A/N: So I have another story I really should be working on right now, but instead I decided I wanted to start this little project. If you recognize bits and pieces of this story, congrats we share another fandom. That being said, I'm not going to sit here and say this is 100% my story because then I'd be lying, and no. So, yes. When I read this story, I loved it and I decided to convert it over to our lovely fandom! I know people do as much with books and I thought, why not? So only very, and by very I mean, VERY, partial credit to me, guys. But none-the-less, it's a great story and I hope you enjoy it as well when all is said and done. Updates will be on Fridays, since I've got my other story I'm trying to make do with.
Also, keep in mind that some of these characters will be completely, out of this world OC. Not all though. I guess it's just how you look at them, really. Don't be angry. :)
Security breach, security breach.
Yugi's eyes snap open from where he's sitting, meditating. They flicker to the spot Ryou was sitting moments ago, now seemingly vacant. Yugi murmurs, "Are you still here?"
"Yeah," Ryou breathes, although Yugi appears alone in the room. Red lights flash in through the door, and the alarms are ringing loud, the constant mantra of security breach rattling around the whole facility.
Footsteps clang above them, running, crashing, all absent of any voices. Yugi watches the corners of the room, alert and poised, wondering what's going on and what's going to happen now. The needle marks in his arms send a familiar ache down to his hand, and he flexes it unhappily.
With a quiet beep, the red letters next to the door change from CLOSED to a lime green OPEN. Yugi sits up straighter, their last form of protection gone. Ryou murmurs, "Do you want me to go check it out?"
"Stay put, and stay invisible," Yugi mumbles back, not entirely sure they're not being watched. This has never happened before, and the rushed canter of footsteps starting to coming closer only sends his panic into overdrive.
He quickly lifts his palm, casting a jet of freezing water over the door, and it solidifies into an ice barrier. He gets up from the floor, looking around the room, but it's bare; it's simply a meditation room. A phantom hand curls around his wrist, and Ryou hisses, "look!"
Through the foggy ice, two figures appear. Yugi whispers, frantically, "What's going on?"
"They're not the doctors," Ryou says. His hand is gone and his voice sounds further back, sneering on the doctors part. "Do you think this is part of training?"
The ice starts to crack, and Yugi backs away as well. They can't be cracking the ice by pure force, and Ryou fists Yugi's shirt, pulls him back further, while cradling his waist protectively. A warm glow starts to appear in front of the foggy figures, like fire embers, and the cracked ice begins to melt, rather rapidly. Yugi watches in astonishment as the puddle slowly creeps around his feet, and Ryou says, "Let's see what they want before we act."
"If they're anything like the doctors, I say we get out of here."
"By any means?"
Yugi just nods, as the ice is reduced to half its size, and the figures start to come into focus.
"I'm going to the other side of the room," Ryou whispers quietly, "element of misdirection." Yugi can hear the smirk in Ryou's voice; a tactic they used to confuse the doctors back when they were younger.
He feels Ryou leave, and his heart beats faster, fingers twitching as he resists the urge to throw up another ice wall. The orange blaze on the other side of the door shows it would be futile. The doors slide open, wetly, and Yugi presses himself to the wall, preparing to fight dirty, if needed.
Two boys, barely in their late teens, stumble inside the door, appearing more panicked than Yugi himself. The one with multicolored black, red, and blonde messy hair and blown, red eyes looks at him straight and asks, "Are you okay? Can you run?"
Yugi stares wordlessly and the other man starts looking around the room, asking, "Where's the other? He's in here, I can feel it." A meditation mat lifts itself into the air, and quickly starts circling the room, whirling past Yugi to catch in midair, where it's collided with Ryou.
The other man -having planned that – reaches out and grasps at the empty space. In a second, Ryou's visible again and shouting, "What do you want?"
The other man says, seriously, "We're Bakura and Yami, and we're here to rescue you."
The boy with the hair that surprinsingly matched Yugi's own and a smooth, baritone voice –Yami – nods vehemently, and Ryou struggles to get his arm back from the man called Bakura, but Bakura seems to anticipate that Ryou will disappear when he does. A loud bang overhead makes Yami flinch, and he says to Bakura, "We have to leave now."
"Why should we go with you?" Yugi argues, and sparks rain from the electric door frame.
"Do you want to be experimented on?" Yami shouts over the grinding noise, determination written all over his face; Yugi stares at him, unable to think of a response.
Bakura pulls Ryou towards the door, and Ryou stops struggling, so Yugi resigns himself to follow, with Yami behind him, keeping them in a line. As they hurry down the hallway, Bakura throws his arms apart; the large door trapping them in pries open. It's obvious to Yugi that Bakura's a talented telekinesis, and meeting someone other than Ryou with powers; well, it's a little mind jarring.
As they run through the foyer, where the reception desk is on fire and smoke's filling up to the ceiling, Yugi trips on some of the debris. He's caught by burning warm hands, steadied to his feet, and he looks at Yami in surprise, while Yami just looks back with an indiscernible expression.
"Your hands. They're burning."
"And you're freezing," Yami adds, pushing him further. "Watch your step."
A fire handler. Yugi's mind spins as he tries to keep up, unable to force the questions out of his mouth as he concentrates on keeping close to Ryou. An intense sting hits the inside of his elbow again, needle pricks flaring up. The chaos around him makes him wonder why he had no warning; could all of this have happened so quickly? Wasn't there something that could have tipped him off?
Bakura thrusts his arms open again, but the main front doors only groan, the metal slowly warping in the middle, the large printed S-CORP twisting in to be unreadable, but not enough to allow them through.
"Bakura," Yami calls, insistent.
"I'm trying!," Bakura hisses a shout back.
Yugi looks at Yami, and says disbelievingly, "What are you people doing?"
"We already told you, rescuing you," Yami tells him, steadfastly.
"But why?"
The boy, unexpectedly, grins. "Because we never leave a man behind."
The door finally permits enough space for them to push through, and they get through at the same time a bullet lodges itself into the door, inches from Yami's head.
Outside, there's a crowd. Before Yugi can get a proper look, however, a woman with curling blonde hair and a humongous chest pulls him into her arms and whispers, "This might hurt."
Teleporting isn't what Yugi expected, although that would suggest he's thought about it. He has not.
It does hurt, but in an aching way, like his muscles are being stretched tight, past their limit. His insides feel like they've somersaulted, leaving him nauseated and gagging when they finally come to a standstill. He stumbles away, bile rising up in his throat, and someone grabs his shoulder to stop him from falling. The room is brightly lit, although shapes seem to blur together.
A girl crouches down, her dark brown hair cropped to frame her face, and she says, "Are you okay?"
People keep asking him that. Her image doubles and blends back to one.
A moment later two pairs of feet appear in front of him again, and Ryou's knees nearly buckle as he tries not to sway. The girl disappears again, Ryou's tumbling sideways to Yugi, and the brunette looks up at someone Yugi hasn't seen, asking, "How many trips is Mai making?"
"They're coming back in the trucks, but Yami and Bakura need to be here," a male voice says.
Yugi tries to straighten up, and Ryou sags heavily into him.
"Okay," Ryou says, as Mai reappears, Bakura under one arm, Yami in the other. "Someone has to tell us what the hell is going on." His hair is messy and his deep brown eyes are characteristically bright.
Yugi nods, helplessly, and the other five people in the room look serious; Yugi feels like he's behind glass, and they're all just observing. The mystery male voice belongs to a tall man, who wears a hood pulled as far as it will go over his head and calculating, yet worn eyes. His hair is exaggeratedly pointed, with the lower half a light brown while the top a darker shade. A hand rests on his chin.
The girl with cropped hair rises from the crouching position, and her face is pretty and delicate, with a voice to match. "I'm Tèa. We're the good guys." She manages a meek smile.
"How did you know about us?" Yugi asks quietly, confused. Ryou's pressed in close, as if cornered.
"We keep track," Bakura voices, wiping away a small hint of blood from the shallow cut on his chin. "The people that kept you are part of a large organization that spreads over half the world."
Yami nods from beside him, wiping soot on his pants. "We're notified of how many kids are in each base."
Ryou gives them a bland look as he says, "We were there for eleven years. You acted now?"
Yugi touches Ryou's side, his icy touch a warning. They don't usually talk about this, about the before and after. Life before the S-CORP, and life in the S-CORP. It's easier not to. Emotions can make life a lot harder.
The man with the hood grimaces. He makes a temple with both hands, and says, "We work as quickly as we can with the limited resources we have. The CIA has been working on shutting down the organization for years, but with all the secrecy..." The man trails off, having a hard time keeping his gaze from the wall.
"That's Tristan, by the way," Tèa tells them. "He's an agent for the CIA, and he's done a lot for us."
"We know you probably have a lot of questions," Bakura tells them, earnestly, voice rough "and we'll answer them, but tonight- tonight isn't such a good time. I think we all need time to recoup."
Bakura's face has a worn look, and his moonlight gray hair is peppered with dirt. His shoulders are broad and his shirt doesn't hide the thick muscles wrapped around his arms, and Yugi prematurely recognizes him as a leader. Yami, next to him, looks young and small in comparison, but his eyes are sharp and he holds himself with confidence making Yugi wonder if maybe height and excessive bulk aren't deciding factors. His lips are in a tight line, his red tongue darting across them nervously.
"I'll show you to your room," says Mai, and her motherly voice soothes the rawest of Yugi's nerves. She doesn't touch them, but leads the way, and Yugi follows aimlessly, unsure of what other choice he has. As they leave the room, the other four form a circle, blocking them out before the door closes.
Mai is kind and peaceful - although Yugi can sense a type of undermining spunk in her personality somewhere - but she smiles at them comfortingly as she shows them their room. A simple room with two beds, a large window, wardrobes. Worlds different to the small, sterile white and bare rooms Yugi's used to.
Mai smiles down at them –taller than them both – and says, "Are you hungry or thirsty? I could get you something."
Ryou smiles at her sheepishly, the kind of smile Yugi hasn't seen for what feels like years. "No, we're fine."
She nods, telling them, "The kitchen is downstairs, if you change your mind. Otherwise, I'll see you at breakfast in the morning."
They nod at her, and it's only just as she's closing the door Yugi remembers to say, "Thank you."
She pauses, turning to look at him and say, "You're welcome." Her smile is one Yugi won't soon forget.
When she shuts the door, the light above them flickers momentarily, and Yugi glances up. He grasps the inside of his elbow, unable to scratch the itch, and Ryou sits down gingerly, on the edge of his bed. The whole feeling is surreal and unfocused, and for a moment, Yugi's thought patterns stutter.
Then Ryou laughs.
"We're free?"
Yugi's lips quirk. "Don't get too excited yet."
Yugi keeps a smile on his lips though, and Ryou beckons him closer. When in reach, Ryou rolls up Yugi's sleeve, and scrunches his face a little. "Maybe you can get them to look at that tomorrow."
The needle marks are inflamed, some a deep, blossoming red, others a plum purple, running like a rash along the underside of his elbow. Ryou doesn't have any, only a few white scars where they took blood, almost unnoticeable. Why they hadn't subjected Ryou to the same things, Yugi doesn't know; he's not a scientist. It's a question he doesn't like to think about.
Yugi nods, pulling down his sleeve again. The clock on the bedside table reads that it's getting close to midnight. Ryou's already pulling off his blank, cream shirt that they always wore in the S-CORP, and getting under the warm covers. Yugi sits down and plays with the corner of his sheets, toying with the idea of sleeping, or asking Ryou to stay up and help him figure this out.
"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Ryou tells him quietly, knowing Yugi well enough to read his expression.
Yugi copies Ryou, pulling off the shirt and getting under his sheets, and their eyes meet across the room; their beds are barely six feet apart. Ryou gives him a brief smile, and Yugi half smiles back, closing his eyes.