[Two days after Battle City]
The first thing Mutou Yugi thought was—it's so cold.
The next thing was that he couldn't breathe.
Yugi choked on nothing, collapsing to his knees as his lungs refused to expand. For a moment his hands could only scrabble against the cold floor, eyes roving through an impenetrable darkness, uncertain of where he was or how he had gotten there and he couldn't breathe—
And then whatever had had hold of him seemed to pop and he gasped for breath.
For a long, long moment, Yugi could only lay there on the floor, shuddering as he dragged in greedy breaths. It was only then that he realized that his other self was shouting at him.
"Aibou! Aibou! Dammit, aibout, answer me, what happened, are you okay?"
Yugi coughed, a deep, rattling sound that sent his whole body into horrible shakes. When he was finished his throat felt raw and draw.
"I—I'm okay," he rasped. He coughed one more time and blinked a few times to get the spots out of his eyes. "What...what happened?"
He groaned, closing his eyes against a wave of dizziness. He felt like he was going to throw up.
Without asking, Yami no Yugi gently pulled Yugi back into the Puzzle and took control of their shaky body. Yami no Yugi groaned as he felt the full effects of Yugi's disorientation—but the switching out of souls stabilized their shared condition, and after a few beats, he was able to stumble to his feet.
"What happened?" Yami no Yugi said.
His voice echoed—a large chamber, then?
He bit his lip uncertainly as he turned slowly, slowly around, trying to find some element beyond the darkness, something that he could latch onto. Nothing. Just the cold floor under his feet.
"Where are we...?" Yugi murmured.
Yami no Yugi shook his head.
"I haven't the slightest clue."
He frowned, trying to think of how on earth they might have gotten here.
"Yugi, what's the last thing you remember?"
"Um...getting into bed. After talking to grandpa...he wanted to see the God cards AGAIN."
Yami no Yugi nodded. It was the last thing he remembered too. But, somehow, they were not in their pajamas, but in their usual uniform and attire. That meant some time had passed since then, since they had been dropped into this...wherever this was.
He patted his belt to see if at least his cards were there—they weren't. Nor did he have the comforting weight of his Duel Disk on his arm. He didn't want to admit it, but the lack made his stomach turn nervously.
Well...only one thing to do...
Yami no Yugi walked slowly forward, both hands out, feeling through the darkness for something solid.
It took only several shuffling steps for his fingers to brush against a cold metallic wall. There we go. Yami no Yugi felt his way along the wall, carefully, cautiously, moving with small, shuffling steps. He could feel Yugi's tremors of fear and the way he tried to push it down and hide it—he had to try and stay calm for Yugi's sake, at least. Even though his own heart was pounding in his chest.
His fingers ran across something raised—jackpot! It felt like the frame of a door.
Yami no Yugi felt along the length of the door and finally found the handle. There appeared to be...a keypad? Something above the door. His heart dropped into his stomach. It was going to be locked, wasn't it?
No, the handle turned!
Breathing out with relief, Yami no Yugi carefully pushed the door open. To his relief, light spilled through, and he pushed through the door and into a well lit hallway.
He glanced down both ways, but the hall was empty. Doors lined the hallway at various intervals—a few of them hung open, but other than that, the place seemed...abandoned.
He frowned, the dread stirring in his stomach. He had escaped one place just find that he was more lost than he thought. He glanced back into the room behind him, hoping the light from the hallway could help him see the place he had just left. Maybe there was another door that lead outside?
Just a cursory glance told him that there was nothing else in there.
A closer look made the barest hint of terror claw at his stomach because the room was covered with strange, corroded burns all down the walls and floor.
Swallowing harshly, Yami no Yugi closed the door quickly behind him and stepped out into the hallway.
Where to now?
There was no signage, nothing to indicate which direction he should go.
He reached for the Puzzle, cold in his hands, as though he could get some kind of support from it. But the cold metal had no explanations for him, no ideas, no voice to tell him what to do.
"What do you think, aibou?" he said. "Left, or right?"
Yugi hesitated. But before he could answer...
"Mimimimimiiimiiimimiimimmmmiiimiiiiiiiiiiiii!"
The babbling sound rattled down the hallway, bouncing off the empty walls with an almost hysteric cadence.
Yami no Yugi squared his stance, tensing. What was coming?
He wasn't sure what he was expecting but it wasn't...that.
The two tiny things that exploded down the hallway were barely the height of half his calves, shaped vaguely like teardrops. One giant blue eye stared out from each one of them, and the pupils fixed on him when they came into view of him. Before he could do anything, they zoomed towards him, starting to make large circles around his feet. They seemed frantic, making that loud babbling sound—although where it was coming from he had no idea.
Yami no Yugi flinched back from them, every sense on alert—he had no idea what these things were and they could be dangerous and he was honestly about two seconds away from kicking them before Yugi jumped into control. He crouched down so that he was closer to the frantic creatures, reaching out tentatively.
"Hey, hey," he said. "It's okay. It's okay! Sh, sh, sh, sh, sh."
"Yugi, be careful," Yami no Yugi said warily.
"They're just scared," Yugi said. "See?"
The strange pair had finally fallen still at Yugi's voice, staring right at him. He kept his hand out towards them, one a burnt orange and one a mustard yellow, both with a giant blue eye that stared, unblinking, at Yugi. It made Yami no Yugi shudder in spite of himself.
Yugi left his hand outstretched, continuing to make soothing noises.
"It's okay," he said. "You're all right. Did something scare you? It's gonna be okay."
He kept talking, that low, soft voice that reminded Yami no Yugi of a mother, someone calming someone out of a nightmare.
The burnt orange one moved first, creeping tentatively forward and pushing the top of its teardrop shape at Yugi's hand. Yugi smiled.
"There you go," he said. "You're all right. See?"
The yellow one moved forward too, then and both of them seemed to nuzzle against Yugi's hand. Yugi laughed softly.
"They're like cats, other me," he said. "You like cats, right?"
"Cats are fuzzy," Yami no Yugi said, just a tiny bit miffed at how these little creatures unnerved him. "These things are not."
Yugi straightened, and the burnt orange eye pod made a soft, gentle chirping sound. Yugi laughed.
"Well, I like them," he said. "They're cute."
Cute? Yami no Yugi thought, not quite seeing it. Well, they seemed harmless enough.
"Do you two know which way we should go?" Yugi asked. "We're lost, you see."
The little eye pods just stared up at him. The yellow one made a tiny chirping sound.
"I don't know if they understand us," Yami no Yugi said.
"Guess not," said Yugi. "Well...which way, then, other me?"
Yami no Yugi considered their options.
"The opposite direction that they came from," he said. "Something clearly scared them. I'd rather not find out what."
"Sounds like a good plan," Yugi said, shuddering in spite of himself.
He hesitated a moment longer, and then started off down the corridor. He paused when the little eye pods rolled after him, the yellow one chirping again. He smiled at them.
"Do you guys want to come with us?" he said.
Again the yellow one chirped, and the orange one made a soft babbling noise.
"Okay, Chirp! You can tag along."
Great, thought Yami no Yugi. And then,
"Chirp?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at Yugi.
"Yeah. Chirp. The yellow one is Chirp, and the orange one is Babble."
"You named them."
"We have to have something to call them!"
Yami no Yugi couldn't help but smile. Unnerving the pods may be, but they made Yugi feel more confident, at least, and he could use all the confidence he could get. If they made Yugi feel better, then Yami no Yugi would perhaps try and grow to like them too.
At least, so he thought until he glanced down at the staring blue eyes again and shuddered in spite of himself. Well, maybe that would come later.
Yugi marched off down the corridor, with Chirp and Babble rolling along beside him as though they were on wheels (perhaps they were). Yami no Yugi's mind wandered to the place around them, and thinking about how they had gotten here.
He had no idea where he was, what was going on, or what was going to come next. And yet...
A feeling tugged at his chest. The kind of calm that he only got when he sat across the table facing an opponent, the confidence that seeped into his bones and the smirk that unconsciously tugged at his lips as he saw the layout of the game before him. It was the feeling of starting a game, and a game he could win.
This is a game, he realized suddenly. I don't know how...or why...but someone is playing a game with us.
And then,
I'm going to find out who—and I'm going to win.
And with that thought in mind, they continued down the corridor—not noticing the large, unmoving, humanlike shape that clung to the ceiling behind them, hidden in the shadows near a burned out bulb, burned looking face staring after them as thick lines of corrosion spread from its hands across the walls...
She rolled the pencil between her fingers as she glanced over the screens.
"Our first guest has arrived," she said. "And how cute. He's made some friends."
She placed the pencil on the table and pressed a button on the laptop in front of her to turn on the microphone.
"Phase one was a success. The god-king and the puzzle-king have both been transferred. Initiate the second phase."
She switched off the intercom and rested her head atop her folded hands, smiling slightly.
"Let's see how well you do, the fabled double kings," she said.