A/N: I wanted to include a short chapter in between 1 and 2, so this is it. It's also an excuse to show what the deal is with Mokuba and possible Yugi while the main plotline is restricted mostly to Atem and Seto. These interludes may hope around in time a bit, too. If anyone has any recommendations for other members of the series that could show up, please feel free!

~ Gallowmere

Interlude 1

Mokuba was walking past the doorway when he spotted it. The hologram was sitting in his brother's chair behind the workbench, staring into space. It was still wearing the Battle City outfit, but with weird gold bands on the arms Mokuba didn't recall from the initial testing stages. Then the hologram turned his head and looked directly at Mokuba. The vice president could see the data processing in its eyes. Then the light faded and that red colour came back. It was an eerie approximation of the Pharaoh's always-stern look. If Mokuba hadn't known better he could have mistaken it for the real thing.

And then he smiled. "Hello, Mokuba."

Mokuba turned his back. "Shut down the program."

"No."

Mokuba spun around. "Excuse me?"

The hologram stood up and folded its arms. It stared at Mokuba, the two of them practically the same height now. "You do not have the permissions to tell me to shut down. Kaiba gave me control over my own program."

For a moment Mokuba was blindsided. A self-teaching program was one thing, but handing it control over its current state? But then he quickly recovered, snapping, "Don't be so familiar in how you address my brother! You're just his practice partner! Have you even managed to defeat him in a duel yet?" The hologram said nothing and Mokuba gave his best Kaiba sneer. "I knew it. You haven't."

"I need more data," the hologram said quietly. Mokuba just shook his head, despairing, and started to walk away again. "But Kaiba will bring it to me. Kaiba won't stop until he finds it."

Mokuba stopped dead. His breathing started to speed up. He willed himself to be calm, but it was fruitless. Especially when he had spent his morning seeing endless rounds of 'was the whole Kaiba challenging a piece of jewellery to a duel another Solid Vision stunt?' on his social media feeds. Not to mention the damage control Kaiba Corp had had to do from Aigami's appearance; he'd spent hours scrubbing all digital evidence of that bizarre Millennium Ring monster from existence.

"Do you want to repeat that?" he said, his voice low.

"I said, Kaiba is looking for –"

Mokuba Kaiba span around so fast his heel squeaked against the floor. The hologram understood it had upset him since it fell silent, though that antagonistic look on its face didn't change. Kaiba really had made it like the real Pharaoh. Confident. Unflappable. And sometimes so bloody self-righteous. The vice president's fist clenched by his side, and shook. Keeping his eyes on the hologram, he marched over to the desk and yanked the drawer open.

Just as he'd hoped. Two duel disks.

He grabbed one for himself and flung the other to the hologram. "If I win, you surrender your administrator privileges to me immediately. Until Seto returns, I am in charge."

The hologram gave him a long look. Like the Pharaoh, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. But he wasn't the Pharaoh. He didn't think.

"Very well," he said. "I'll accept any challenge. But I'm not going to lose to you."

Mokuba attached the disk to his arm, stared the Pharaoh down. "What makes you so sure?"

But he just smirked. "And when I win, you have to answer a question." He put his own disk on and activated it.

Mokuba took his place opposite him, activating the hologram of the duelling field. He hadn't bothered to pick so the randomiser cycled through a bunch of images before it settled on one: a field in Duelist Kingdom. "Duel start!" he cried.