Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh, nor do I claim rights to any of the affiliated characters.
Warnings/Notes: An alternate ending to the Duelist Kingdom arc in which Pegasus is not always a man of his word. Rated for profanity, reference to violence and bodily injury, and mind games in general. Be advised that the rating may change as the story progresses.
Pegasus holds all the cards right now.
As long as keeps us prisoners, we're at his mercy no matter what the outcome of the game.
Deep down none of them had expected this.
Yugi had fought so valiantly, and they too had battled, armor up, hazard signs out, waiting to be torn through by the hurricane of Pegasus's misguided perception. It was a perfect victory. They earned it. But in the end, for all their efforts, they had become captives.
The card game did not matter, it never had.
I.
The scream that woke him from sleep was not his own but echoed like the steady drum of his heartbeat. Yugi pressed a hand to his raw throat and sat up. Opening his eyes didn't banish the darkness and when he let his hand down against the frigid stone, the cold cut him to the core. This wasn't home. He didn't know what this was.
He pressed to his feet on trembling legs and stumbled forward into the bars, one hand wrapping around them, the other rising to his cheek to rub the ache away. He knew the disembodied voice, could feel its pain so keenly his very being recoiled.
His mouth was too dry to speak and his tongue muffled the parched words.
Where…?
The scream echoed, muddled as if under water. He blinked hard and stared down at the darkness, eyes trailing left and right until he could make out some of the creases in the stone. There was a wall torch lit to his left and he followed the silent call of the light as far as it reached.
Stifled groans surrounded him and brought the memories back: Pegasus's face, Grandpa's plea, the whirlwind of the tournament and agony of the shadow realm.
Whatever beasts made a game of mauling him had the spirit now. Their talons made flesh of his soul just to shred it, and the desperate call for release made the smaller boy shiver.
It was agony. He had felt it. And there was nothing he could do to save any of them here.
"What have I done now…?" Yugi broke away from the stream of light to stare directly across from him. It was barely bright enough to make out a silhouette.
"Bakura…?" He croaked.
"Yugi –" Ryou breathed, trying to tame the relief. He's alive. You didn't kill them. This wasn't your fault. "Where are we – I don't understand."
Yugi forced himself to swallow and tried not to wish for water to coat his mouth and tongue, "Did I lose the duel?"
"No," Tea said shakily, moving to the edge of her cell. "I remember you came out of that fog, we were so worried something had happened but you stood up, you were okay, and then…" Her voice broke and she knocked her hand against the bars trying to feel for them. "Why are we here?" She asked, "We did everything we had to."
"I don't think it was about the game." Tristan said from beside her.
Two more wall torches lit themselves at the end of the corridor and everyone strained to look.
"Mokuba!"
"Niisama!"
Seto reached as far as his arm allowed, shoulder protesting as he strained against the bars for one more inch, just a fraction, to graze Mokuba's outstretched fingers.
"I can't do this again," The younger cried, stretching for more of Seto's touch, "I want to go home!"
"I know kid," He said softly, "We'll get through this. We've gotten through all the cheap tricks before. Pegasus has to crawl out of these shadows eventually and when he does, I'll be ready."
If deprivation was the endgame, Pegasus had come three years too late. Gozaburo honed brilliance with brutality and a few days without food wouldn't kill him. But the chill of Mokuba's fingers brought home a harrowing truth. He wouldn't survive what Seto had. He had been in hell too long already.
"If it's not about the duel," Tea said, tugging at the bars like she might pull one loose, "What does that leave? We don't have millennium items. We don't have Kaiba's technology."
Tristan tackled the bars until his aching body protested. "He can't just let us go free. Even if we kept quiet, it would draw attention. The last place Yugi and Kaiba were seen was Pegasus's island. We come back and they don't?" He shook his head, "It's no good."
"You know Pegasus's game by now. This was business to him and he played to win." Seto replied.
Joey grunted in frustration, fist connecting hard with the wall and drawing blood from two knuckles. "I ain't a prize to be won, Kaiba!" He snapped, "I got too much ridin' on the outcome of this tournament to rot down here."
"That was your first mistake." Seto replied.
"We can't all walk into fortune like you, money bags."
"My brother didn't walk into anything! He worked hard for what we have – or had – until Pegasus stole it all." Mokuba lost his breath but kept his snarl.
"Kaiba's right," Ryou said quietly, in a tone that seemed to draw the darkness of the room, "Our first mistake was trusting a thief."
A guard appeared at the end of the hall. One moment, no more than a breath, and the lights went out.
"That's it?" Joey asked with a laugh, "He pays 'em six figures to babysit and kill lights if we don't play nice?"
"Joey!" Tea hissed.
"No – fuck this – he told us to play by the rules, we played by the rules. Yugi won that duel even with Pegasus cheating every step of the way. He won, Tea, that's the end of it."
"But it isn't," She pleaded, voice barely above a whisper.
Don't make him angry.
I don't want to die down here.
The first time she let the thought slip free, it consumed her. No one knew where she was. Even if Joey or Tristan told their families, it wouldn't count for much. Pegasus had an island and the equivalent of a militarized police force at his immediate disposal. She'd seen how many guards kept watch of the castle and the grounds, all of them amply armed. What good could they do, even all together, against a fleet of well-paid men?
They couldn't even contend with a few bars.
The more Mokuba's breathing picked up in the cell beside her, the more hope leaked from her eyes, wasting precious water and energy. The stone slab of a bed against the wall wouldn't allow for much rest and as time went on the temperature would keep dropping. Her feet already burned against the damp stone and she sat cross-legged to press them against one another.
Who had removed her socks and shoes?
"Yugi, do you have your puzzle?" She asked.
"No." He whispered. "It's gone."
She let her head fall back against one of the stone walls and winced at the moisture.
Someone had to find them here. If the Kaibas were back, Grandpa would wake up too. He'd tell someone where they were, and if not him then a journalist or jilted duelist who didn't make the cut for the island. It was the biggest tournament in Duel Monsters history and the top contenders hadn't made it home. Someone had to come looking.
II.
Mokuba's scream pulled them from their thoughts, piercing the silence with wails of too-young agony no one knew how to tame.
Seto shot to his feet, reaching blindly in the dark.
"Don't take me back," Mokuba sobbed, "Please, you can have it, don't take me back."
"You're not going back." Seto promised, swallowing any pride that whispered he couldn't afford to be what Mokuba needed right now. That warned he couldn't give Pegasus this softness to exploit, not with cameras watching, not with their lives at stake. "I'm right here, I'm sorry I can't reach you but I'm right here." He coaxed.
He stretched, tendons in his shoulders threatening to tear with the exertion, but Mokuba couldn't shake himself from the stupor long enough to reach back. The only thread of comfort they had managed was thwarted in darkness.
"I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't –" His words dissolved into short, shuddering breaths and Seto cursed as he got to his feet.
"You can hear my voice Mokuba, just focus on me. Reach your hand out and I'll hold it."
"I c-can-n-n't, they'll take me back. Those things will take me ba-ack."
"There are no creatures Mokuba; that was all a trick." Downplaying Mokuba's distress wouldn't alleviate it, but he couldn't let him delve further into a panic attack or he'd never be able to pull out of it. Wheeler's words spun around his head and if not for the bars he might have lunged for him. But there was no point in lying to Mokuba by telling him they were safe, he was old enough to know what this was, what it meant. Pegasus would leave them to rot down here if that's what he wanted, and not a single soul would be able to get to them in time. Not with an army of guns and twice as many targets on their heads. It was different when they were collateral, but now that Pegasus had everything he wanted?
Now that there was nothing standing in the way of Kaiba Corp?
"We'll give him what he wants!" Yugi called, "Just turn on the lights, we'll give him what he wants!"
The darkness seemed to grow thicker, imitating Pegasus's taunts.
You'll know what I want when it serves me, and not a moment before.
"And if he just wants to get rid of us?" Tea asked.
"I'm almost afraid it's worse." Ryou whispered. "If he never intended to play fair, why go through the guise of a tournament at all? Why not just take us in secret, without the attention of a televised event? If he was worried about bad publicity or the possibility of law enforcement stepping in, he'd have a lot more to answer for than keeping us in a dungeon. There were flamethrowers in the arenas, middle school kids nearly sealed in a cave. I hate to say it, but it sounds as if this whole thing is just one, sick game. It must have taken years to set up, and it's no secret he had cameras everywhere to watch the mayhem unfold. Who does he answer to all the way out here, the police, the media? This island is a playground." And they were the entertainment.
"It was part of the charade." Tea realized, voice trembling, "He's been toying with us all this time. He wanted to see what we could do."
"Or," Tristan interjected, remembering Mokuba's once lifeless body against his own as he carried it out of the dungeon and into the light, "He wanted us to see what he could do. I think it's like Mai said when it came time for Kaiba and Pegasus to have their duel, it was meant to intimidate us. All of this is him flaunting his own control. We have to show him we won't back down."
"Tristan's right, we've beaten everything else he's thrown at us. We just have to keep fighting." Joey agreed.
"Guys, as much as I'd like to agree and as much as I want out of here…I think it's time we realize this is a different game. In the tournament there were chances to gain the upper hand, in a dungeon I just don't see how we can. This is an ultimatum. Whatever Pegasus really wants was saved for now."
A flame sprung to life in the torch at the end of the corridor, illuminating Mokuba's tear-stained face.
III.
They slept in dim light, throats too dry to talk, lips swollen and cracked. Every so often Yugi stirred awake to Grandpa's voice and let it blanket him against the cold assault of stone. The words belonged to a bedtime story he'd been told from the womb, spun as dutifully as if Grandpa had carried it in his own.
It's a myth that only women give life, Yugi.
Gazing into Grandpa's tired eyes, he believed every word. The gold box on the top shelf of his closet was only a whisper then.
Now, with the pieces calling him just as relentlessly, he repeated the story to himself.
To know a demon's true name is to take its power.
To defeat a beast is simply to know its nature: what it needs, what it covets, what it fears.
There is nothing more damning than to look a man in the face and tell him what he is, to avoid evading the truth – because the deceitful often do – and deal the harsh blow to his façade. Be wary of beings that make themselves nameless: they have more to hide than you have to bargain for.
"And if I do bargain, Grandpa?"
"It will be all you have: gamblers don't do things by halves, my boy."
He drifted again, this time to a story he could hardly place. The last line before he fell to sleep faded from Grandpa's voice into Pegasus's, and Yugi resented that more than anything else.
"…and so the two men dueled for a single share of water."
His throat ached.
IV.
The only thing worse than waking to screams was waking to silence.
Yugi struggled for traction against the stone, feet half-numb, room spinning even in darkness enough to leave it shapeless. They had all been too long without water. He stood to walk some warmth into his limbs and found himself almost unable to balance. With the duel against Pegasus looming, he hadn't managed more than a sip of water. It had been at least a day in the dungeon by now. Add to that the day of his duel and the time it took to sleep off the sedative, and he was due for hallucinations.
He tried to swallow and couldn't. For a moment fear of the end gripped him and he forgot how, throat squeezed together, frozen halfway through the motion. It was Kaiba's voice that finally brought forth an exhale, choked and at the top of his breath.
"Mutou." He said quietly, "Do you have water?"
To ask, he must have been desperate. Yugi strained and squinted to look more into the light, his vision limited by the stone walls encasing him to either side.
"No," He rasped, "I'm sorry."
"I'm so thirsty, Niisama."
"I'll get you something to drink." Seto promised, and even on the brink of delirium Joey managed to sigh in sympathy. It was the saddest, most infuriating thing the elder brother had ever seen, and he thought in that moment that even if he could forgive Pegasus everything else, the torture of a child was exempt. If it wouldn't mean Serenity losing her sight – he ached to think she might have already – he'd sooner set fire to Crawford's money than take it.
He wasn't afraid to thirst to death, but he was terrified of listening to Pegasus torture Mokuba while Seto watched without hope.
He closed his eyes against the glare of more lights and tried not to remember the flash before Seto's soul left his body.
V.
The brightness of the room burned. They only forced themselves to adjust when Seto got to his feet.
"Pegasus."
Crawford tipped a straw hat, out of place with the red suit and polished dress shoes, and held it over his heart.
"You can manage that but not a good morning? And here I thought a few days in the dungeon would teach you some respect."
"Just what are you playing at?" Seto demanded, taking the chance to get a real look at Mokuba. His skin was dull and lifeless, eyes sunken like he hadn't slept in months. It took all he had not to coax the boy to his feet, and he might have if they were alone. Pegasus wanted a show and the only act of defiance left was refusing to be one.
"Mind your tone, Seto Kaiba, or this water leaves with me." He strode to the middle of the eight cells, one of which was empty and hanging wide open.
Joey stared at the barred door and let himself imagine shoving Pegasus in.
"I've come to enforce the rules for the rest of your stay." He announced, reaching through Seto's bars with a bottle of water. The elder Kaiba didn't take it, and Pegasus held his eyes while it dropped with a crack to the stone floor. It rolled, dented and dirty, to the tips of Seto's toes.
"If and when I decide to bring you into my home, you will do exactly as you're told, as soon as you're told, without question." He handed Tea the next bottle of water and she almost asked if accepting it was an order. She took it with the edges of her fingers and waited for him to let go. When he didn't, she abandoned his redwood iris for the gray stone of the dungeon floor. "You will address me as sir and nothing else."
"Thank you." She whispered.
"How fast you learn, Tea dear."
He let go of the bottle and she scrambled to support it with her other hand so it didn't tumble to the floor.
If he had it in him, Joey would have spit in Crawford's face, but the fact that he didn't was reason enough to play along. That and the flashes of auburn he saw every time he closed his eyes.
When it was his turn – and of course it had been saved for last – Mokuba took the water too quickly. Pegasus kept his own grip, firmer than anything Mokuba could muster in his fatigue.
"What do we say?"
"Thank you sir." Mokuba slurred, tugging at the bottle.
"Not you."
Seto closed his eyes, teeth gritting sharply against each other. He'd sooner give Mokuba his water than let Pegasus degrade him like this. But Pegasus had brought just one bottle each, and Mokuba would need most of both at least.
"Thank you." He relented with as much contempt as he could muster.
"Excuse me?"
Seto stared hard at the back of Pegasus's head, trying not to bleed the creases of his red suit into Gozaburo's. The water bottle might as well have been a riding crop for all the difference in the situation, and he promised himself his stepfather would be the last to ever draw 'sir' from his lips.
Pegasus uncapped the bottle in Mokuba's fingers and took it from his grasp even as Seto surrendered.
"-sir."
"Thank you, sir."
The liquid hit the floor and Joey watched it run with his eyes closed, as clearly as if Pegasus had slapped him. It splattered against Mokuba's pant leg and the boy shrunk back to the stone slab against the wall.
When Pegasus turned, crushing the empty plastic in his hand, Seto couldn't even meet his eyes through Mokuba's horror.
"Have we reached an understanding?"
- as soon as you're told -
"Yes, sir."
Pegasus withdrew a spare bottle from the eighth cell and left it upright in the puddle of the first. The echo of his footsteps was all they heard before the descent back into darkness.
"This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper."
- T.S Eliot
If you're an original fan of "The Stockholm Game," I can't thank you enough for checking out the reboot. I hope you enjoy it!