Disclaimer: TheMadNovelist does not own Yugioh or its orignal characters. I do however own the characters Leo and Amber who I created and the plot of my story. Thank-you.
I hope you enjoy my fan fic.
Prologue: A virtual duel!
It had been a long day and even longer week for Seto Kaiba, he'd just gotten off a video call with the owner and creator of Duel Monsters and he was feeling pretty stressed. It was no secret that Kaiba and Pegasus often didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but at least his negotiations to market his virtual dueling world were running smoothly. Kaiba looked up at his clock wondering how late he had been working; the time difference between New York and Domino, Japan often meant he had to stay up late to take any conference calls.
'Just once that smug man could be the one to stay up late to make the conference call' Kaiba thought to himself as he packed his paper work into his briefcase, 'Man I need to unwind. It can't hurt to have a duel in my virtual world, just have to make sure to stay away from Pegasus' testers'. He had felt insulted when Pegasus had even suggested the idea, after all he had wrote most of the code himself, surely Pegasus didn't need to get his people to test it. Pushing those feelings aside Kaiba walked down the long corridor which led to his office and got into the elevator. Pushing the button for the basement level where his equipment for his virtual world was located, he shuffled his deck as he waited for the lift to arrive. When the doors finally opened Kaiba wasn't surprised to find he was the only one down there, 'nothing new there' he thought to himself. He felt the anticipation building as he set up the options to allow himself to pull himself out of the game when he wished. Finally happy that everything was fine, he made his way to the chair, loaded his deck and put the helmet on. In the blink of an eye he went from being in a building basement to standing in a large clearing in the middle of a wood. To his left he could hear people dueling, so he took the path to his right not wanting to be seen or disturbed by the other duelists who were quite frankly not worth his time.
After a few minutes of walking through the wood, Kaiba was sure he could here laughter and what sounded like a cat purring, 'odd' he though to himself. After all who ever heard of a card in duel monsters that purred? He certainly hadn't! So imagine his surprise when he reached the next clearing and instead of finding a monster to duel he found… a girl petting a kuriboh! This rather unusual sight triggered numerous thoughts in side Kaiba's mind, the first being 'why on earth is a kuriboh purring? Never mind that why is it even in here?' and secondly although you'd of thought he'd think this first wouldn't you? 'Wait there is a girl trying out my new program? Since when did girls play duel monsters?'. Yup Kaiba could be a bit of a chauvinist at times. He was about to wander off in another random direction when he heard her speak to him.
"Oh how original. Pretending to be Seto Kaiba of all people! Couldn't think of your own identity?" she said in a rather mocking tone Kaiba didn't particularly like. He turned to face her and was struck with the intensity of the glare coming from her ice blue eyes. 'So that's what it feels like to be glared at by me' he silently thought to himself. Before he could answer her, she rebuffed him again. "Well seeming as we think so highly of ourselves maybe you would like to duel me?" this time her voice didn't have a mocking quality but it was definitely challenging and defiant. This time he responded straight away, the urge for a duel was already flowing though him, 'I'll enjoy showing her who's the master of this game' Kaiba thought, before saying "Of course if you don't mind losing" and he gave her one of his trademark smirks. He was surprised when he was met by a grin and a flash of delight in the girls eyes, "Ok then! I challenge you to a duel!" she said pointing at him, and adding "don't you worry; I won't tell the real Kaiba you've been impersonating him if you lose".
Meanwhile over at Industrial Illusions in New York, Pegasus was having an awkward moment of his own. No it wasn't related to duel monsters, for once. His brother-in-law Leo and his niece had showed up for an unexpected visit, as much as he loved to see them he was a bit busy with organizing not only Kaiba's new contract but he had to deal with another one, for a certain Duke Devlin.
"Well now we have my niece occupied for the time being my dear brother, what is it you wanted to see me about?" Pegasus asked Leo, trying to hide the slight annoyance he felt. At times like this he couldn't help wondering if Mokuba got under Kaiba boy's feet like this. Leo stood quietly admiring the view from his brother's office of the New York sky line; he wasn't sure how to say what he needed to say. He was glad his adopted daughter was out of the way though, that was one less worry. With an audible sigh he turned to face his brother.
"Max" he said trying to choose his words carefully, very carefully indeed. "I'm not sure you're going to like what I'm going to say, but I need you to know."
Five minutes later, Pegasus's personal secretary nearly jumped out of her chair when she heard her boss's excruciated cry of "YOU CANT BE SERIOUS!" coming from down the corridor. Concerned she paged him in his office only to be cut off by her boss saying everything was fine and could she cancel where possible and postpone where necessary all his meetings for the rest of the day.
Back in Japan, Kaiba had been dueling the mystery girl for an hour, as exhilarated as he felt, he was actually losing. They had gone life point for life point for the past fifty-five minutes until she finally got the lead. He was only trailing behind her 1500 life points with 1200 life points; he wasn't concerned though, because he'd just drawn his trademark card. 'If this doesn't convince her I am the real thing nothing will' he thought. So you can imagine his surprise and even anger when she announced she had to leave and was conceding the duel to him! Before he could utter a cry of protest, she winked and blew him a kiss and vanished.
When he realized she was gone, and he didn't know who she was he fell to his knees and punched the ground. His next action would have surprised those who didn't know Seto Kaiba very well, instead of screaming out in anger, he just started to laugh. He laughed and laughed so hard he thought he'd finally gone insane. 'I don't believe it' he thought 'another duelist who can actually rival that kid Yugi!' The adrenaline from his half finished duel still pumped through him, and he decided to go for a walk to try and relax before heading back to the office to try and find out who she was.