Chapter 2 and we are officially on the ground! Hooray!
I'd like to officially apologize to anyone tuning in and hoping for hard science fiction—I don't have the background for that, unfortunately. Thusly, any especially science-y things will be viewed through Yugi's filter (as he doesn't have the background for it either). The Corporal is based on Insufferable Military Guy from Avatar and not from any personal experience or bias.
Kender20: Hi! Thanks for the review! I think I've seen you around on DeviantArt. Yes, I was surprised that there weren't any Yu-Gi-Oh!/Avatar crossovers—it's the sort of thing that has such potential. I'll have to keep an eye out for your crossover! :)
Blanket disclaimers are in Chapter 1 (I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, I don't own Avatar, I do own Chaos Creatures, etc., et al…).
Like a few others, Yugi was shoehorned into protective gear. His weak constitution, coupled with his importance to this mission, made him a priority.
He picked up his small bag, ready with the others to unload. There was a general buzz of excitement, but it had given way to professionalism. These people were either scientists or soldiers, there for a specific reason.
Yugi knew it just as well as the next person—they were looking for the next earth, someplace where humans could easily migrate to and thrive.
He was startled by someone nudging him. "'Ello, chum!"
He glanced up to see a young man about his brother's age, wild spiky brown hair barely held in place by his goggles. He had on a breathing apparatus as well—a quick glance proved everyone did.
"I seen the files," the man continued, voice tinged with what Yugi recognized as an Australian accent. "You must be Yami. Thought you'd be taller."
"I'm his brother, Yugi," Yugi said, feeling a little stiff.
"Yugi, huh? Well, nice to meet you," the man said, grabbing his hand and shaking it. Yugi hoped he wouldn't bruise. "My name's Valon. Where is your brother, anyway?"
"He's dead."
"Oh," Valon said, and it occurred to Yugi that he had been a little blunt. Valon shrugged. "Ah, well, he's in a better place and all that. So are we, come to think of it. Did you see those vids?"
Yugi nodded, feeling that that was a stupid question. "I can't wait to see those plains," Valon continued, bursting at the seams with excitement. "They remind me of me home, y'know, before."
Yugi nodded again. "Before" covered a lot of ground. "Before" was before the widespread wars that had ruined the land and used up all the resources. "Before" was the only reason he had agreed to take his dead brother's place. He wanted to see it for himself.
His wish was granted when the doors slid open.
The air that touched his skin made him instantly think of summer, although he had never experienced one. He was seized with the sudden urge to run out there and keep running.
A soldier trained his gun on him. "Don't move," he growled.
Yugi blinked, the feeling deserting him. He glanced around to see the other soldiers positioned the same way, and turned to share a confused look with Valon.
Valon, however, was blinking furiously, as though he had been overcome with the same strong urge that had struck Yugi. His vision seemed to clear, though, and he shook his head to clear the last of it out.
The soldier nodded and lowered his weapon. "It happens to everybody first time," he told them. "There's something in the air here—masks keeps out the worst of it, but whatever it is seems to be absorbed through the skin as well."
Yugi suddenly felt a crawling feeling on his bare skin and resisted the urge to scratch at it. "What's in the air here?"
"No one knows," the soldier said, shrugging. "What's your station?"
Yugi blinked, then remembered. "706."
"Same," Valon said, finally recovering.
"When you get out, follow the yellow line," the soldier said, indicating a path off to the right. "And keep a steady pace—that feeling you had gets worse if you run."
They followed the yellow line. Yugi kept his head down, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, exactly on the line. Valon, on the other hand, was looking everywhere, trying to see everything at once.
"I can't wait," Valon said, excitedly. "I mean, a stone's throw away, and look—seriously, Yugi, look!"
Yugi glanced back, then looked to see what Valon was pointing at. Beyond the tarmac and the tall, tall fence were trees, forming a huge forest, limbs just perfect for climbing. The sky was a clear blue, a small dusting of clouds skittering across. And above…it looked like….
"Floating islands?" Yugi muttered, amazed despite himself.
"We've got to get up there and check those out," Valon said, grinning. "We've got to see how those things stay airborne—my money's on magnetism."
Yugi went back to following the line, but now he couldn't resist glancing up now and again. "What part of the program are you, Valon?" Yugi asked.
"The Chaos Avatar Program, same as you."
Yugi felt his eyebrows go up, but kept his comment to himself, as they had finally arrived at a door marked 706. He tapped a screen, which asked for an ID number. He punched his in, the screen flashed green and produced a bing, and the door slid open.
He and Valon sidled in. The door slid shut, the outside air was filtered out, and the exit to the airlock slid open.
Valon slid his mask off as he walked through. Yugi opted to keep his on for the moment—he could feel his lungs and heart straining with the exertion of walking across the tarmac.
No one seemed to be in the cream-colored rooms at the moment. Left to their own devices, Valon and Yugi examined the various screens, seeing diagrams and extrapolated dissections of various flora and fauna. He wandered into another, longer room to find a plate glass window that overlooked the tarmac.
"Oh, hi."
He blinked and looked away from the window to see an Asian woman with long dark hair. She was holding a folder and had apparently just come in from another room.
"You must be the new guy, right? Yami?" before he could answer, she had stuck her head back into the other room. "Hey, Mai! The new guy's here!" she pulled her head back in. "Wasn't there supposed to be two of you?"
Yugi was still trying to answer the first question when another woman, this one blonde, came in. A low whistle from behind him told him that Valon had come in too.
"Ah, good, both of you made it," the blonde said, shaking their hands. "You must be Yami, which makes you Valon."
"Guilty as charged," Valon said, grinning. "And you are, miss?"
"Mai," the blonde said. "This is Vivian."
"I have to be honest, I thought you'd be taller," Vivian said to Yugi.
"You're thinking of my brother. His squadron had a bad encounter with a wormhole—they sent me to replace him."
There was a moment of silence at this. No one knew what happened to a ship at the other end of a wormhole.
"So what's your name?" Mai asked.
"Yugi," Yugi replied.
"Close enough," Vivian said. "Come on, I want to supervise the Avatars' loading."
She led them through another corridor, which slowly changed from cream to steel gray. "You don't need to wear that indoors, by the way," Mai told Yugi.
Yugi nodded. "I don't really have what you'd call a strong constitution."
Mai shrugged as they entered a room with large windows overlooking a loading bay. They watched as first Yami's Avatar, then Valon's, was loaded in and carted off.
"A waste, the whole program."
Yugi turned to see the source of the new voice.
His stomach sank as he saw a grizzled gray-haired military man, the kind that had never intimidated Yami but scared Yugi to bits. The fact that this one had claw marks going across the side of his head didn't help matters.
"Can I help you, Corporal?" Mai asked coolly.
"Trust me, you and your program can't help me one iota," the Corporal said, pointing at the Avatars rapidly disappearing down the hall. "Company throws away a mil a whack just for them to run off. You can't fix the CAD, and trust me, I will get a hold of someone who'll shut you down."
"CAD?" Valon asked Vivian.
"Chaos Avatar Desertion," Vivian explained in an undertone. "It's a recurring problem."
"That's the understatement of the year," the Corporal sneered.
"Corporal, if you don't have anything to contribute, I think you ought to offer up your services elsewhere," Mai said, waving him off.
He gave them one last disparaging glare and left.
Yugi took a deep, shuddering breath, glad to be rid of him. "What's Chaos Avatar Desertion?" he asked.
"To tell you that, I'll have to show you just what you'll be doing," Mai said. "This way."
She led them back to the cream-colored rooms, through some halls, and into a room filled with what looked like tanning beds. "These are where we'll hook you up to your Avatar," Mai explained. "Both you and your Avatar have to be wired in at first, but after that, whenever you get into one of these, you'll go to your Avatar, wherever it is within a reasonable radius."
"Reasonable radius?" Valon echoed.
"We're not sure the max range of the connection yet," Vivian explained.
"So the CAD is…" Yugi prompted.
"CAD—Chaos Avatar Desertion—occurs when the Avatar is used too much, we think," Mai said. "Usually, when you fall asleep in your Avatar, you wake up here. When CAD occurs, it gets harder and harder to return here, until eventually it's the human body that's the empty shell, and the Avatar that has it all. We've lost quite a few colleagues like that."
Yugi suppressed a shudder and noted Valon do the same. "Then why bother with the program at all?"
"Because initial attempts to connect with the sentient race here haven't gone anywhere," Vivian said. "They just operate on different brainwaves, or maybe they don't think we're worth conversing with. That got the Corporal's gall."
"I guess big metal ships descending from on high isn't good enough for them, huh?" Valon said, grinning.
Yugi's legs were starting to ache. "Um, not to be an inconvenience," he said. "But can we continue this conversation sitting down?"
"Sure," Mai said, checking her watch. "It's about time for lunch, anyway."
"Great," Valon said. "I'm starved. Lead the way, ladies."
Mai and Vivian both socked Valon on the arm. Yugi hoped that wasn't a rite of passage.