This is a special chapter for Anei. She asked a lot of questions in her review, including how this story fits in with the show/manga. I decided to try to answer some of these, including writing out how things went down in my universe to get us where we are.


First as to the time Kaiba spent in the cave, it was around 2 months. Sorry for not making that clear, sometimes even if you read something over many times, you can still miss things.

As to the gang, Joey isn't a bad guy, he and Kaiba have just never gotten along. They like pushing each others buttons too much and Joey, being the more impulsive, loses his cool first. Joey and the others won't have much of role in this story beyond what they already have had, just like in the movie where Tony, Pepper, Rhodes, and Obediah were the focus, so too will, Kaiba, Tea, Atem, and Gozaburo be the focus of this story.

As to Arthur and Seto...I just really suck at emotional dialogue. What it basically comes down to is that Arthur and Kaiba were alone in that cave. Everyone else was the enemy. So they had no one to depend on but each other. Combine that with the fact that Arthur was there for who knows how long and had probably abandoned hope of ever escaping. The hope, fear of being caught, and having no one else created a bond. When Arthur died, it was likely the first time Kaiba had ever seen anyone die in front of him, practically in his arms, the fact that it was his plan that got him killed combined with everything else going on, it made a lasting impact. His guilt over having made the weapons that killed Arthur, and who knows how many others, is what motivates him now, hence the "No more games" line when Atem is trying to break him out of his funk. That's the best I can describe it.

Okay now for the timeline. First, Arthur never met Yugi's Grandfather. That why he still has his Blue-eyes in the cave. When Seto took over Kaibacorp from Gozaburo, Gozaburo disappeared instead of committing suicide. Seto then switched Kaibacorp over to a gaming company, and, since their chief competitor was gone, the Schroders stayed with weapon manufacturing. Seto first duel against Yugi happened, except it happened as a result of Seto picking on Joey. Yugi came to his defense and beat Seto. He then inflicted the penalty game on Seto. Similar to the Manga, Seto spent several weeks putting himself back together, during which time Gozaburo took over Kaibacorp again. The result is the the Kaibas didn't get involved in duelist kingdom. Duelist kingdom still involved Yugi having to beat Pegasus for Solomon's soul, since Yugi beating Kaiba is what brought him to Pegasus's attention. In the last duel, when Yugi and Atem were using the mind swap and Pegasus attacked to get rid of Yugi, he succeeded and Yugi was lost leaving Atem the only inhabitant of their body. Yugi is still lost (in case I think of something for him later). Bakura still challenged Pegasus and took the millennium eye. Gozaburo kept the big five and Seto so he could flaunt that he had beaten them, and kept the gaming division of the company going while he got the weapons manufacturing back up and running. This allowed for battle city to occur, minus Noah's interference (he is actually in suspended animation at the moment). The crisis with Paradias and the leviathan never happened so we can go straight to memory world. In the memory world, Kaiba and the gang had to work together to stop Zorc, and Joey defeated Bakura to acquire Atem's true name. This is why Kaiba refers to Atem as Pharaoh. He saw the past and knows who Atem is. With no Yugi, Joey dueled Atem at his tomb and lost, so Atem had no choice but to stick around. Ishizu, Marik, and Shadi took the items and hid them after this.

Over the next three years, Kaibacorp's gaming division shut down as it returned to being a weapons company. The holographic technology that Seto created for the duel disks was re purposed by Gozaburo for military use. Duel monsters soon lost popularity without the duel disks. The Schroders, having gained many new customers with Kaibacorp out of the picture, declined making games systems for Pegasus and the game just kinda died out. Pegasus disappeared shortly after duelist kingdom closed. The different duelists had to get jobs, so Mai used her good looks and charm to become a reporter and hired Joey to be her cameraman. With no useful skills for the modern world, Atem went into the military to try to develop some. Gozaburo decided to torment Seto a bit and so asked for Atem, who he saw arguing with Seto during a demonstration at a base Atem was at, to be appointed to a liaison position with Kaibacorp, working with Seto directly. He also found out about the other members of Yugi's group, and hired Tea to serve as Seto's personal assistant, just to piss him off. Seto, not wanting to risk Mokuba near Gozaburo arranged for him to go to a boarding school so that he could go on sales trips and other business trips without worrying about Gozaburo "training" Mokuba. Meanwhile Dartz is still trying to raise the Leviathan, this time using the oricalchos to steal the souls of those he and his terrorist group kill (no payoff for this yet, maybe if I want to do sequels).

So yeah, that's my world. Hope it helps. FYI the next chapter may not make it before Thanksgiving. I am moving so packing, moving, and unpacking is going to consume almost all my time for the next month or so.

-Oz