen times-

“For the record, I did notice the lack of interest.” She said, drawing out the signature lines and signing her own name. “It was nice to know there was at least one guy at the event that wasn’t going to try to roofie me.” She smiled, handing him the pad.

“...oh.” he realized, blanching a little.

“You’re welcome.” She smirked. “You know, you can actually be a rather charming gentleman when you’re not brooding or plotting some sort of hostile takeover. You were downright delightful to little Rebeccca Hawkins.”

“She’s a kid.” Seto grunted, reviewing the contract to make sure she hadn’t slipped something weird in. “Weird little girl, but that’s her right as a third grader. Who’s witnessing this?” he asked, signing his own name and tapping the final line.

“I don’t have a horse in this race.” Bakura offered. “Also, Joey and I are the only other Adults here, I think.”

“You’re eighteen?” Tristan asked. “I thought you were my age. What are you doing in our class?”

“Do you even remotely understand the financial document you’re offering to sign?” Seto glared.

“I had to do sixth grade twice when I moved to Domino.” he shrugged. “-And my family has money, even if I’m a broke bitch. It’s a clever plan, taking advantage of the weekend to manipulate stock trades and the media attention regarding Duel Monsters wins and losses. Personally, I would have made sure that Pegasus listed his residences as company property and made him homeless to boot, but I understand that you’re under a time constraint.” he smiled, signing as well.

“Bakura!” Yugi sputtered.

“Well aren’t you the little sad*st?” Seto grinned in admiration.

“You know, it’s probably a good thing Seto didn’t know you while he was designing Death-T.” laughed Téa. “You’d have made him something that would have probably actually killed us!”

“Or gotten you out of it!” Said Bakura, opening up a pudding cup Tristan had produced from the depths of his backpack. “The lazertag room was operating on battery-operated tasers in the vests and electromagnetic sensors to keep track of the shots, right? Pulling off a Vest and clipping any three of the batteries together and detonating them would have released an EMP blast that would have fried every electronic in the room, including the lock controls into the next level with the Silent Rollercoaster game, so you could enter the maintenance tunnels under the coaster and skipped that nonsense entirely, if not the rest of the games, and gone directly to Seto to have it out with him before he could have harassed Grandpa into that heart attack!”

“SEE? This is why we should bring Bakura on any adventures, especially if they involve dungeon crawls.” Said Tristan, gleefully slapping Bakura across the shoulders.

“Then again, if Seto had approached me at school and asked me to design him a carnival-themed dungeon for a ‘Game’ I absolutely would have drawn it up for him that night without a second thought.” Bakura pondered, thoughtfully tapping the spoon to his chin. “-For free and with MUCH worse traps!” he laughed.

“You think you could do better?” Seto laughed, arching an eyebrow at Bakura.

“I’M NOT LISTENING.” Shouted Joey, covering his ears and turning away.

“If you’d told me it was for Yugi specifically, his weaknesses as an RPG Player is that he’ll always make a straight dash for an injured player and he will absolutely skip rest breaks to recharge spell slots, so I’d propose a room with Grandpa at one end and a seesaw-style trapdoor in the middle. It would dump him into a room below with no doors and the trapdoor swings up to become the ceiling, which he can’t reach. The floor is basically a slow-moving converybelt of extremely heavy-duty industrial grade sandpaper, which just keeps moving under him as he tries to figure out how to get out.”

“Bakura, do you spend your time thinking of sad*stic bespoke death traps for all your friends, or am I just special?” Yugi glared.

“Oh! Not you! Just your player characters! You lot are rather hard to design for actually, most traps are based on treasure-lust but your party had no interest in gold the last time we played…” Bakura waved his spoon defensively.

“I don’t get it.” Seto glared.

“It’d take a while for it to really work, but I think in less than an hour Yugi would start to fatigue, have to sit down or fall over from exhaustion, get pushed to the opposite wall, and discover that Industrial-grade sandpaper will go right through cloth, skin, and eventually bone!” Bakura smiled cheerfully.

Seto stared at him. “Ever consider writing for horror movies? Your mind is the right kind of twisted for it.”

“Maybe I should…” Bakura considered with the same pleasantly airheaded tone he seemed to approach all of life’s horrors with. “Especially since I probably can’t do my regular job anymore.” he frowned.

“You had a job?” Tristan asked. “When the hell do you sleep?”

“M-Hm!” Bakura said, mouth full of pudding. He swallowed and explained, gesturing with the tiny spoon. “The Los Osaka Municipal Flea Market and Swap Meet employs me and half a dozen other people to roam the market and make sure nobody is selling cursed or otherwise magically dangerous objects- Old Grimoires, Haunted Dolls and Jewelry with Magical Liens are the most common, and half the time people don’t even know what they have. But there’s also people who try to sell stolen artifacts that have “Return It Or Else” curses on them, or try to avoid the decommissioning and dump fees for things like Magic Mirrors by foisting them on some unsuspecting soul. I do weekends because the Priests and Rabbis are busy then. Or, did. I’ve got a bit of Arcane Sense, but the Ring was doing most of it, it’s aggressively reactive to magical paraphernalia. But I don’t know if that was an ability of the Ring itself or the Parasite being a greedy little so-and-so.”

He paused for another spoonful of pudding as the group stared at him. “That, and I’m missing my shifts this weekend without calling in, so my manager will probably have to call those assholes from the SCP for an emergency fill-in again and she hates working with them.”

“...I’m sorry, have you been working as a f*cking Ghostbuster , and you never told us?” Said Tristan. “Dude, this is literally my family’s line of work, I could have been helping you out this whole time!”

“That’s really dangerous ! You could have been hurt!” Yugi said, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DIDN’T TELL US!” Shouted Téa, furious. “-YOU KNOW HOW BAD I WANT TO FISTFIGHT A GHOST!”

“TÉA!” Wailed Yugi

“NOT HIM .” Téa said, gesturing at the gaudy pyramid necklace Yugi wore.

“HEY, LET’S TALK ABOUT LITERALLY ANYTHING BESIDES GHOSTS AND CURSES AND STUFF!” Shouted Joey, terrified. “WHATCHYA GOT IN THAT BRIEFCASE, SETO?” He demanded, forcibly changing the conversation.

“I’M GLAD YOU ASKED.” Seto answered with equal volume, just as desperate to move on from whatever this was. He stood up, opening up the briefcase and thrusting a duel disk at his Rival. “YUGI! IT’S TIME TO DUEL!”

“Seto it’s 2AM.” Yugi groaned.

“What’s that? Looks f*cking COOL.” Said Joey, leaning around Seto to poke at the Duel Disk.

“This is my revolutionary new Duel Disk system!” Seto preened, watching Yugi gingerly pick up the device with one hand and examine it. “Instead of needing to go to a bulky arena, fully holographic duels can happen anywhere- Sure, I love having record attendance at Kaibaland, but Imagine having duels in every home in the world!”

“COOL!” shouted Joey, genuinely enthused. “Howzit work?”

He’d probably show the same kind of enthusiasm for a tennis ball, but what the hell- my target audience is third grade and up, he’s probably a good representative of that demographic. Seto shrugged, smirking. “You attach the cuff to your left forearm, and put your deck in this slot.” He demonstrated. “This top part detaches and you throw it like a frisbee- the rotation of the disc completes the holographic image so I only needed minimal projectors. When it’s your turn, the cord retracts and you can play your cards on top or under these five slots like the five card slots of a flat arena. Simple enough, right? Come on Yugi, I want my rightful title back.”

The group was frowning at him in silence.

Something . Seto realized. Is amiss.

“Which forearm?” Yugi eventually asked, wincing a bit.

Seto rolled his eyes and knelt in front of Yugi to put it on for him if he was going to be difficult, pushing his coat aside and grabbing his splinted forearm.

Seto paused.

He looked at Yugi’s left forearm, which was secured in an emergency splint, and slightly swollen, just like Mokuba’s arm had been when he broke it falling off the rocking seahorse on the playground as a kid.

He looked at the decidedly right-handed-draw duel disc that would very definitely have to sit on Yugi's left forearm.

He looked back at Yugi’s very definitely broken left forearm.

He looked back at the duel disc.

“Oh for f*ck’s sake.” he groaned.

“Yeah Pegasus’s goons kicked the sh*t out of me while I was defending Mokuba.” He laughed weakly. “It sounds really cool though! Maybe someone else wants to try it?”

“Yugi’s got Eidetic Deck Memory, so I promised not to duel him until the Finals.” Said Mai.

“I’m still getting the clown blood out of my cards.” Said Téa. “-And I don’t know how fluid-resistant that thing is. With this exposed socket here, I wouldn’t use this in the rain or even a heavy fog.” She pointed to where the disc rejoined with the cuff.

“I’ve got fancybastarditis and if that top section weighs more than twenty ounces I’ll dislocate my shoulder throwing it.” Shrugged Bakura apologetically. “-If it doesn’t slip on the return and hit me in the face first.”

“Southpaw.” Waved Tristan.

Seto crumpled with each incoming problem. “...So much for testing this before using it on Pegasus.” he groaned.

“I’m game!” Said Joey.

“Of course you are.” Sighed Seto, standing up and gingerly handing Yugi’s Duel Disc to Joey, who slipped it on with some difficulty.

“Kinda tight? Did you make this one for Yugi specifically? Because it’d fit on his little noodle arms great-”

“Shut up.” Seto growled, ears burning. He put his own on and paced out so he and Joey would be dueling opposite where Yugi sat at the campfire.

“Don’t worry, I mean, nobody else thinks about this stuff neither-” Joey explained as he worked out the latches and how to connect and disconnect the disc. “Actually, it kinda got overshadowed by the whole you-tryna-kill-us thing but like, right before that? I was really impressed with Kaibaland. It’s the first theme park I considered taking my sister to.”

“What? Why?” Seto asked, moderately bewildered.

“She’s goin’ blind and frankly, the world’s crap if you’ve got vision problems. Lots of entertainment is purely visual, like books, or you’re missing most of the context, like wit’ movies. All the damn signs are visual too, and it’s not like she can see where the braille IS, if they remember to put it on at all. Also- any kind of rough terrain is an issue because so much of your balance is done by your bain sorta pre-correctin’ for you before you put your foot down, let alone trip hazards.” he explained, giving the disc an experimental toss.

“But Kaibaland? Perfectly flat, extremely clean, and all the signs have an audio element too- even the bathrooms say “bathroom” every few minutes! The soundscape’s a little crowded, but you also ditched that annoying-ass music that other places blast, so you can still have a conversation. Also? Really wide walkways so even in the most crowded parts of the park, she’s not gonna hit anyone if she has to use a cane. So’s far as I’m concerned, you’re ahead of the curve in terms of makin’ stuff that doesn’t suck if you’ve got a nonstandard body.”

Seto stared blankly at him. “...I just hated not being able to see through crowds when I was a kid, and when we were planning the rule was that a single person pushing a hospital gurney had to be able to get to every square inch of the park in an emergency, and the ambulance drive up and place their doors to the entrance of any ride or building. In case some kid had an allergic reaction or something.”

“SEE! Good thinkin’! And that took like, a million drafts worth of design to get right, right? So, even if I’d never trust another plate of spaghetti at your house, I would trust you to make a portable duel whatsist that Serenity could use if her surgery doesn’t work.” Joey nodded, activating the duel disk.

Seto blinked a few times, and then made a note that whoever he hired after he got rid of the penguin-obsessed weirdo in charge of Human Resources, that they have experience working with blind kids. And deaf ones. And kids with wheelchairs and oxygen tanks and… sh*t, I’m getting distracted. He shook his head to clear it. “Whatever, play your cards!”

“Learn to take a compliment Kaiba, it’s good for your blood pressure!” Joey laughed, drawing. He frowned at his opening hand. “Hm. This is a test duel, right? So it should last a while to make sure everything’s running properly right?"

“I can’t help it if your cards suck and you can’t bring anything good to the field, Wheeler.” Seto sneered, feeling a little more in control of the situation-

“I summon the Red Eyes Black Dragon.” Replied Joey, bemused as the massive dragon came to life on the field between them with a fearsome howl, snapping at Seto through his empty side of the field.

Ah. sh*t.

“Oh damn she looks so much better on your system!” Joey applauded, actually clapping his hands with glee. “NEAT- she’s being lit by the campfire, not an artificial light source! That must’ve been a bitch and a half to program.”

“Oh cool you can see her ribs moving as she breathes too!” Yugi pointed with his good arm.

“-And the foley on her growl is very nice, good use of infrasound!” Bakura added, on his third cup of pudding.

Joey gave Seto an approving Thumbs up and grin. “Okay so maybe the hardware setup needs work but the rendering is A+! For something in alpha, it’s really great! I lay two cards facedown. Show me whatcha got!” He encouraged, practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

Well, at least the visual aspect of this is going well. I’ll have to remember to give whoever animated that dragon a raise, she DOES look very convincing . Seto grimaced looking down at his own hand. “I summon Battle Ox in defense mode, and place one card facedown.” he huffed. Perhaps my deck is mad about me being gone for so- what the f*ck am I thinking? Is Yugi’s heart-of-the-cards brainrot contagious by proximity?? Ugh-

“What’s so special about Red anyway?” He grumbled, drawing again. Mystic Horseman. Alright, I can work with this. He looked up to see everyone staring again.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what’s so special about Red? Red’s a Great color!” Said Joey, bewildered. “It’s the color of cherries on sundaes, and really good sports cars and valentine’s cards and lots of good stuff!”

“-Like blood!” Chirped Bakura.

“Maybe we should get you out of the moonlight buddy.” winced Tristan.

“He’s not a werewolf Tristan.” Téa groaned.

“Okay, but why’s everyone always putting it ‘opposite’ blue? Blue’s so much more intense and red’s just. Dull and ugly.”

Their confusion only worsened.

“Wait-” Joey held up his hand. “Hang on, hang on. Okay, you can see the eyes on my dragon, right?”

“Yeah, it’s like six feet away from me-”

“Okay, okay, the color of its eyes? Is it closer to the color of the Cross on Mai’s emergency bag, or is it closer to the color of Téa’s hair?”

“What the f*ck are you talking about?” Seto growled. “Those are all the same color.”

The assembled teens all stared at him in disbelief.

“What?”

“Uh. Seto. I think you might be colorblind.” Said Yugi, delicately.

“No! I see all kinds of colors!” Seto huffed.

“Well, not all of them.” Said Joey, waving his hand. “You probably see blue and yellow just fine, but I think you’ve got red-green colorblindness.”

“What.” Seto stared blankly at him. “I can see red and green. I mean, firelight isn’t the best for acuity, but I can tell the difference.”

“If you had full color vision, the fire light wouldn’t matter. Red and Green are as different as colors get.” said Tristan. The others nodded.

“Bullsh*t.”

“I have absolutely no reason to lie to you about this.” Said Yugi.

“You’re trying to throw me off my game so your friend wins.” Seto growled.

“It’s a test duel, it’s fine if I lose?” Joey shrugged. “Also I attack your Battle Ox.” He said, and the Red-Which-Was-Not-The-Color-He-Thought-It-Was Eyes Black Dragon rolled her head back before belching a lava-like inferno onto his Battle Ox. “OH! SO COOL!! Okay, even if you can’t see half the fire colors, whoever animated this did a perfect job.”

“I. AM. NOT. COLORBLIND.” Seto shouted.

“That does explain the cabbage-patch look you were sporting at the intercontinental championships.” Mai said. “You dyed your hair right before the event, right? Because I 100% believe you could get stress-gray hairs-”

“SHUT. UP.” Seto fumed, face and ears burning.

“-and now that I’m looking at you, the green you had is the exact same value as your natural brown. Yeah. If you’re red-green colorblind, they’d look exactly the same.” She continued.

He stared at Mai, who absolutely would not spare his pride but seemed to be earnest about this. “...is that why Rebecca asked if I was planning on cosplaying Sailor Pluto?” he realized.

“You DO have the legs for it!” Mai tried to cheer him up.

Everyone was silent for a while, the only sound the pop and crackle of the fire. Even the foxes seemed to have shut up in the oppressive awkwardness.

“I’d swear you all to secrecy but everyone at Domino High already saw me like that.” He realized, slumping and hiding his face in his hands.

“Pretty sure everyone thought it was a deliberate Eccentric Billionaire Fashion Choice.” Téa attempted to reassure him. “But I won’t tell anyone.”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” added Yugi, the others nodding in agreement.

“If it makes you feel better, Pegasus is a much worse fashion disaster and game-master than you are?” Joey tried. “His suit probably looks gray to you but it’s actually red and makes him look like an evil, beardless Santa Claus.”

Seto snorted a laugh before he could help himself.

“Oh yeah, NOBODY noticed your hair next to Pegasus making an absolute ass of himself at the intercontinentals. Like, what kind of tryhard macho nonsense was that, putting a kid up against Keith?” Mai nodded, ready to engage in the traditional Los Osakan “Bitch About Someone We Both Hate Together” Friendship Ritual.

“And your Duel Disc means if you ever wanted to hold a tournament, you could hold it somewhere civilized, instead of an island with no hospital in the middle of nowhere!” Bakura added.

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.” Seto groaned.

“Yes? That’s what friends do?” Yugi said and Seto nearly jumped out of his skin because Yugi had somehow gotten up and walked over to his side without him hearing. “Joey, I know you’re hype to duel Seto, but it’s way past any reasonable bedtime and freezing out here.”

“Yeeeaaah…” Groaned Joey. “Okay, you get off lucky this time, Seto- but next time you’re gonna get dragoned so hard you’ll file for bankruptcy.”

“If I ever lose to you that might literally be the case.” Seto muttered, but he entered the code to stop the duel without recording the results as more than a Test.

“Great!” Téa said, slapping his back and this time he actually did jump. “Your giraffe ass can help me put the tent back together after you crash-landed into it!”

“Yeah, you still need to explain how you actually got here.” Frowned Yugi. “What was this about Counter-assassins?”

“There. Uh.” Seto sputtered as Téa handed him a pole to hold while she duct-taped it back together, and he realized he had very nearly skewered himself on impact. “I think Pegasus sent assassins to kill me to make the takeover of KaibaCorp easier but this… International Card-Game Crime Ring Guy? Maybe? Someone involved in something illegal with Duel Monsters trading cards wants my feud with Pegasus to continue so he sent assassins to assassinate the first assassins or something? Anyway, they were a lot of fun and very nicely flew me out here to kick Pegasus’s ass on their Boss’s behalf, but they couldn’t land the- uh-oh.”

“What?” Téa demanded.

“Anyone see a bottle of extremely high-proof alcohol wrapped in a rag?” he asked, looking around the remains of the tent.

“Foxes probably got to it by now.” Tristan shrugged.

“I’m sorry, I need you to back up- International Card Game Crime Ring?” Yugi asked, staring up at him with incredulity. “How the hell does that even work?”

“I don’t know?” Seto shrugged. “I didn’t question it because honestly? That was the least weird part of that phone call. I think I heard a motorcycle explode in the background.”

“Card-Game crimes and exploding motorcycles.” Yugi muttered. “That guy must be having the weirdest life.”

*

“D’ya think that’s him?” Rex muttered, leaning over Weevil.

“I don’t know, how many seven-foot-tall men with ancient Egyptian tattooed on their faces do you think there are on this island?” Weevil muttered. “Good grief, if that’s her brother, your Dr. Ishtar must be jacked.”

“I mean, she is, but I think that’s her adopted brother.” muttered Rex.

They were standing on the Kua Bay pier, recently rebuilt after the latest volcanic expansion of the island. The surrounding land was an unforgiving mass of black stone, the entrepreneurial palm trees and Ti plants only just beginning to take root in the exposed cracks and pits of the lava. The new port however, was glaringly bright fresh cement and colorful pop-up stands and food trucks. They had gotten in some time before The Chariot Of Ra , which had been held up as Mako frantically negotiated with the port authority, several men in suits, someone on the phone from Honolulu, and someone named “Cousin Brutus” but after the better part of an hour, some form of arrangement had been made that had everyone shaking hands, exchanging phone numbers and attempting to schedule the acquisition of a wild pig.

Rex and Weevil had spent the intervening time at the Shave Ice stand, trying to remember how SPF worked.

“So is there like… a password, or some kind of sign or what?” Weevil asked, tongue bright blue from his “Blue Raspberry” and vanilla ice cream shave ice.

“You watch too many spy movies.” Rex rolled his eyes, tongue yellow from his Lilikoi-and-Tapioca-Pearls DIY creation. “Watch and learn.” Rex winked before setting down the mostly-melted remains of his snack, and climbing up on the table.

“HEY!” he shouted. “ARE YOU MISTER ISHTAR?”

The man froze from where he’d been filling out paperwork for the port authority, looking up at them with a gaze that activated every single prey animal instinct the boys possessed.

“Rex you f*cking IDIOT!” hissed Weevil, gripping the table with white knuckles.

After a moment of motionless, golden-eyed carnivore death glare, the man straightened up and smiled brightly in recognition, strolling over to them. “Mr. Raptor, I presume?”

“Yeah!” Rex said, suddenly animate again. “Your sister called me that you need me to take something back to Domino City whenever we get back from our honeymoon?”

“Honeym-? Babe.” Weevil sputtered, hiding his face in his hands. “Babe we’re sixteen.”

“And? ‘Honeymoon’ is easier to pronounce than ‘six-month-a-versary’ and anyway I’m sure he’s a busy man.” Rex waved.

Mr. Ishtar chuckled. “Yes. And congratulations. Do you have an idea of when you’d be returning to the city?”

“Eh, two weeks? A month?” Rex shrugged.

“No? Remember, we have to be back for Aunt Libellula’s Divorce party on the 30th…” Weevil groaned.

“Oh! sh*t, right- Yeah, we’d have to be back by next week then.” Nodded Rex. “You do NOT miss out on his Aunt’s Funeral Potatoes and since it’s the death of her crap marriage they’re gonna be Off The sh*ts this time!”

“...Funeral Potatoes.” Mr. Ishtar repeated, concerned.

“Three kinds of potato, four kinds of dairy and enough garlic salt to kill a child in a casserole dish.” Explained Weevil, nodding approvingly.

Mr. Ishtar stared at them blankly. “Are these potatoes meant to… cause funerals?”

“I mean if they did, Auntie wouldn’t have had to go through all the fuss of a Divorce.” Weevil shrugged.

Mr. Ishtar nodded sagely. “Well-”

“HEY!” called a delicate-looking blonde in purple bikini bottoms, a light jacket and half a Tiffany’s worth of 14 carat. “THE LADS AND I ARE GOING TO THE BEACH, WE’LL SEE YOU THERE! ”

Mr. Ishtar nodded and waved and the blonde grinned, jogging off with what looked like two mechanics and a couple of Hot Topic Staff.

“She’s cute.” Nodded Rex. “Kinda young though?”

“‘She’ is Sixteen, and my brother.” Nodded Mr. Ishtar, taking out a plain brown envelope,stuffed almost to bursting with papers. “This is all the documentation and permits for the Domino Museum to exhibit a collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts next year. It took my beloved sister almost two years to put this all together, and if you lose it or a single page ends up out of order, it’ll be your funerals Auntie is making potatoes for. Do Not Open. Do Not Lose. Understand?”

“Yessir!” They both snapped to attention.

“Very good.” he nodded, handing the envelope to Rex. “There will be a check waiting for you upon delivery. Do I make it out to Mr. Raptor or-?”

“Uh, it’s. Hang on, it’s easier if I write it down-” Rex sputtered for a moment, before putting the Envelope in his backpack, and taking out a notebook from the back-to-school section with a holographic illustration of a T-Rex on it, scribbled something down and handed the page to the giant. “-Here. And uh, thanks.”

Mr. Ishtar took it and read the page with interest. “Rex Wojciechowski-Dudek?”

“...I am genuinely impressed that you pronounced that correctly on the first try.” Rex stared up at him. “But yeah, my parents decided to hyphenate my last name, and it doesn’t fit in the character limit of most tournament entry boxes, so it’s ‘Raptor’ when I’m gaming.” he laughed.

“The benefits of an International Education.” Mr. Ishtar nodded, folding up the paper and tucking it into his jacket. “Thank you, Mr. Raptor, Mr. Underwood. Enjoy your Funerary Potatoes.” he nodded, before turning and leaving.

“...Intense guy.” Muttered Weevil as he followed after the blonde. “Weird looking brother though. Dr. Ishtar’s a blonde?”

“Uh. No. Actually, she doesn’t really look like either of them.” Rex puzzled, frowning. “...Is she the adopted one?” he scratched his head, trying to remember.

*

“Come look at these!” Marik shouted gleefully, pointing into the tidepool. “They’re like gemstones!” he marveled at the scuttling hermit crabs and shimmering fish fry.

“That one looks like a butthole!” Shouted Hodgekiss, pointing at a large green anemone.

Marik stared at him. “What p*rn have you been watching where that thing looks like an anus?” he glared, pointing at the neon green betentacled creature.

“Aren’t anemones basically a combination of mouth and butthole, surrounded by tentacles?” Asked Watts.

“Hang on, I’m looking it up.” DiCinello said, squinting against the sun-glare on his phone.

“What, the mouth and asshole are the same hole?” Hodgekiss asked. “Man. f*cked up if true.”

“I’m going to go talk to Lewis and Upchurch now.” Marik groaned, leaving them to their discourse. He bounded over the exposed Lava, hopping into the sand beside the aspiring Rare Hunters.

“Master Marik!” Lewis yelped. He was a tall, lanky man with long blue hair in need of a touch-up at the roots. He’d come to the Ghouls when he and his partner Upchurch had attempted to rob the same casino Marik and Odion were already holding up, but Marik had been far too charmed by their matching sun and moon disguises to be upset with them.

“Master Odion asked me to remind you to put on sunscreen.” said Upchurch. He was a small, round man that looked like a fat Buddha statue that had gotten into NFTs. He was setting up the beach umbrella, struggling against the light breeze and Marik had to catch it before he got dragged into the Pacific by it.

“Yes, yes, I put it on already, I’m not an animal.” Marik rolled his eyes, forcing the Umbrella into the sand. “I wanted to talk to you two about your Hunter Initiation duel.”

“Sir!” They both snapped to attention.

Marik waved to indicate they should be at ease, falling back onto the beach towel. “I had an idea but I need your approval.”

“Our approval sir?” Lewis asked, sitting down beside him. “-But you always pick the terms of Hunter Initiation duels?”

“Yes, but this idea is a little more… risky, than the usual duels.” Marik waved his hand. “You remember when Stephannie and I tested out Slifer The Sky Dragon?”

Both men shivered at the memory. “If Slifer will be making an appearance, and another major weather event, can I request that we uh. Not duel on the boat again? I’m still seasick from that event.” Upchurch gurgled.

“No, not Slifer.” Marik shook his head, reaching into his jacket. “An even greater God.”

He held up the card, and both men had the entirely correct reaction of dropping to their knees in the Presence of the Winged Dragon of Ra.

“...Sir.” Lewis breathed, appropriately reverent and horrified.

“I can read the coptic, but Pegasus did a shoddy job transliterating the hieroglyphs so I’m… not actually entirely sure what she does.” Marik explained, turning the card back and gazing fondly upon the dragon. “Something something sacrifice summons, something something orb- it’s a mess. Now, my first choice is to test her against Pegasus himself so he can face the consequences of his own crap research, but that may or may not be possible if he’s worn himself out cheating at games against children or flees before we can arrive.”

“So, in the event Dear Maximillion is indisposed, may I rely upon you two to help me learn the powers of a God?” he grinned, conspiratorial with them.

The two men stared, then glanced at each other.

“To be clear, I don’t expect you to WIN, I expect you to last long enough to test out her abilities and dive for cover if needed because both of you have excellent senses of self-preservation.” he added. “I think the greater risk is to me- Gods get offended if you don’t play them properly, as we learned- but Odion will be there, and Pegasus has his own medical staff on the island in case of a real emergency.”

He tucked the card back into his chest pocket, and reached out to clasp a hand on each man’s shoulder. “I am not a wicked king- the risk is mine to take.” he reassured them with a soft smile. “May I depend on your loyalty?”

Both men sniffled, eyes welling up with tears.

“YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!”

“OF COURSE MASTER MARIK!”

They both dove forward, tackling him back onto the towel and hugging him. Marik laughed, joyful, patting both on the back and wriggling to get free. “I knew I could! I- oof, okay, let me up, let me up- I am so proud of both of you! Your teamwork is impeccable, and I look forward to the challenge of taking you both on.”

“Sir…” Lewis sobbed, wiping his eyes on his T-shirt.

“We won’t let you down!” Upchurch promised, nose running.

“I take it you’ve agreed to the terms of the initiation duel?” Odion asked, leaning over the group.

“They’re very brave!” Marik grinned up at him.

“We- We gotta prepare!” Upchurch sputtered, hopping to his feet.

“Oh, sh*t! Yeah- Uh, by your leave-?” Lewis asked, and Marik nodded, waving them off to practice at their leisure.

“Join me?” Marik asked, scooting to the sunny side of the towel and patting the space beside him. Odion lowered himself onto the towel, relieved to be in the shade. Mousetrap made an interrogative call to Odion, who looked over his shoulder and, finding no lurking animal control or port authority, opened the portal for his familiar to rematerialize.

“There’s my favorite tube!” Marik beamed, flopping onto his back and letting Mousetrap slither onto his chest to sun himself.

“You’re in a good mood.” Odion smiled.

“I have the adoration of my minions, the defeat of an enemy is within my grasp, I am about to master a second God Card, and it is another beautiful day in the sun! Why wouldn’t I be happy?” Marik grinned, stretching his arms out as though to embrace the sky before settling back onto the sand.

“Hm.” Odion smiled down at him, as Marik gave mousetrap his customary affectionate Boop.

“Who were those guys you were talking to?” Marik asked, curious.

“Hm? Oh. Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor- The winner and runner-up of the Nihonifornia regional championships this year.” Odion shrugged with well-rehearsed casualness.

“They’re here?” Marik asked, squinting up at Odion. “And not at Duelist Kingdom?”

“They’re on honeymoon, apparently.” Odion technically-didn’t-lie.

Marik gasped with delight. “How romantic! I had no idea they were an item, I should offer them my congratulations in person…”

“I think they’re ah… Busy.” Odion diverted.

Marik blinked a few times, before comprehending. “Ah! Yes, well. I’ll leave them to it then.” he nodded, lying back down and offering Odion his hand. Odion gave it a squeeze and for a few minutes he knew peace, watching the birds skim the waves, listening to the hypnotic sound of the ocean, feeling Marik basking in the sun like he deserved.

For a few moments, all was right with the world.

“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you again, but uh. You have way longer arms and better nerves than I do and I could really, really use your help!” Sputtered Weevil Underwood, appearing behind them and looking like he was about to faint.

Odion turned with some alarm and Marik sat up to see Rex standing behind Weevil, looking like he might have fainted on his feet with his arm extended, an enormous red-and-yellow centipede sitting along the length of his exposed forearm, antennae and pincers twitching.

“Is that a Scolopendra ?” Marik asked, sitting up with excitement and accidentally dumping Mousetrap into his lap.

“I just thought it was a cool bug to show Weevil…” Rex whimpered, staring at the massive arthropod sitting with its mandibles just over his Median Cubital Vein.

“I mean, it IS a very cool chilopod, but it’s also a very venomous one with a rather nasty bite…” Marik cooed at the centipede. “What a lovely creature you are…”

“Please-” Odion winced, but it was too late. Marik put his hand on Rex’s arm, palm up, just in front of the insect, and lightly tapped the boy’s wrist behind the animal. With a curious shuffle of too many legs, the centipede ambled up Rex’s arm and onto Marik’s where he stood, admiring the creature with joy.

“I love venomous animals.” Marik sighed fondly, offering the fingertip of his free hand to the centipede to examine. “Something so small, so fragile, and so dangerous as to immediately command such respect… It’s inspiring, really, if you’re small and weak like me.” he laughed.

All assembled stared at him.

“I suppose I should. Invertebrates are so delicate…” Marik sighed, walking back towards the lava and knelt. The centipede, waving its antennae with curiosity, ambled across his shoulders and down his arm, before darting off with an alarming turn of speed back into the crevices of the black rock, on the hunt again.

Everyone, collectively, sighed with relief.

Marik suddenly perked up, a sure sign he had had an Idea (™), and Odion suppressed the urge to groan.

“Do you think the Jellyfish we saw in the harbor come close to shore?” He asked, excited.

Behind him, Odion glared as hard as he could at the boys, attempting to telepathically convey how this was only the overture to a symphony of poor judgment.

“I mean, if they’re sick or dying maybe?” Weevil shrugged, eyes locked with Odion’s just over Marik’s shoulder.

“Oh.” Marik slumped, disappointed. “Well, I don’t want to see one up close then.” He nodded.

THANK YOU Odion mouthed as Marik studied them with interest.

“You wouldn’t happen to be Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood, would you?” He asked, co*cking his head like a bird at them. Both boys froze, and Odion could almost trace the shiver of fear around their silhouettes. “I thought I saw you talking to my brother…”

“Er, yeah.” Sputtered Rex in the voice of a man that had absolutely no idea how to lie.

“He was congratulating me on my victory at the Regional championships.” Interjected Weevil.

“Ah! And may I offer you my congratulations as well? I understand you’re here on honeymoon!” Marik beamed like the sun offering Rex a hand.

“Oh, uh- Thanks!” Rex sputtered. “Yeah, I’m- I’m a lucky guy!”

“Well, I won’t intrude on your time together further.” Marik smiled at them, and both boys waved goodbye before Rex grabbed Weevil’s hand and nearly sprinted down the beach.

“Odd boys.” Marik noted as he resumed his place in the sun beside Odion, watching where Rex stopped when Weevil tripped on something and sent them both hurtling into the surf. They got up, arguing about something he couldn’t hear over the waves, before embracing again and walking along the tideline, hand in hand. Marik watched them with a pleasantly distant curiosity, taking a bag of M&M’s out of his and picking one out. With a practiced motion, he meticulously cracked and peeled the candy shell, discarding it and eating the slightly melted chocolate interior.

“Did you ever think about Dating?” He asked, turning to face Odion. “I suppose our lifestyle would tend to put a cramp on romance but- I don’t know? It seems nice, what they have.” Marik returned his gaze to the couple, distant, slowly sunburning specks in the distance.

“Occasionally.” Said Odion. “The primary ‘Cramp’ being that our lifestyle limits my available options, if you will.” he lied.

He adored Marik, really. The mere thought of being apart from him for any length of time was enough to make his stomach turn but- If I ever pursued a serious relationship, I’m pretty sure it’d end in blood and irreconcilable Jealousy. Yours, mine or theirs, I’m not sure, but I cannot be servant to two masters.

“Ah, yes.” Marik sighed. “They’re good people- loyal people, but you’ve always had such exacting standards- It’s something I’ve always admired about you, you know- but it’s got to be weird being a virgin at Twenty-Six.”

Odion’s mind helpfully played him a highlight reel of every furtive one-night stand, anonymous restroom hookup, several very adventurous people he’d met in public parks, The Werewolf in London, The Turkish Bathhouse, The entire backstage of Opera Populiare in Paris before that dreadful fire, that one MILF he’d somehow made it with behind a caravan after he accidentally gate-crashed her niece’s wedding with a tank, several weekend flings, the series of charmingly overconfident Vampires he’d somehow caught the attention of, and the half-dozen mile-high club members he’d inducted on assorted flights behind his eyes.

“Indeed.” he said. I should try his hand at poker next time we are somewhere that has good gambling. Beside him, his phone pinged a message.

>ForesightIs2020: Just checking but you DID make sure that the Pharaoh won’t be on the island when you get there, right?

“Something the matter?” Marik asked, pausing halfway through peeling a green one as Odion began to rapidly text someone.

“Misha had questions about their mission. It’s fine.” he lied, furiously texting Misha a description of the Millennium Puzzle.

Speaking of poker, I think there’s some kind of tournament coming up in Monte Carlo, actually. Le Chiffre and company looking to make some pocket change. That might be fun,

*

“I think I’ll be more comfortable outside.” Said Seto, staring in the door of the tent at the already-crowded sleeping arrangements. “So will you, for that matter.”

“I know sleeping next to you is going to be like cuddling a trashbag full of coathangers, and I don’t care. Get in here.” Yugi yawned.

“Well if you’re going to insul- YEAGH!” He shouted as Yugi reached out with his right hand and pulled him in by his collar, glaring face-to-face with Seto in an awkwardly recumbent position. Again.

“Come To Bed, Seto.” He growled and Seto was too preoccupied with trying to figure out exactly what that tone of voice was doing to his internal organs to notice he’d climbed into the tent and curled awkwardly between the mass of bodies until Yugi laid down, almost on top of him, tucked under Seto’s arm with his broken arm across Seto’s chest. Beside Yugi, Téa had stretched out, also partially on Seto’s arm, curled protectively around Yugi.

“You’re bossy.” Seto muttered at Yugi as he snuggled closer, the motion even worse than the tone of voice.

“He’s tired.” Téa grumbled. “We’re all tired, so shush.”

Maybe I am over-tired. Racing heartbeat and hypersensitivity are symptoms of exhaustion, right? He considered. On his other side, Tristan had settled with his back to Seto, holding Bakura and scolding him for staying up so late, even if he was naturally nocturnal. Seto refused to look at whatever nonsense Joey and Mai were up to.

Téa reached over Yugi and touched Seto’s cheek, making him twitch like he’d shocked himself while wiring something. “Hey, it’s okay.” She sighed. “I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re alright. Yugi was really worried about you.”

Seto looked down at Yugi for confirmation, only to find the boy had already passed out on his chest. “...Okay?” Seto muttered, feeling adrift.

Téa huffed a quiet laugh at him, wrapped her arm around Yugi, tucked her face into his hair and settled for the night. “Goodnight, Seto.”

After a few more minutes of shuffling to get as comfortable as everyone could in the crowded but-admittedly-pleasantly-warm tent, and then things were quiet. Seto stared directly up at a tear in the rainfly, watching the stars cross the gash in the fabric, skin crackling like a live electrical conduit, feeling every breath and twitch Yugi made-

-Which is how he noticed when Yugi suddenly grew six inches and twenty pounds.

Look I had a pretty sudden growth spurt while I was asleep but that’s ridiculous. He glared up at the gash in the rainfly, refusing to look down and acknowledge something so absurd. I must be more tired than I thought.

After a minute he became acutely aware that he was being watched, and that Yugi’s breathing had gone from the slow and deep pattern of sleep to something shallower and irregular.

“You’re being f*cking creepy.” Seto muttered, not moving.

“My apologies, Seto.” A deep and resonant voice that definitely didn’t belong to his barely-pubescent rival replied. “I’m just very glad you’re alright.”

Seto froze, reassuming the taxidermy deer position of Don’t-Let-This-Situation-Escalate. Without moving his head, he looked down at the thing resting on his chest.

A pair of large violet eyes stared back, fondly. The hair was still characteristically vertical, maybe even more so than earlier, the eyeliner was still smeared in the same shape along his tear ducts and back across his temple, and the sunburn hadn’t faded yet. All the distinctive markers of Yugi were there but-

“You’re not Yugi.” he said, still frozen.

“I am Yami.” He smiled, eyes closing like a cat. Did leopards do the slow blink too? “-And I am genuinely sorry that I hurt you. I thought I was freeing you of an evil influence, and did not take into consideration how that separation might harm your soul as well.”

“For the last f*cking time, you didn’t do sh*t to me besides beat me in a card game.” Seto growled, stomach churning.

Not-Yugi looked down from where he was resting above Seto propped up on his good arm, hand under his chin. “I will never lie to you, Seto.” he threatened.

Seto stared at this menace, thoughts racing- It’s not possible. No brain contains two minds this complete at once, Unless this one is just very good at conversations and little else, but he looks a damn lot more like Yugi did across the arena, and even if Yugi did have some kind of psychosis, it shouldn’t alter the physical structure of his face like this, unless what he’s got is some kind of novel chimerism and it matters which side of his face I’m looking at or-

“I want to put you in my Virtual Reality Simulator.” Seto said. “I think you’ll break it in a very interesting way.”

‘Yami’ laughed, co*cking his head at Seto with interest. “Virtual Reality Simulator?” he asked, pleasantly conversational, ankles crossed behind him like a teenage girl at a sleepover.

“ NerveGear was an interesting premise but functionally a disaster by not separating the conscious experience from the user’s body enough, resulting in stress-related fatalities. My system separates mind from body entirely so no matter what errors one experiences in the game, the process can be reversed and no harm comes to the user.". Seto explained with the exact degree of competency Joey had demonstrated earlier.

"I suppose I should be glad that if I break your system ‘in an interesting way’, it won't break me back?" Not-Yugi asked, bemused.

“Yeah? I’m designing it for kids? If I’m gonna kill someone, I’m only going to do it on purpose. I’m not an animal.” Seto huffed. “But it’d be interesting to see what the homunculus of a guy who thinks he’s two people comes out like.”

“I don’t-” Not-Yugi started, then rolled his eyes. “So this is a system that separates consciousness from the body and simulates situations that would be impossible under the normal laws of physics.”

“Yes Yugi, that’s what virtual reality is.” It was Seto’s turn to roll his eyes. “Don’t you pay attention in school?”

Yami stared blankly at him for a moment, then perked up as he made a connection. “Oh! That’s why I look different when… Well, I think the results might surprise you, Seto.”

“How so?” Seto glared.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, now would it?” Yami smirked down at him, with the same kind of benevolent supremacy one had towards a favorite lesser creature, like he was playing with a kitten. He shifted forward on his good arm, suddenly much, much too close and Seto froze as ‘Yami’ lightly pressed his lips to Seto’s forehead. “I am very glad that that brain of yours is still firing away. The joy when you speak of invention and the search for knowledge is very contagious.” He murmured, before pulling back and settling back under Seto’s arm again.

“Whatever, Nerd.” Seto groaned. Great. Two Yugis per Yugi and they’re both insufferably saccharine. He rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring the soft chuckle ‘Yami’ made into his chest.

Seto resolutely returned his gaze to the gash in the rainfly, skin too sensitive and brain too full of inarticulate notions to think logically about this. He waited until he felt Yugi or Not-Yugi’s breathing settle and the weight on his shoulder to return to that of a fun-size candy bar, but when it did he only worried more. Okay, Yugi’s clearly insane, which is probably where he gets those crackpot dueling strategies from, but how the f*ck is he gaining and losing a computer monitor’s worth of mass as different minds assume control? Or am I the crazy one here, hallucinating that he’s speedrunning puberty on a save file or something. Ugh. I’m being irrational. This is clearly some kind of reaction to coming out of a coma and nothing else. Sleep. Sleep will help.

Sleep did not come.

What did come was a suspicious rustling and chuffing noise outside. He would have written it off as the foxes, but something about the measured footsteps of the animal suggested something… large.

There aren’t bears on San Nicolas. There were miniature mammoths, many thousands of years ago, but unless Pegasus has started an extremely inadvisable extinct animal cloning facility in his dungeons, they’re long gone. Another human, looking to rob us? An assassin? Téa’s Giant Clown??

Slowly, he rolled on his side and shuffled as quietly as possible to the tent door. The zippers were on the bottom, and he opened the door a few inches to peer out into the darkness.

The creature was indeed, massive. Genuine Megafauna. Her broad head swept across the ground, sniffing for leftover snacks, tusks the size of Seto’s forearm glinting in the starlight. Her thick auburn mane seemed oddly well-groomed for a wild animal, but he was distracted by the scale of her torso- he could probably stand completely upright inside her ribcage. Her huge reptilian tail swished, and Seto was extremely willing to believe this was a creature capable of swimming across the ocean.

“sh*t.” he muttered.

The beast looked up, ears flicking for the source of the sound, even if her almost-supernaturally bright yellow eyes were fixed on him. Seto froze completely, not even daring to breathe, the memories from Pony Club of what destruction a furious ungulate could wreak flashing across his mind. She made a short, high bark that sounded eerily like laughter, then meandered away into the shadows.

“Huh.” He finally sighed with relief. “So that’s what a Chupacabra looks like.”

*

The house breathed.

Old houses did that, timbers creaking and popping as they expanded and contracted in the heat of the day or the cool of night. Pipes moaned and pinged, curtains fluttered in the changing breeze, light dancing minute waltzes across the floor as the window panes faintly vibrated with change.

The house then stretched, yawned and shook itself vigorously like an animal, before settling back into its original shape. Halls telescoped closed and straightened themselves out, rooms recombined, walls between them popping like soap bubbles uniting. There was a distressingly organic gurgling as the plumbing did something violent and gastric, the toilet in the hall belching loudly.

Bakura considered that perhaps he should leave his bedroom while the manor sorted itself out.

He was dreaming, definitely. Bakura had been here before, his memory of his childhood home- distorted through time, nostalgia and no small amount of memory loss. It was Like Home, both in the sense that it was safe and welcoming, and that it was only sort of similar to the residence and familial circ*mstances he actually grew up in.

He meandered down the hall, had to jog a bit to get down the stairs as they briefly turned into an ‘up’ escalator as they returned to their usual number from the dozens upon dozens he’d forced them to stretch to to escape the Parasite, and out the French doors to the balcony overlooking the gardens. Here too, the landscape rippled and relaxed back into its correct shapes, the geometry of the beds going from Literally Non-Euclidian Labyrinth to a more welcoming Mere Maze of summer flowers and sweet herbs. Around the edge, the great Black Briar Hedge that the family was allegedly named for rose and fell like a panting animal after a long run, slowly inching back to where it had been torn from the ground before. Beside him, the rose bushes were climbing the walls of the Manor again, and he reached out to greet them as he sat on the parapet.

“Hello Mrs. Lancaster. Hello Mrs. York.” he smiled as red and white blooms twisted open and perfumed the air around him. “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet…” he sighed.

“...But soft…” a strange voice sighed.

Bakura froze, still leery of strangers in his mind, but the house and gardens did not respond as they had for The Parasite, doors and windows still ajar, plants alight with blossom rather than protective thorn. Without moving his head, he slowly peeked to his side to find a stranger in the garden paradise.

“So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title?” He continued the play from memory, slowly turning to stare down at the strange man.

Bakura hadn’t meant ‘Dear Perfection’ literally but perhaps the universe was delivering on back karma for him, because that was indeed what stood before him. Romeo or whoever he was was tall and powerfully built, with golden skin and wide, storm-colored eyes staring up at him with reverent awe. He had the same shockingly white hair as himself and was wearing what appeared to be a dull red bathrobe that was currently falling off his magnificent shoulder, faults Bakura was entirely willing to overlook as the stranger’s magnificent bosom heaved and Bakura forgot to keep track of the words coming out of his mouth.

“Romeo,” he sighed, enraptured. “-doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee, take all myself.”

Romeo’s worshipful stare was interrupted by some confused blinking, then his face broke into a wide grin before he rather abruptly launched himself across the garden and up onto the balcony, swinging one-handed up onto the parapet where he crouched, face mere inches from Bakura’s.

“I take thee at thy word!” He grinned, practically vibrating with delight and excitement. “Call me but Love, and I'll be new baptized, henceforth I never will be Romeo.” He sighed, sliding off the parapet to kneel before Bakura, arms wide and pleading.

“What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?” Bakura wheezed out in a single breath, too startled by sudden proximity and the pounding of his heart to come up with his own words. He was too thrilled and just a little bit too frightened to drop the pretense of the play just yet.

Romeo grimaced. “By a name, I know not how to tell thee who I am.” He sighed, sitting back on his heels and frowning. He co*cked his head, eyebrow arching as he considered something. “Quite literally, actually…”

Bakura stared at him, something about the shape and sound of him familiar- long-forgotten whispers in the night from the other side of Bakura’s front gate. “My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: Art thou not A Thief and the Spirit of the Ring?”

Romeo winced. “Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.” he still knelt before Bakura, honest and devout.

Bakura, Gods Help Him, believed the man.

“How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?” Bakura asked, setting questions of Not-Really-Romeo’s identity aside for the moment. “The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here.” he gestured to the protective Briar wall, and the way the roses grew to hover just behind his shoulders. Still, the house did not react to the stranger’s presence, as though he were an invited guest rather than an unwelcome trespasser.

Romeo grinned, turning with a whirl of his red cloak, jabbing his thumbs over his shoulders to show off the back, which was embroidered with golden thread in the shape of the winged Goddess Isis. “With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls! For stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do that dares love attempt.” He nodded, pleased with himself.

Bakura paused a moment, before barking out a loud laugh which descended into snorting, awkward giggles and sliding off the parapet, character broken and gasping with hysterics. He hid his hands in his face, blush burning bright over his face and ears and down his neck, before he looked back up at the stranger and apparent paramour, and burst into giggles again.

Romeo grinned broadly again and looked up. He reached for the overhanging roses, who bloomed at his fingertips as they had Bakura’s own. “Therefore thy kinsmen are no threat to me.” he smiled, voice soft now, before slowly sitting on the floor beside Bakura, the movement flowing like silk, until he was low enough to peer at Bakura through the gaps between his fingers. “So how do you know old Bill?” he asked, curious.

“I went to school, I’m not an Animal.” Bakura huffed in mock-offense, curling his knees to his chest and resting his cheek on them. “How do YOU know Shakespeare, if you are the Spirit of the Ring, and have been imprisoned for what? Four millennia now?”

“Five.” The Spirit waved. “And Imprisoned perhaps, but until recently I was at least free to travel on the good will of my hosts. Bill very kindly took me on as his Muse before… Ah, well. If you ever see a grouchy looking bastard in a turban wearing the world’s most ostentatious Ankh, run.” he nodded, sitting back. “...relatedly, what year is it?”

“It’s um. 1998.” Bakura said, watching The Spirit’s hands, which he seemed to need to constantly gesticulate with in order to speak.

The Spirit frowned and did some hasty math on his fingers.

“THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-TWO YEARS??” he howled, jumping to his feet and pulling at his hair, distraught. “That’s- that’s like- that’s almost ten lifetimes! What happened? I mean, architecture, obviously, and some serious horticulture. I don’t even know half of these plants…” he rambled, before looking back down at Bakura who had flinched and curled into a ball at his shouting.

“Oh, Love. No, no- it’s alright I’m not mad at you.” he soothed, settling beside Bakura, the long, elegant hands flexing awkwardly as he stumbled over whether it was alright for him to even touch Bakura. “I’m- I just spent the last few centuries in the guts of a demon and I am going to SKIN that artificially animated asshole if I-” He stopped, waving his hands, forcing himself to calm down.

“It is no matter.” He rather transparently lied. “May I..?” he asked, offering Bakura his hand.

Bakura looked at the hand- long, scarred and callused, but unthreatening- and gingerly took it, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. With a rustle of fabric, the Spirit pulled him close so they were chest-to… well, Bakura really only came up to his collarbone, placing the man’s nipples at eye level, which was distracting enough that it took him a minute to register the muscular arm around his waist, wrapping him up in the Spirit’s cloak. He blushed furiously, yelping in surprise as the spirit’s free hand stroked his cheek.

“My love?” he asked, voice low and tender. “Do I frighten you?”

“Yes.” Bakura admitted. “But it’s the fun kind of fear.” he blushed, wrapping his own arms around the Spirit, resting his cheek on that magnificent chest.

The spirit laughed, loud and raucous, his whole chest shaking, and Bakura peeked up at him, grinning.

“A creature after my own heart!” he laughed, picking Bakura up and twirling him around for a moment before sitting back on the parapet, Bakura cradled in his lap.

“Not to pry but- You seem to know me? More than I know you, at least.” Bakura asked, wiggling a bit until he was sure he wasn’t going to fall out of the Spirit’s lap. “Were you… watching while Necrophades…?”

“I was being digested by It.” he muttered. “-but at least peripherally, I was aware of your presence and the battle waged between the two of you. You frighten me as well, Love. I fell to the Demon’s influence almost immediately, but you fought It for years- and exorcized It from your person!”

“Yugi helped!” Bakura quickly corrected. “And that… Yami person. And whoever that Wizard was.”

“I saw. Very noble of them.” he muttered, growl of annoyance creeping into his voice. Bakura wiggled a bit more to nuzzle affectionately at his cheek, distracting him from his agitation.

The Spirit sighed fondly and returned the gesture, briefly licking at Bakura’s neck and affectionately nipping at his ear. His hand lightly took Bakura’s jaw, tipping his head up. “Let me have a look at you?”

-

The young man nodded, large dark eyes studying him as intently as he studied his host.

He was small, and frail, blue veins visible through too-pale skin, ribs sticking out even through his sleeping clothes. His chest was warm, but his fingers and toes were icily cold. His left hand bore a terrible scar.

“Earlier, when you said you could not tell me who you were by name- You don’t have a name of your own?” his host asked, reaching up and stroking his hair away from the Thief's face.

“I… forgot.” he sighed, taking his host’s hand and examining the scar- good grief, it’s on both sides, like he had a spike driven through it- No, none on his feet, so at least it’s not a stigmata? He glanced back to his host’s face, to find him staring up in despair, eyes watering.

“A long, long time ago- the grief is long since dulled.” he soothed, bringing his host’s hand up and delicately kissing his knuckles. “I’ve let my hosts name me since, in gratitude for sharing their lives with me. What would you call me? Romeo, perhaps?”

His host laughed again, soft and snorting. “Romeo’s a tragic figure. I’d rather not be star-crossed.”

“Hm, a fair point.” he nodded, leaning back some more against the wall, his host shifting to prop himself up on the thief's chest, eyes sparkling with curiosity. Much better.

“Well, you can call me Bakura. And I’ll think of a name for you, I promise.” he mumbled, blushing.

The Thief co*cked his head at his Host. “Bakura?”

“Yeah! I’m named after some Ancient Egyptian… Hellraiser? He pissed off several of the Pharaohs in the old kingdom, which suited my family even if they are a bunch of rotten monarchists. Why? Did you know him?”

The Thief stared at him blankly. “I… I’m not sure.” He said, turning the name over in his mind. “It sounds very familiar though. Extremely familiar. Perhaps I knew him well, but his face is lost to time and misfortune. But! The past is the past and you are Bakura and no-one else so Bakura you shall be. It’s not weirder than having half a dozen hosts named Muhamed or another ten named Maria.”

“A lot of that is going around.” Bakura nodded sympathetically. “-And thank you. I’ve gone by other names before but I didn’t care for it.” he mumbled, idly brushing the Thief's hair away from his face. “You’ve had other Hosts? How many? Anyone I’d know? What did they call you?” he asked instead, quickly changing the subject.

“I’d have to count, but… maybe a hundred? Some were only briefly my host, carrying me from one city to another. Others I met in their twilight, and others still carried me from childhood to their deathbeds. I only knew Dio as an Old Man, he used to call me βλάκας or ‘Mutt’. Philosopher, something of a celebrity in his time, mostly for being a jackass.”

“Dio…” Bakura frowned. “...Dio, as in Diogenes? The f*cking Diogenes of Sinope ?”

“Time bestows much dignity on the man! That’s him, though you make him sound like a wise counsel instead of the local crackpot.”

“Did he really run into Plato’s class with a plucked chicken shouting, ‘BEHOLD, A MAN’?”

He laughed, loud and boisterous. “sh*t! I’D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT JOKE- Plato threw us into the lake for that one, I’m glad it’s remembered. It was one of my favorite jokes, that and telling Izzie his father’s bones were the same as those of a slave’s, lest the little twerp get any ideas about being a God on earth.”

“Izzie?” Bakura co*cked his head in curiosity and the Thief felt himself flush at the sight. Oh. Cupid finds his mark again. I think it’s fatal this time.

“King Iskandar of Macedonia. Bit of a freak about conquest and horses. Half the cities in the Mediterranean are named after him, he should have made an appearance in your schooling.”

Bakura’s eyes went wide. “ALEXANDER THE GREAT???”

“THE WHAT?” He laughed, falling flat on his back on the Parapet and kicking his feet in hysterics. “I mean, yes.” he wheezed. “History is told by the victors and for a while there the Ottomans were aiming to have him remembered as ‘Alexander The Horsef*cker’.”

Bakura laughed again, relaxing a bit more onto his chest and he reached up, fingertips stroking his host’s spine through his silken garment.

“Mm. That’s nice.” Bakura mumbled. Even prone like this with Bakura sprawled out on him like a spoiled housecat, he had no trouble breathing, the young man was so slight. And frail. Malnourished, even. Around them, the flowers bloomed, the moon shone brightly, and all was right in Bakura’s little world. Well, perhaps not so little, if it contains all of Oxfordshire, if not Oxford themselves.

He couldn't help but look out over the grounds for his friend again, concerned. Well, it’s not like things like them understand time or schedules. Still, I would have thought they’d be here…

-

A few more moments of peace, Bakura watching the roses climb the walls again with half lidded eyes, relaxing under the thief’s very adept and gentle hands. Stroking up and down his spine, across his shoulders, through his hair- no particular order, but a steady rhythm. It was easy for him to breathe, deep and slow, lulled by his… guest’s? hands and own rising and falling of his broad chest.

Bakura peeked up again, to see the Spirit frowning into the distance, mulling over something with concern.

“If, if you’ve forgotten who you were, and I never knew whoever he was…” Bakura started, a little sluggish but the line of reasoning clear enough. “-You can be whoever you want, right?”

“...I suppose as much?” the Spirit shrugged.

“So… So you don’t need to be The Thief.” Bakura said. “Or a Killer, or Lost Soul or anything else- you don’t even have to be my Romeo, unless you want to?”

“Who do you want me to be, Love?” He asked, stroking his cheek but not looking down at him yet.

Bakura shook his head. “It’s not a who, so much as a what; and not you as me- I. I want to be happy. And, and for that to happen, I need you to be happy. So- So who would you be, if you were a happy man?”

The Spirit sighed, thinking.

“I would enjoy being your Romeo.” He offered. “But the stars change sooner than man’s nature.”

“Didn’t Deneb used to be the North Star, and now it’s Polaris?” Bakura muttered.

“...This is true.” the Spirit conceded.

“A smaller change, if it’d be easier: Be Benedict to my Beatrice?” Bakura offered.

The Spirit snorted, but sat back up, hugging Bakura tightly. “As you wish, Love.” He murmured. “Not sure how I feel about the name ‘Benedict’ though.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Yawned Bakura, stretching a bit before settling back into the Spirit’s comfortably warm grip. “Everyone I know named Benedict looks like a shoe. I’ll-” He paused, yawning again. “-ugh. I’ll come up with something.”

“You need to rest.” The Spirit sighed, gently stroking his cheek, forehead pressed to his own. “May I escort you inside?”

Bakura nodded, sleepy and made to stand up, but the Spirit stopped him. Instead, he shifted his grip and stood, holding Bakura in his arms and carrying him like a bride back over the threshold into the manor. Bakura gasped, clutching at the Spirit’s shoulders for purchase, but after a moment it was clear the stranger was not about to drop him, and he leaned into his broad shoulder, reveling in the warmth of his skin.

“You smell like garlic.” he mumbled. “And horses.”

“...Thanks?” The Spirit muttered.

“It’s not bad.” Bakura mumbled, closing his eyes and nuzzling at his neck. “I think I like it. I can’t usually have things that smell like garlic.”

“No?” They were headed up the stairs now.

“Family Curse.” Bakura mumbled, only half-awake.

“...You really need to rest, but later? I’m going to need you to explain what happened while I was being digested.” The Spirit sighed, shouldering open the door. He carefully laid Bakura down, tucking the heavy comforter around him and stroking the hair from his face. Bakura settled in, eyes closed, feeling at ease for the first time in ages. The Spirit waited patiently beside him, gently petting his hair and murmuring words Bakura couldn’t quite make out, until he drifted fading from dream to deeper, healing sleep.

-

“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast…” he murmured, leaning down and delicately kissing Bakura’s forehead once he was sure the boy was properly asleep again. He sat back, gazing with reverence at his destined partner, even as his fingertips tenderly traced down his cheek and throat, stopping at the bit of exposed chest revealed just above the top button of his sleeping clothes. “Would I were Sleep and Peace, so sweet to rest!” he laughed, bittersweet.

He got up, one final touch to his beloved’s cheek. The boy is soft, somehow, after all this… He doesn’t need the troubles of a foolish ghost, let alone one who so closely resembles his tormentor. The shade of night may hide him from rational fear, but there is no such cover in the garish light of day, so best I remain a shadow and a dream.

He let go, taking his leave through the window- the hall sounded like it was doing something Euclid wouldn’t have approved of- climbing down the roses into the garden. The house had changed- massive and sprawling now, with enough ostentatiously tacky stonework that one might think a King lived here.

“Good grief.” The spirit froze in horror. “It’s been almost 400 years. It’s quite possible they did manage to marry into the royal line- Albion always was the social mountaineer.” He realized.

“My poor beloved! A Blue-Blood!” He cried out, grabbing at his hair in horror at the thought that fate might play such a cruel trick on him. “…that would go a long way towards explaining his lack of constitution, actually.” he considered.

For all the changes to the house, the garden maze remained the same and he followed its twists unconsciously as he contemplated the horror that Darling Bakura might be- and he literally shuddered to think of it- Royalty.

So terrible was this thought that he entirely lost track of where he was headed until he was just outside the gate, where he was forced from his reverie by an unfortunately familiar face.

Spirit. Said Anubis, in the form of a great hound.

“Bitch.” he replied.

Anubis sighed heavily, refusing to deign that with a response. I know you have only just freed yourself from the Curse of the Ring, but I need a favor from you.

“I’m not gonna suck your dick.”

Anubis glared at him. No.

“Oh, picky, picky!” the Spirit huffed, crossing the hall in a single unassisted leap, the chasm between them now little more than an inconvenient ditch. “I’ll have you know I’ve been a practitioner of the fellati*cratic arts for four and a half millennia now- far longer than any other soul on this Godsforsaken Earth, and there are none remotely as well-versed as me, but apparently that’s not good enough for the likes of-”

I need you to steal the Millennium Eye.

The Spirit paused where he was wedging a spare piece of what might be a chariot between the sticky bandages and an Aum, to face the deity. “...Oh, you’ve f*cked up to a SPECTACULAR degree.”

Anubis huffed. It’s currently lodged in the skull of one Maximillion Pegasus, who has gone mad in much the same way that Ahk-

“I’m sorry, his name is f*cking WHAT.” The Spirit laughed. “-But strange, is it not, that forcing the bastard offspring of vile sorcery and outrageous violence into the thinkmeats of some poor soul might lead him down the path of Madness? A curious happenstance, completely unpredictable by scientific or divine means! Anyway-” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder back at Bakura’s manor house. “-Heal him.”

That is an acceptable-

“No no no- You are already in my Host’s debt for your failure to keep That Parasite out of this dimension and his mind, and I am doing you a favor by allowing you to make a payment rather than accrue further interest on that debt. We can discuss my compensation for your incompetencies later.” the Spirit snarled.

Anubis glared down at him, but made no move. What IS it about white hair that turns humans into festering vats of Hubris? Even Solomon’s gotten worse since he started going gray… the God muttered.

“I don’t see Healing.” the Spirit glared, wedging another piece of wood in to stabilize the gap in the magical barrier so he could come and go as he pleased.

There was a low hum and a golden glow of light around the massive canine, and the Spirit could make out the corresponding glow in the manor where he’d left the boy to rest.

“Thank You!” He hissed, hopping through the barrier and pulling one of the supports out after him so the hole was too small for Anubis to jam his muzzle in after him.. “I’ll get your Eye, but pray tell- where am I going to keep it? You recall the disaster that occured the last time the Items were all gathered too close together, and I’m not about to sacrifice the miracle of having two functioning eyeballs on your behalf, Undertaker.”

Give it to someone else for safekeeping? Anubis shrugged, baring just the edges of His teeth. You’re a smart little ape, I’m sure you’ll figure something out. He sneered before turning and vanishing into the darkness at the end of the hall.

“Certainly My Lord.” the Spirit sneered after him. “It is some small fortune that the Eye is more difficult to operate than the other Items. Any fool might try on some exotic pendant or wave a scepter about, but not many are willing to experimentally give up an eyeball.” he shrugged. “Now, where was I-?”

He turned to survey the ruins of what used to be his mind.

“Right! Salvaging what’s left of myself!” He said with a venomous sort of enthusiasm. “Marvelous way to kick off a new millennium!”

*

*