Amber Mollari12/4/2007

Chapter 1: Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork.

It had been two weeks, and the pile of papers on Kaiba's desk just kept growing. Normally it wouldn't have even gotten to a tenth of the piles current height, but Kaiba was a man on a mission. He had spent the past fortnight on his latest obsession, discovering the identity of the mystery duelist he had met in the virtual wood. He'd all but given up when he'd read the list of the people Pegasus has scheduled to test the new program at that time and all of them were men. At which point he'd given up for a couple of days to catch up on his paperwork, 'Does this stuff ever end?' the young CEO asked himself as he reviewed the twentieth report that day. Starting to feel extremely bored and tense he picked up the next piece of paper work up from his in tray, it was an amended copy of the contract between Kaiba Corp and Industrial Illusions, the one discussing proposed additions to the program. That's when it hit him; Pegasus had worked with him to add extra functionality to allow people to have a username and virtual self much like an avatar.
'So that's why she thought I was somebody impersonating me!' he realized, he also noticed how weird that sounded and was glad he didn't say it out loud. Within minutes he'd managed to pull up all the user profiles and avatars for the testers using the program on the day he had dueled the mystery girl. He almost started to laugh gleefully when he found a female user profile, only almost. This is Seto Kaiba we are talking bout, and everyone knows he doesn't laugh gleefully. However he did let out a frustrated growl when he saw her display picture and username. It read MissRa, and her avatar didn't look like what he remembered, in fact he never really paid much attention to what she had been wearing. He'd been too taken in by those eyes of hers, and the way they seemed to look right through him, something he'd often heard those who worked for him saying about him as he passed them in the cafeteria. Kaiba sighed to himself out of frustration more then anything else, and eyed his huge pile of paperwork, before groaning.
'Just another one of that irritating man's games' he thought to himself, 'strange he didn't play any of those god dam toon monsters he's so fond of'. Silently shaking his head at the whole thing he packed away the work with the highest priority into his briefcase and decided to head home to finish it off there. After all he had a flight to Duelist Kingdom tomorrow afternoon and he wanted to take a nap to make sure he wouldn't feel too jet lagged. Before he could think about setting off home though, he had to leave his personal assistant Rowland and his personal secretary a memo about the two – three week business trip where he was expecting Rowland to assist Mokuba in running things. Mokuba may be young, but Seto Kaiba wouldn't trust anyone else with his company.

Over at the Black Crown game shop, Duke was bouncing around his room like a five year old kid on a few dozen pixie sticks at Christmas! Tomorrow was the big day, and he couldn't wait, he was still practically bouncing of the walls of his room when he calmed down enough to conference call his friends.
"Have I got news for you guys!!" he exclaimed down the phone, causing them to all hold their phone's handset away from their ears.
"Well somebody sure sounds happy today." Was Joey's reply, "what happened? Did you find yourself another lady for your fan club?" To Joey's credit he kept any bitterness he might be feeling out of his voice.

"So come on Duke what is this good news?" came Yugi's voice next. Duke still couldn't believe that Yugi had wanted to be his friend after how shabbily he had treated them all. That's why he wanted him there more then anyone.
"Well" he responded, trying to drag it out, he still couldn't really believe it himself, "Tomorrow yours truly is being flown to Duelist Kingdom by the big cheese of Duel Monsters himself! He wants to meet me to discuss contracts for my new game, and he said he's even going to try and open up negotiations between me and Kaiba Corp! Man I can't wait." Duke was practically jumping all over again as he told his friends. This time it was his turn to hold the phone away from his ear as Yugi, Joey, Tea and Tristan all shouted congratulations at him down the phone. "Calm down you guys!!" he shouted back, "you don't know the best bit yet". He smiled as they quieted down even if it was cut short by Tristan.
"So what can be better then Pegasus flying you to his island to sort out your contract Duke? Was Joey right bout the fan girls?" Tristan enquired trying to not to laugh. Duke felt himself start to blush, but just a little. After all Duke was a ladies man, and ladies men didn't blush like school kids. Well maybe occasionally.
"So yeah tell us Duke, what could be better then what you already told us?" this time it was Tea he could hear. Duke was enjoying this way too much, he had to suppress a giggle, their curiosity must really be getting to them he thought.
"Well I'd say taking my friends to Duelist Kingdom with Pegasus' permission so I won't be bored is! Pegasus warned me that this could take a couple weeks at least to sort out because of all the legal stuff involved. Although that's still not the best bit!" he explained. His explanation was met by more pleading from his friends to know what was so great. After they settled down he continued, "The best bit is he's flying us all over there tomorrow on his private jet". He heard groans from his friends on the phone.
"But Duke" Yugi said, "That's not enough notice for us to clear it without our parents, why didn't you mention this sooner?" The others all agreed.
"Don't worry you lot, I didn't mention it sooner because I wanted it to be a surprise for your summer holidays! Anyway you can all come, I already got my dad to sort it with your parents for you, so get off your lazy asses and get packing!! We're going to Duelist Kingdom! Duke Devlin style!" He smiled when he heard the screams of excitement coming from his friends. Grinning like the Cheshire cat he went to start packing himself, he'd been waiting for these talks for weeks but Pegasus had insisted on waiting until summer. He hadn't wanted to affect Duke's school studies he'd said as way of explanation. Duke really couldn't understand why his friends didn't like the man; both times he'd been lucky enough to meet him in person he had found Pegasus to be a polite and gracious man.

Back at the Kaiba mansion, Mokuba was kicking ass on Halo and thoroughly enjoying himself when his big brother got back from work. He wished Seto wouldn't work so much, Mokuba giggled maniacally as he lined up his sniper rifle to shoot one of the other team when he felt a hand roughing up his hair.
"Big brother, your home!" he shouted, pausing the game. Seto looked at the screen briefly before enquiring, "Kicked anybody's ass today?" normally Seto didn't let his brother idle away all his time on video games but it was the summer holidays.

"You bet I did big brother!" the younger Kaiba said grinning from ear to ear, and getting up off the couch to give his brother a hug. Seto couldn't help but smile.
"That's my little brother." he said before heading upstairs for a shower. Mokuba watched him go, and jumped back over the couch and grabbed his wireless controller and laughed some more as he shot his opponents.
Seto quickly made his way to his room; he was looking forward to a shower immensely before getting his hands dirty with more paperwork before bed. Closing the door behind him, he quickly undressed and grabbed his robe and went into his en suite bathroom. He turned on his shower and decided to brush his teeth, while he waited for it to warm up. To his surprise he could still Mokuba laughing from inside the bathroom. Rinsing his mouth out, he stepped into his shower and let the warm water wash over him, even he had to admit it was extremely refreshing after the day he'd had at work. 'Just two or three hours working then I should spend an hour or so with Mokuba before I go to bed' he decided. After all there was a good chance he would be gone for three weeks, and he knew his little brother would miss him a great deal, and though he was loathe to admit it. Seto would miss him as well. He was surprised to find himself wondering bout MissRa again while he was in there, he growled at himself and pushed it to the back of his mind and grabbed his shampoo.
Downstairs Mokuba was having the time of his life; nobody could touch him when he'd grabbed the sniper rifle on his own custom map. He skillfully lined up his opponents one after the other. Whereas the opposing team hated his skill with the sniper rifle, his team mates adored him for it. To make things fair he often switched teams after each round, which always seemed a fair way to smooth any ruffled feathers. Mokuba was just about to fire the winning shot when Rowland came into the room and disturbed him.
"Oh man, Rowland, you just made me miss the winning shot for my team mates." Mokuba groaned. Rowland tried his best to look apologetic about it, but he couldn't for the life of him understand master Kaiba's obsession with shooting things on games. He bowed respectfully to the young Kaiba, which always made Mokuba laugh.
"I am most sorry master Kaiba I didn't realize you were playing Halo again." Rowland said, "Trying to beat your high score again I presume? Anyway I was hoping to remind you that your brother is going on an important business trip tomorrow." Mokuba had to suppress a small groan. He hated it when his brother went away on business trips for weeks at a time; it wasn't that he didn't understand they were important. It was more that he felt kind of lonely when he did. "So master Kaiba", Rowland continued, "As is your brother's usual practice he's asked me to assist you in running Kaiba Corp on his behalf".
At this Mokuba felt himself breaking out into a smile, as much as he missed Seto when he went away, he loved being allowed to run the company while he was away even more.

Meanwhile at the Kame game shop, Yugi was eagerly packing for his surprise holiday with Duke and his friends. He hadn't one hundred percent believed it was happening until his granddad had come up to his room to give him a brand new suitcase to use for his trip.
"Well that settles that little doubt, doesn't it Yugi?" he heard Yami say at the back of his mind, and nodded.
"Yes it does, other me. I can't wait! This is going to be one swell summer vacation." Yugi replied, "Anything in particular you would like me to pack Yami?". For a while now Yugi had been sharing his body with the spirit of his millennium puzzle, they got on so well it was like they were two peas in a pod. Yugi had to admit he sure would miss his friend if anything happened to him to sever there bond. He could see Yami stood next to him in his room as he was packing, although he looked more like a ghost then a person to the untrained eye. When he looked up he could see Yami was looking at their duel disk and their deck rather intently. Yugi got the hint straight away.
"Don't worry Yami, I wouldn't dream of going to Duelist Kingdom without my duel disk. I was wondering if there was anything else you wanted me to bring" Yugi explained to his other half. Trying to not to laugh, at the confused expression on Yami's face.

Joey on the other hand had just gotten off the phone to his sister Serenity; he always rang her at least once every week ever since she had her eye operation. He didn't know who was more scared of her losing her sight again, his sister or himself. After telling her he might not be able to phone her for a few weeks and promising to make it up to her, he half walked half ran up the stairs to his room. 'I have some serious packing to do!' Joey thought to himself. He scanned his room quickly for anything obvious he could take, 'I can't go without my duel disk and deck, Yugi is bound to have his with him, we can get some serious practice in on the plane' he decided, as he excitedly ran around packing like a man possessed. Anyone who saw him would think he was the one who was going to be getting a new contract for a new game with Industrial Illusions instead of Duke.

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