Author's Note

This is a miniature (sort of) sequel to Champion DC. I HIGHLY recommend that you read it before reading this. You will probably be lost without reading that first

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Another Champion | Champion, Another

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Chapter 1: Birthday Magic

Today was the day. Today was the day he was sixteen!

Ok, in the grand scheme of things, Mokuba had to admit that it wasn't really a big deal. Sixteen wasn't an adult or anything but…

Mokuba sat up in bed and swung his legs down, over the side. He stretched and looked at the spot where his dad used to keep a chair. When he was little, Mokuba had been afraid to be alone and his dad had spent every night watching over him. He had made his dad stop several years ago. He had suddenly become a big brother. As a big brother, it was Mokuba's job to watch over someone. It had been a big step forward but today was going to be an even bigger step forward.

He walked into the hall, to go to the bathroom, and saw his little brother waiting. He wanted this day to officially start. His morning routine would be the beginning and then it would officially officially be his birthday! "How long has she been in there?"

Yuugi shrugged and yawned, he was never really awake until after breakfast. "She was in there when I got up."

Rolling his eyes, Mokuba pounded on the door. "ANZU! GET OUT!"

"USE A DIFFERENT BATHROOM!" His sister snapped from the other side of the door.

"NO! YOU CAN'T JUST HIJACK A BATHROOM!"

"It's not that big of a deal, Mokuba." Yuugi pointed out, trying to keep the peace from being broken so early. The three loved each other but these fights were a regular occurrence. Almost a ritual. Though, truthfully, it was a ridiculous fight to have when you lived a mansion with at least five bathrooms.

"No, it's the principle of the issue now." Taking a deep breath, Mokuba got ready to bang on the door and yell again.

A calm voice came from the end of the hallway, "Good morning, Mokuba and Yuugi."

Mokuba coughed and dropped his fist. Their father had walked up the stairs and while his voice was soft, they all knew they were being way too loud.

"Good morning, Dad." Yuugi yawned.

"Morning, Big Brother." Mokuba heard his brother call their father 'Dad,' and once again he felt a sting as he called him 'Big Brother.'

"Hey…Dad…" came from the other side of the door. "I'm almost done."

Mokuba rolled his eyes and Yuugi sleepily shook his head. This was the usual morning routine, Anzu went in the bathroom and spent forever in there and then came out looking about the same as when she went in.

Anzu came out a minute later, and as usually, she looked almost the same as when she went in. Mokuba decided that he would never understand girls. Yuugi motioned for Mokuba to go before him but Mokuba shook his head. Yuugi was next in line.

"So, you still haven't told me what you want for your birthday." Seto said after Anzu had given him a hug and gone off to her room to get dressed.

Mokuba smiled. "I'll tell you tonight, remember?"

Seto sighed. "But I won't have time to get you anything to open at the party."

Mokuba shook his head. "Nuh-uh. I told you I wasn't going to tell you before. I'm the birthday boy. That means, I get to make the rules and I say, you have to wait until tonight."

His dad made a face and his shoulders drooped as he gave in. "Alright, but if there's something else don't hesitate to let me know."

"Yeah yeah. It's not going to happen."

Yuugi shambled back out of the bathroom and gave their dad a hug before going off to get ready for school.

Mokuba went into the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth and …shave? He rubbed his chin and looked in the mirror to see if he could catch some sign of the elusive facial hair he'd been on the lookout for.

"Not today…" He sighed. Well he might not be able to shave yet but today was still special. It was going to be the last sixteenth birthday party in the family.

He turned on the shower and his mind wandered as he thought about his birthday, and his family. It was Mokuba's sixteenth birthday but he was the last of the siblings turning sixteen. He smiled to himself as he stepped into the shower. If there was one thing he could say about his family it was that they were a big bunch of contradictions. His 'Little Brother' and 'Little Sister' were both older than him, so their sixteenth birthdays had already passed.

No one had known their proper ages when they had joined the family and it was assumed that they were Mokuba's age or younger. By the time they figured out how old Yuugi and Anzu were, everyone was used to calling them the little brother and sister so it stuck. It didn't bother them. Mokuba was happy to be their Big Brother, even if it was only a title.

That thought made him sigh, a twinge of sadness. "Big Brother…" That's what he called their father.

Each of their stories were more or less the perfect fodder for a sad story. Mokuba had been found in a building set to be demolished. Yuugi and Anzu had been adopted by a man but then their new home had burned down and the man was killed in the fire. However, somehow they had all gotten a happy ending. All three of the siblings were adopted by the same man, Seto Kaiba.

He was one of the richest and most eligible bachelors to have taken the business world by storm, as the newspapers kept saying, but he wasn't going out and spending his time and money having fun. Instead of living his life, he had taken in three scruffy orphans. Mokuba had been the first, another reason why he was the 'big' sibling.

Yuugi and Anzu's previous history was difficult to piece together and all the adults the siblings had asked were less than forthcoming. It was unclear exactly why everything was shrouded in mystery but Mokuba had a hunch that the Black Market was involved and he didn't prob too deeply after he came to that conclusion. It wasn't his story to uncover. However, his own was quite a different story. Mokuba's induction into the family had been documented, somewhat. He had been in a condemned orphanage that Kaiba Corp was coming to tear down and rebuild. Unfortunately, when someone had relocated the children they had overlooked one boy.

Mokuba felt his chest tighten as he thought about it. He had once made the mistake of looking up the news articles about the day he was found. It had not been the happy event he had hoped it would have been, like every child hoped their addition to a family had been. The most popular picture, the one that had won the photographer an award, was the one photo clear enough to make out a little foot hanging out of a dirty bundle. It was a mass of rags a millionaire was clutching to his chest which held a surprise. It was a dirty grey, chewed, ratty mess that the CEO was carrying out of the building, and hanging out of one corner was a tiny, dirty, shriveled foot. It was just a peek at the inhuman thing that must have been at the core of the bundle of rags. Mokuba had made the mistake of looking up the news articles on a computer in school. He ended spending the rest of the day in the nurse's office, alternating between retching and crying.

It had not only been the shock of the photo but everything it sparked, which sent him reeling. There had been myriad speculation at the time of what could have been in that bundle. Most people hadn't seen the foot but as soon as the photo was published the gossip exploded. Everyone wondered, 'What was in the bundle?' Had it been a child? Was it a boy? Was it a girl? Had it been his child, some secret love child he had gone to rescue? But that's when things got ugly. Speculation quickly went from benign curiosity to dark conspiracy theories. Some people thought that the child had been some unwanted love child that Seto Kaiba had recently found out about, after throwing away his mother. Others thought that it was some child the powerful man wanted to dominate. There were people who expected the child to be trotted out, used as a publicity stunt, brought out for special events but kept in a cage the rest of the time. Then there were people who thought that the child would never be seen again, quietly disposed of by some functionary of the rich man.

There was something about knowing that all of those people had thought those things about him that made him feel sick. Their dark and sick ideas of what his fate would be. It wasn't just the horror stories that they had concocted which made him ill but the type of monster they thought his father was. The idea that they could picture his father as someone so sick and inhuman. That's what made him vomit on the floor of the school's library.

Then it had struck him…that was the first photo of himself that existed, as far as he knew. This symbol of either the benevolence of a rich man or the proof of some evil deed past or future. Compounding that was the sick and inhuman look of that little appendage, dangling limp. Anyone could see that was not the foot of a healthy child, it didn't even look human. It looked like some forgotten corpse, dug out of a war zone by an aid worker…but that was his foot. That was Mokuba's foot. That thought had started him crying as he was being removed to the medical room. It was a photograph of some tragedy, a proof of the cruelty of mankind. In many people's minds it also showed proof of the cruelty of the man spiriting the bundle away.

But he had lived. He had not died in that horrible place. He hadn't been disposed of, he hadn't been mistreated, and he hadn't been used. It should have made him happy. But he was crying and vomiting in the nurse's office because he had not realized how dark his beginning had been. It was a cold hard slap in the face…with the frying pan of truth.

It wasn't "It's a Boy!" balloons and streamers which had herald his addition to the Kaiba family. It had been questions about some dispatched mother, imaginings of murder plots, and whispers of even darker designs a rich man might have. Mokuba had always known that the story Uncle Bakura had told him wasn't true. It couldn't have been true. But it had been a sweet fiction he had not realized he had clung to so much and suddenly it was torn away.

+…+

"Big Brother, when did I come to live here?" a young Mokuba had asked Seto, while he was drawing a family portrait. He had already drawn Big Brother, himself, and Uncle Bakura in front of a big house.

Seto had fidgeted and looked pained but Uncle Bakura had swooped in and said, "Hmm…I don't know if he can tell you…"

"What?" Little Mokuba had asked, turning to see the worried look on his uncle's face.

Uncle Bakura looked away as if counting something, "Well…I think it might have been long enough…"

"Long enough? Huh?'

"Ok- look, Seto, if the fairy shows up, you can tell her that I told him, ok?"

Mokuba had looked back and forth between his father and uncle, confused and curious. "Fairy?"

"Come here, Mokuba." Mokuba had hurried to scramble up into Uncle Bakura's lap. "Alright, I'll have to say it low, just in case the fairy is listening." Mokuba had fidgeted, excited at what this secret was. Uncle Bakura looked around again, checking for fairies, before he revealed the secret.

"You see, a long time ago, there was a fairy King and Queen and they lived in a magical forest. One day the Fairy Queen was overjoyed to find that she was with child! She was going have a beautiful fairy baby! The Fairy King was very happy too! There was just one problem…"

"What!? What!?"

"Well, you see, one day while the Fairy Queen was picking flowers she accidentally picked a special flower belonging to a monster. That monster was so upset that it wouldn't accept her apology. Instead it said 'Fairy Queen! I curse you and your baby!'"

Mokuba gasped.

"The Fairy Queen and her ladies flew away home as fast as they could. The queen was ok but she could feel that something was wrong with her baby. The king and queen called all the best Fairy doctors and magicians to check the queen and her unborn baby."

Mokuba chewed on his nails.

"They found that the baby had been changed. He was no longer going to be born a fairy. The King and Queen wept for days. Their baby would not be like them, he was going to be a human. How could they care for a human child? How would they know what to feed him? How could he live with them when he could not fly? How would he would manage if he could never be able to use fairy magic?

"The king and queen worried and worried until it was suddenly the day that the baby would be born. When he was born, the queen held on to the baby in its little blanket and she cried and cried. What would happen to her sweet baby? But that was when one of the nurses had a suggestion. What if they could keep the baby from growing, until they could find a cure?

"The king and queen rejoiced! That's what they would do! They would use their magic to keep the baby from growing up and then when they found a cure they would take him and raise him! So they ordered that the baby be taken to a magic tree and placed inside. It was a perfect plan! Except…

"One day, a man was walking in the woods and he found himself on top of a hill. He looked down and saw a very interesting bunch of trees. He wanted to get a better look so he leaned forward. But he leaned a little too much and toppled over. He rolled all the way down the hill. With a bump he landed in a heaped underneath one of the interesting trees. He looked up at the tree and saw something amazing. The tree was not an ordinary tree. It was a magical tree. For this tree had big beautiful blossoms, even though it was Autumn! The flowers were gorgeous! Then he saw the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"There, in a hole in the tree, was a baby. It was the most beautiful and sweet looking baby the man had ever seen. It had long black hair. A little button nose. And he guessed that it might have big sparkling brown eyes. It was all wrapped up in a soft little blanket and looked as though it were sound asleep. He wondered who had left the baby there. Not wanting to leave the baby all alone, he reached out and took the baby from the tree."

"No…" Mokuba whispered, wrapped up in the story.

"That's when there was a lot of rustling leaves and a whole troop of fairies suddenly burst from the trees and bushes! They all yelled and wailed. The spell was broken!"

Mokuba gasped.

"The Queen Fairy came forward, big tears rolling down her cheeks. 'Sir, what have you done?'

"The man said, 'I'm sorry! I thought this baby was abandoned. I only wanted to bring him back to his parents.'

"'We are his parents.' The Fairy King said as he came forth. 'And you have doomed our son.'"

Mokuba sucked on his thumb and tears began to grow in his eyes. Tears for the cursed little baby.

"The Fairy King and Queen told the man about how their son was now doomed to stay human. They could not risk freezing him again! The queen cried and cried as she tried to think of what they could do to help their child have a happy life when he would always be an outsider in his own family."

Mokuba started the cry and Uncle Bakura cooed, "Now now, this is not a sad story."

"The man looked at the little baby and he knew that he loved the little boy. 'I will raise him.' he told the fairy parents. 'I will take care of him and I will love him.' The fairies all wondered if he spoke the truth. They all wondered if he could really raise the child. But they looked deep into the man's blue eyes and they saw that he was a good man. He could surely give this little boy a better life amongst humans. 'What is your name, human?' The Fairy Queen asked."

"'My name is Seto Kaiba.'"

Mokuba gasped and looked at his father sitting on the couch, who seemed to be listening, too.

"'Thank you, Seto Kaiba. Please take our son. We know that you will love him as your own.' said the Fairy King. 'However, we have one thing to ask of you.' said the fairy queen. 'Please, do not tell him that his parents are fairies. He will surely be miserable, knowing that he is supposed to be a fairy.'"

Mokuba sniffed, tears still rolling down his cheeks.

"The man turned to leave but before he started up the hill he turned to ask the King and Queen, 'What is his name?' They smiled and answered, 'Mokuba.'"

Mokuba gasped again and the tears multiplied.

"So now you know, Mokuba. You are a Fairy Prince. But, ssh. We have to keep it a secret. The Fairy Queen is probably still worried that knowing the truth will make you sad." Uncle Bakura stroked Mokuba's hair as he sobbed into his shirt. "But I wonder Mokuba…are you sad?"

Mokuba shook his head even as he sobbed.

+…+

Even when Mokuba had been old enough to know that the fairy story couldn't possibly be real, he still dreamed of some magical meeting between his father and his birth parents. He dreamed that his parents had given him to Seto because it was the best thing for him. It was in the sad moments at school when other children spoke about their parents. It was in those painful moments when he watched happy families on television. It was in those uncomfortable moments when he read about children in storybooks. He would think of some meeting, some exchange, between his father and his birth parents during which they would all agree that this was the best thing for him. He imagined them all looking at him, asleep, and they were all smiling.

It was in those cold and sick moments, after discovering the truth, that he realized that he had always thought that he had been loved. He had, for the longest time, held onto the sad, empty, fiction that he been wanted. He had assumed that he had been cherished.

But he hadn't been. He had been garbage found in what amounted to rubble. He had been forgotten after all the real children had been accounted for. If Seto Kaiba had not gone into that room during his tour… If Kaiba Corp had not bought that orphanage… He would have been just another piece of garbage in a pile somewhere. No one would have noticed. No one would have missed him. No one would have cared about his death. It was a toppling house of precariously placed cards in his mind, being built up and knocked down, over and over again. The little things which had to line up just right to lead to his life here and now.

Mokuba felt his face get hot and he stuck his head in the stream of the shower.

But they had lined up! He had been taken out of that meaningless existence. He had been brought into a home. He had been loved. He was still loved! However, the fairytale was not quite complete.

To be complete, Mokuba would need a parent. He knew that he had one but there was something painful about calling the man you knew was your father, 'Big Brother.' Something counterfeit and flimsy. In his dark moments, when Mokuba was brutally honest with himself, he knew that it was because he was still afraid that there would be a moment when Seto realized that he didn't want to be his father anymore. Some catastrophic moment when the fairytale would be destroyed.

Seto had taken Mokuba in. He loved him. He cared for him. He even spent every waking moment with him when he was little. He had sacrificed so much to make sure that Mokuba was happy. Unfortunately, there was something which kept him from allowing Mokuba to call him 'Dad.' The abandoned child that would always be a part of Mokuba worried that this would mean that one day he would lose his father.

Mokuba could still remember the pain of watching Seto flinch and recoil when he had tried to call him 'Daddy.' It was as though he had thrown acid on him. The word hurt for some reason. It was still a mystery to Mokuba but it only became worse when his little siblings began calling him 'Dad.'

They had also called him 'Big Brother' initially, but then Anzu made up her mind that she was going to call him 'Dad.' There had been no discussion, no approval asked for. One day she just started calling him 'Dad.'

Then Yuugi had done it.

Mokuba was the only one still calling him 'Big Brother.' He had taught his little sister and brother to call Seto 'Big Brother.' He had wanted to teach them how things were done in their new family. They had never seen Seto's reaction to 'Dad' or 'Daddy.' He didn't want them to see it. Mokuba didn't want them to carry that pain like he had to.

Anzu had turned sixteen and she said "Bye, Dad" as she ran out on the way to school. Yuugi was already on his way to the car. Mokuba had been getting his book bag and Seto was sitting at the kitchen table. Mokuba braced for the fallout but there had been none.

She had said it as she kissed his forehead and made for the door. There had been no flinch. He hadn't even looked shocked. He was just…surprised.

Mokuba had frozen on the spot. He had not been prepared for that.

As he sat in class later, there was a sick feeling which settled into his stomach. What had it been about Anzu which had allowed their father to more easily accept her 'Dad?' Was there something about her that made it more acceptable? Was the word poison from anyone else's lips?

About a year later, Yuugi said "Good night, Dad." as he went up to his room for bed.

Again, Mokuba was stunned. Again, he waited to see some sign of shock or revulsion on their father's face.

Again, he saw surprise. Again, this just became an acceptable thing.

That night he had lain awake, staring at the ceiling. He examined, in his mind, the moments when his siblings had said the word. He searched every still frame in his memory for some clue. Some explanation.

Was it him? Was there something about the word coming from Mokuba which made it deadly? What was it? What magic had his little sister and brother harnessed? Was there any magic left for him?

He stayed up into the wee hours, agonizing. If they could do it, why couldn't he? What had been special? Was there something special he could use to his advantage? Maybe there was hope for him. He could find a magical moment and then we would also call him 'Dad!'

This thought made him smile and his eyes began to close, sleep beckoned and he was finally ready to submit. Then, as he had begun to succumb to his fatigue a disturbing thought dragged him further from sleep: What if he had he lost his chance?

So, now, it had been two years of hearing his sister say 'Dad' and a year of his brother saying it.

Mokuba toweled off and looked at himself in the mirror. He tried to bolster himself with a reassuring smile. This was his sixteenth birthday. He was going to continue the tradition. Tonight he was going to get permission to called their father 'Dad.'

He couldn't just do it like his siblings. That was already decided. That was asking too much. That look their father had given him still stuck with him. But today was special! Today held it's own magic.

Their dad had always told them that on their birthdays he'd do everything he could to make their wishes come true. Plus there seemed to be some kind of unspoken tradition which had sprung up on their sixteenth birthdays. Anzu had called him "Dad" the morning of her birthday. Yuugi had said it after the party. Mokuba wasn't sure if there was something special about sixteen and he wasn't sure if their father had just gone along with it because it already seemed to just be a thing. But Mokuba felt that this was the perfect time. As far as he was concerned he could use all of the help, magic, tradition, whatever!

Mokuba took a deep breath after he brushed his teeth and smiled at his reflection again. Today, for sure.

He stepped out into the hall as his little brother was walking past to go downstairs. "Don't forget, Uncle Bakura's coming over tonight."

Yuugi, still sleepy, looked confused. Mokuba poked Yuugi's ridiculous hairstyle, "Oh, yeah. Thanks." he yawned and shuffled towards the stairs.

Mokuba was not looking forward to having his uncle escorted out of his party in hysterics if Yuugi forgot to fix his hair.

That was another odd thing about his family.

Mokuba went into his room and got ready to leave.

The three siblings didn't have a mother, instead they had their father and two uncles. Seto Kaiba was a millionaire and their Uncle Max, as in Maximillion Pegasus was a billionaire…with a 'B.' He had an odd sense of humor and he always came with gifts. As far as Mokuba could remember he had only seen him once or twice before Yuugi and Anzu joined their family. From what he could tell, Uncle Max and his father had been friends for a very long time. They seemed to have been like brothers before a falling out of some kind. But then something happened on the night of the big fire and they made up. Now he was over for dinner at least once a week. He'd bring gifts and Uncle Bakura.

Uncle Bakura's relationship with Seto was an even bigger mystery. To be honest, Bakura himself was a mystery. Mokuba had watched him while he was growing up and it seemed like Uncle Bakura was a slightly unstable person. He and Mokuba's father were really close, and sometimes it seemed like he was Seto's father. But then there were other times when Uncle Bakura seemed to turn into an emotional child. He wasn't violent, just jumpy and weepy. This state had come on more and more as Yuugi had grown. And there seemed to be something about the hairstyle that Yuugi had chosen that set Uncle Bakura off the most.

Mokuba ran a hand through his unruly black hair and grabbed his backpack from his desk chair. He didn't understand what his little brother's attachment to that hairstyle was. It was three colors, crazy points, and required WAY too much product to style! The first time Uncle Bakura had seem it, he dissolved into some kind of panic attack. It was so bad that Uncle Max had to hurry over and come pick him up. Shortly after that, Uncle Bakura had moved out of their house and moved in with Uncle Max. The attacks happened once or twice after that, but Mokuba had a talk with Yuugi and from then on they made sure that he had his hair pulled back in a ponytail when their uncle was coming over.

None of the men seemed to be willing to explain what had caused the fits. None of them even seemed to know how to start to tell Yuugi not to wear his hair like that. But Mokuba had noticed the trend and decided to fix it. Yuugi was sweet but a lot of the time he was a bit of a ditz and that's when he needed his big brother.

That's what made Mokuba so happy to be a big brother, he was helpful. Their dad always worked so hard to make sure that they could have everything they wanted and needed but he always got awkward when it came to discipline. That's where Big Brother Mokuba came in. Mokuba saw it as his job to introduce his siblings to their new family and make sure that everyone got along well. His goal was to always make sure that things weren't difficult for their dad. It was hard for Mokuba to admit it but in the beginning it was because he didn't want the other children to go away but then when they were permanent he wanted to have a job. Being a big brother gave him a purpose.

Everyone thought that growing up in a big house with a staff and money makes things simple. However, there is something difficult about having everything handed to you the moment you reach for it. It made Mokuba feel helpless. He wanted to do something that was helpful. He wanted an important job. Helping his father with his siblings was that job.

Not that his sister or brother were particularly troublesome. His brother had the tendency to be a bit ditzy and clumsy but he was well behaved and really smart. His sister was really sweet and genuinely saw strangers as 'friends you haven't met.' However, she also could be really pushy and she almost never shut up. Mokuba loved them both, ditzy, pushy, clumsy, talkative, all of it.

He looked at his siblings sitting across from him at the breakfast table and he smiled. He was the one running after them helping them to get dressed and introducing them to his friends in kindergarten when they had first joined the family but they were both nearly adults. They still referred to him as 'Big Brother.' It was all weird and wonderful. Mokuba sighed, he had a really funny family.

"What are you staring at, Porcupine?" Anzu asked around a slice of toast in her mouth.

Mokuba rolled his eyes, well they called him Big Brother and 'Porcupine.'