Frozen By Your Side

By: Darkest Ember

Chapter 4: A Quick Fix

Summary: Dani Devlin is Duke Devlin's estranged twin sister. When they were younger, their father had asked a local game shop owner, Solomon Muto, to teach him to be a game master. They end up playing a dangerous game that ages their father 50 years in one night. From that moment on, he becomes obsessed with vengeance and plans to use Duke as a means to that revenge. Unable to save them both, their mother escapes with Dani and moves to America. A few years later, Dani starts to see the negative changes in her brother and decides to move back to Domino during her junior year of high school to save him. There, she meets Yugi and the gang, who all share her love for Duel Monsters. She hopes that they can also help Duke return to his old self. And then there's Seto Kaiba. Dani doesn't exactly get off on the right foot with him, but perhaps he is the one who can change her for the better.

Takes place between the Duelist Kingdom and Dungeon Dice Monster arcs. Inspired by the manga storyline that shows "Mr. Clown" (Duke's dad) as the reason why Duke challenges Yugi.

Each chapter will start with a foreshadowing segment of Dani and Kaiba's online chat...neither of them know the true identity of who they're talking to, but end up becoming friends online (picture something like A Cinderella Story with Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray).

Pairing: Kaiba x OC

Vampire_lady26: Okay, so besides kicking ass at Duel Monsters, what else do you like to do?

BEWDragon: I like building things. Tinkering with devices…taking them apart and learning how they fit back together.

Vampire_lady26: Interesting! That's a pretty cool hobby to have. Maybe someday you'll create something and become famous lol

BEWDragon: That might happen sooner rather than later. I've got some pretty advanced ideas in the works.

BEWDragon: What about you? What do you like to do?

Vampire_lady26: I like to write. It's like my escape from the world because I create an entirely different one with words.

BEWDragon: I guess, in a way, you could say technology is my escape, too.

Although Kaiba refused to participate in the conversation that was taking place on the limo ride over to the game shop, he couldn't help but listen to the conversation. Mokuba was drilling Dani with questions – asking where she lived in America, why she moved back here, etc. Mokuba genuinely wanted to get to know her and, though he would never admit it, Kaiba wanted to know more about her, too.

The conversation was interrupted when Dani's cell phone starting ringing. She dug around in her purse but couldn't seem to reach it, and by the time she did retrieve it, she missed the call. "Crap," she muttered. "I forgot that my brother was supposed to pick me up from your office…like an hour ago. He's probably so mad."

"I'm sure once you explain the circumstances, he won't be mad anymore," Mokuba said reassuringly. "Besides, now he's getting Kaiba Corp's smartest employee to fix the problem!"

Dani appreciated the positivity, but rolled her eyes at that last bit. He may be smart, but he's an arrogant asshole, she thought.

When the limo came to a halt outside the game shop, Dani's bag went flying off the seat, causing a couple of her Duel Monsters cards to spill out of the bag. "Wow, you play Duel Monsters, too?" Mokuba asked, crawling on the ground to help her pick up her cards. "Maybe some time you and my brother can have a duel. Although, to be fair, he's pretty much the best player around."

"There's only one duelist who can defeat me, and it's definitely not her," Kaiba sneered, exiting the limo.

Annoyed with his comment, Dani scrambled out of the limo to chase after him. "How would you know? You've never even seen me duel," she protested.

He smirked. "I'll admit you're smarter than Wheeler, which actually isn't saying much, but you're still just an amateur as far as I'm concerned."

Oblivious to the tension between the two, Mokuba ran ahead of them and gawked at the sight of the massive new game shop. "Your family owns this place?" he asked, glancing back at Dani with a huge grin. "You've gotta let me have a sneak preview before it opens. It looks so cool!"

"Of course, Mokuba," Dani said, shooting Kaiba a smirk. "It's the least I could do since your brother is going out of his way to help me in my time of need."

Once the automatic doors slid open, they saw Duke standing by the front desk. Dani entered slowly, dragging her feet and dreading the unpleasant conversation she was sure to have with Duke. The Kaiba brothers, on the other hand, stood still, surprised to find out that Dani and Duke were identical twins.

"Let me guess, this is supposed to be your evil twin brother?" Kaiba asked, his words filled with mockery.

"He's not evil," Dani shot back. "He's just annoyed, which is probably one of the only emotions you ever feel."

Duke had just gotten off the phone and slammed it down on the desk. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked, running over to her.

"Things got a little…complicated when I went to Kaiba Corp," she said, laughing awkwardly. "Sorry, I know you must've been worried…"

"Of course I was! So, what happened? Did you get someone to come over?"

Not caring for Duke's ignorance, Kaiba stepped forward. "Your sister snuck into my company, which alerted my security team. It took a while to clear the security alerts and determine why she was there. Do you want your arena fixed or not? I'd rather not waste any more of my time tonight."

Duke shot Kaiba a dirty look before directing his attention back to Dani. "You're telling me that out of the hundreds of employees that work at Kaiba Corp, Seto Kaiba was the only one available to work on this? That's embarrassing," he jeered.

Upset with Duke's response to the situation, Dani said, "What the hell is your problem, Duke? This whole evening has been a nightmare, but at least I got someone – apparently, the best person for the job – from Kaiba Corp to come help."

"She's right, you know," a voice said from behind one of the empty shelves. "Seto Kaiba is quite the talented individual. His company was recommended by Pegasus, himself."

Any fiery anger that Dani had felt moments ago extinguished faster than a flame being blown out at the sound of that voice. In fact, she could've sworn that the temperature dropped at least ten degrees as shivers ran down her spine.

Duke rolled his eyes. "I know who he is, Dad. I just don't get why Pegasus thinks so highly of him…it seems like he can't make anything right unless it involves Duel Monsters."

"Enough of this family drama," Kaiba bellowed. "If you expect me to do anything here tonight, I suggest you cut the side comments and let me do my work."

Without another word, Kaiba stormed down the hall to the Dungeon Dice Monsters arena with Mokuba trailing after him. Much to her surprise, Dani found herself wanting to follow him, too. Somehow, she felt safer standing next to him than she did standing in a room with her own family.

"That boy needs to control his temper. It could be his undoing someday," Mr. Devlin said, stepping out of the shadows. He looked more like Duke and Dani's grandfather than their father. His long grey hair framed the sides of his weathered face. His appearance may shock most people, but Dani wasn't at all surprised. It was just how she remembered him.

"Just like how your addiction to gaming and gambling was your undoing?" she shot back.

He feigned a hurt expression, moving forward until he was standing between them. "You may not agree with my past actions, and believe me, I have my regrets, but together as a family we can right those wrongs. We can have our revenge."

Dani laughed bitterly. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? Let's get one thing straight, I don't want any part of your pathetic plans for vengeance. I didn't come back to Japan for you; I came back for Duke."

The moment she made eye contact with her brother, she knew he was going to give some elaborate speech that was supposed to convince her to come home, to start over. But she didn't want to hear any of that, so she stormed off before he had the chance.

While Kaiba was testing the arena to determine what the problem was, he felt as though he were operating on auto-pilot. Although he'd never played Dungeon Dice Monsters, he knew enough about it to figure out how to make a move, which was what needed to be done to assess the problem. His body was going through the motions – rolling the dice until he got the right summoning crests – but his mind was focused on Dani. For some reason, he couldn't stop seeing the image of her frozen in place with a fear stricken look on her face. He recalled that she didn't get along with her father – but there was clearly more to the story.

He wondered what had happened to her, which inevitably caused his own unfortunate memories of Gozaburo to resurface. Not wanting to stroll down memory lane, he shook his head in attempt to clear his thoughts and the tossed the dice. Finally, he rolled the right summoning crests. He placed the dice on a portion of the grid and watched as the square flashed a few times and then went dark. He determined it was simply a malfunction in the holographic projector and hopped off the platform.

Opening one of the control panels, Kaiba noticed that one of the gears had been purposely unscrewed. Ha, he thought, feeling a little relieved. I knew there was no way my products would be damaged on their own. But that beget another question – who tampered with the arena?

While Kaiba was busy working, Mokuba decided to sneak out and explore more of the shop. He had to admit, once this place opened, it was going to be amazing. There were arenas for Duel Monsters and for Duke's new game. There were rooms for arcade video games and even tables for playing board games. Just before he was going to turn the corner into the "store" aspect of the game shop, he heard something slam on the ground. Approaching with caution, he eased around the corner until he saw Dani. She was sitting on the ground next to a stack of boxes. It looked like she was stocking the shelves, but stopped for whatever reason. When he got a little closer, Mokuba heard her sniffling, which meant she must've been crying.

"H-hey Dani," he said, patting her on the back. "What's wrong?"

Startled by his sudden appearance, she scrambled to her feet and used the back of her hand to quickly wipe away any stray tears. "Oh hey Mokuba. I'm fine I was just…trying to stock some of these shelves. What're you up to? I figured you'd be hanging out with Kaiba while he worked."

Trying to think of what he could say to boost her spirits, he replied, "Well, I was watching him, but then he sent me to see if you'd want to watch, too. That way if anything goes wrong again, you might be able to fix it yourself."

"Good point," she said, laughing softly. "I'm sure after today, he'll never want to come back here again."

Together, they walked in silence and returned to the Dungeon Dice Monsters arena. Dani stood at a distance initially, watching with intrigue as Kaiba worked diligently.

Since he appeared more approachable than usual, she took a chance and got a little closer. "Mind if I watch?" she asked.

Kaiba, who had heard Mokuba leave and then return a few minutes later, assumed that he and Mokuba were the still the only ones in the room. Normally so calm, cold, and confident, it was unlike him to be so jumpy, yet for some reason her sudden appearance caused him to hit his head on the panel door. "I prefer to work alone," he replied, quickly regaining his composure.

"You are working alone," she smirked. "I'm simply watching."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm almost done, anyway."

She felt oddly comforted as she watched him. His air of arrogance and harsh glares were replaced with a more relaxed posture and a look of pure determination once he returned to his work.

Genuinely wanting to learn more about how Kaiba's tech creates the holograms, Dani barraged him with a bunch of questions – what does this do? Why do these gears look different than those? At first she was upset that he was literally ignoring her and her questions, but then she noticed how his frustration grew with each ignored question she asked, which amused her.

Admittedly, Kaiba was growing extremely annoyed – for the third time that day. If I answer one question, maybe she will finally shut up, he thought. So, he waited for her next inevitable question, answered it, and then enjoyed the silence that followed. But it all felt too easy to him. He stole a quick glance at her and saw that she was watching what he was doing with a genuine interest.

Whenever Kaiba worked lately, it was usually either business-related on a computer or overseeing a team of technicians trying to give life to his ideas. It had been such a long time since he got hands-on with a project like this. And for whatever reason, he wanted to share his knowledge with her…maybe even show off his knowledge a little. She normally looked at him with such hesitation and a hint of bitterness. But now – she seemed to looked at him with admiration.

After giving an unprompted explanation, earning a small smile of excitement from Dani, Kaiba scooted over a little so that she could have better access to the panel. "Here," he said, "it's easier to just show you, rather than waste more time with words."

The moment both of their hands touched the last gear that needed to be tweaked, a spark shot through their arms, causing them to recoil. Kaiba was quick to blame the machinery, but Dani knew it was something more. It happened the exact moment their hands touched, which happened before they touched the gear. Despite Kaiba sounding so certain, his gaze lingered on her as the electric jolt still seemed to crawl across his flesh.

"How much longer is this going to take?" Duke asked, walking toward them and looking incredibly irritated.

"If you hadn't interrupted, we would've just finished," Kaiba sneered, quickly making the last adjustment and closing the panel. He still had some dice in his pocket from when he first started working on the arena, so he took them out of his pocket and chucked them at Duke. "It's done. See for yourself."

"About damn time," he muttered, walking past them and up onto the player platform. He rolled the dice and dimensioned his summoning crest, causing a Bomb Lizard to appear on the grid.

Satisfied with the results, Duke ended the game and hopped off the platform. "Thanks for fixing it," he said through gritted teeth. Of course, he was thankful that the problem was resolved in time for opening day, but he didn't care for how long the repair took...or the unnecessary security complications that Kaiba put his sister through. "I'm going to check the other two DDM arenas and then lock up for the night."

"Why don't you let me do all that?" Dani blurted out. "I mean...it would give me a chance to become more familiar with the dice and I could finish some of the stocking I started earlier."

Both Duke and Kaiba gave her skeptical looks. "Won't your friend be worried about you? I'm sure she expected you to be back by now."

Dani waved him off with a dismissive wave. "What kind of friend do you think I am?! I've already told her it's gonna be a late night for me. Her mom will come get me when I'm ready."

Duke still didn't feel comfortable with the situation, but he was tired and knew that between school and shop prep, tomorrow would be another busy day. "Alright, fine," he conceded, tossing the keys to her. "See you in the morning, sis."

Much to Dani's surprise, the Kaiba brothers didn't leave after Duke, as she would have expected. "You're going to need some help checking those arenas, right?" Mokuba asked, eagerly eying the dice in Dani's hand.

Dani grinned, appreciating the assistance. "Absolutely!" she replied, dropping a few dice in his hands. "Alright so you take the arenas on the left side of the hall, and I'll take the ones on the right." She turned to face Kaiba, who looked predictably peeved. "And Kaiba, you can just continue standing there, looking all pouty."

Mokuba shared in Dani's sense of humor and laughed. Kaiba, however, did not find any humor in the situation and just rolled his eyes. "Stop talking like you're in charge…and I'm not pouting. I just want this god-forsaken day to be over."

Knowing that it was nearly 10 p.m., Dani decided to cut the jokes and just finish up the task at hand. Oddly enough, all the other arenas were perfectly functional, which caused her to wonder why anything would've been wrong with the first one. It is weird…and I just have this bad feeling in my gut about the whole situation, but at least Kaiba fixed the arena so it shouldn't break again.

Once Dani finished checking her portion of the arenas, she stood at the entrance of the stock room and waited for Mokuba to wrap up his. She could tell that he was having fun with it, so she felt no need to rush him. "That was awesome!" he exclaimed, returning the dice. "You definitely have to invite me back sometime so I can play the game for real."

"For sure," Dani nodded, giving him a thumbs up. "Well…I know today has been a little rough, but I appreciate both of you coming here to help."

While Kaiba just grunted in response, Mokuba smiled. "Glad we could help. But Dani, aren't you gonna go home? It's getting late."

She laughed awkwardly. "Uhh…I'll be leaving soon, I just have to finish putting a few more things on the shelves," she said, gesturing toward a stack of boxes.

Mokuba may have been fooled by the excuse, but Kaiba's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You're unpacking boxes labelled 'Dani's bedroom' for the store?"

Curse his impeccable intelligence, Dani thought, inwardly groaning. Normally, she would continue lying, but something told her it wouldn't work on Kaiba. "It's only temporary, but…this is where I'm living at the moment."

"But what about your brother and your dad? Why don't you live with them?" Mokuba asked. Kaiba could already guess the answer to those questions based on her rigid response to her father when they first arrived at the shop.

"Let's just say I don't really get along with my dad. But you gotta keep this a secret. Duke thinks I'm staying with a friend."

"Your secret's safe with us," Mokuba reassured.

"Look," Kaiba cut in, "if we're finished here, then let's get going, Mokuba."

Dani crossed her arms and leaned against the stacked boxes. "I'm surprised you've lingered this long."

The Kaiba Corp limousine pulled around the corner just as they reached the end of the stairs. Mere seconds after sitting down, Mokuba said, "I feel so bad for Dani…her family's not the greatest and she's sleeping on a blow-up mattress in that cold storage room…"

"It is an unfortunate situation," Kaiba agreed, "but it's not our problem, Mokuba. We've done more than enough to help her today."

"But think about how stressful today must've been for her!" he protested. "You can be really intimidating, you know, and I'm sure experiencing that after her first day going to school in a different country was kinda intense."

As annoying as she may be, there was something about that girl that Kaiba felt…attracted to. He thought back on the moment that their hands touched when he was giving the demonstration… Damn it I can't believe I'm doing this.

"Roland," Kaiba barked.

"Y-yes sir?" Roland said through the car intercom.

"Turn around and return to the game shop."

Once Kaiba's car was out of sight, Dani locked the front door and changed into her pajamas. As she stared at her Chemistry textbook and attempted to answer the questions on her homework worksheet, she found herself more vested in reflecting on this crazy, yet exciting day. I mean, sure, my life in California was exciting, but not nearly as exciting as today has been. And it was all thanks to Seto Kaiba…maybe he's not as bad as I thought he was.

Realizing that there was no way she was going to successfully finish her homework tonight, Dani slammed the textbook shut and laid down. Just before her body could relax, she heard the stockroom doorknob jiggling. Panic spread throughout her body as she sprung up from the air mattress with her blanket wrapped protectively around her and hid behind the boxes. Oh God, what if it's him. If Duke has keys to the place, I'm sure he has keys, too.

She stood frozen in suspense, watching with wide eyes as the door slowly opened and revealed…Kaiba.

Now more aggravated than afraid, Dani glared at her intruder. "What the hell are you doing?!" she asked. "Trying to get me back for when I broke into your company?"

"Right, like I would waste my time with such pettiness," he sneered. "Besides, anyone could've broken into this place thanks to your sad excuse of a security system."

"Well surely you didn't go through all the trouble of breaking in to criticize the security here. What do you want?"

He paused before answering, looking as though the words were physically hard for him to produce. "Look – today has been a shitty day for everyone involved and I'd rather not repeat any of it again. Perhaps if it ends on a more positive note, we can move past it."

Dani frowned. Where is this coming from? I bet Mokuba guilt-tripped him in the car. "Okay…so what're you suggesting?"

"Mokuba and I want you to come stay with us tonight – but only for tonight."

A/N: This is where things start to get really interesting ;) Next chapter should be posted by the end of the weekend!

Leave a comment and tell me what you think so far! I love reading the comments and seeing that people are interested in the story :)