A/N: So when I was looking up the time zone difference for Egypt and Japan, I accidentally did it for New York instead. (oops) Japan is only 7 hours ahead of Egypt, so in order for the gang there to be having breakfast the group in Egypt would have gotten there after midnight, when no vendors would have been open. So just pretend everyone in Japan was having an extremely late breakfast, so late you might call it lunch... or maybe even an early dinner ;)
Mokuba twitched on the couch, unable to find a comfortable position to sit on. His brother was still there, typing away on his laptop while he ignored his younger brother. Mokuba had texted Tea back, inviting the gang over for snacks so they could discuss some things. Kaiba of course had rolled his eyes at the thought of spending even more time with the so-called geek squad, and had continued typing.
Finally the bell rung, and Mokuba ran out of the room, whooping in excitement of having some company. He opened the door, surprise to see all of his friends carry several grocery bags. "Where's your kitchen Mokuba?" Tea inquired, following Mokuba's hand as he pointed towards a door.
"Great, let's get cooking I'm starved!" Tristan exclaimed, brushing past Tea before entering the kitchen and dumping his bags. Tea rolled her eyes, while Mai chuckled behind her. "Thanks for having us Mokuba, its a lot easier to do research when you can spread out a little."
"No problem guys, what did you bring anyway?" "Just stand back Mokuba, Duke Devlin is going to make his world famous Stuffed Pepper Soup. Watch and be amazed." Duke pulled out several knives and cutting boards, placing them on the counter. Tristan and Tea reached for the peppers, both starting to cut while Grandpa sat on a car, already spent from the short trip.
Mokuba immediately offered him a drink, which the elder took gratefully. He then began to help Duke, pulling out pots and pans and gathering spices. Nobody noticed that Mai wasn't in the room, the blonde bombshell intent on talking to the older Kaiba brother.
"Hello Kaiba."
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Joey groaned as his stomach growled, reminding him that food on this trip had been rather scarce so far.
"How long are they going to stare at each other? I know they thought they would never see each other again but still... I'm starved we need to eat!"
Pegasus, who had finally stopped his shopping, chuckled warmly at the boy.
"My dear Joseph, I believe you are right. Perhaps one of the vendors will be selling some food that will help to appease you?" Joey smiled, drool starting to form in the corner of his mouth.
"Hey Yug!" Let's get this party moving!" Yugi didn't respond, too intent on staring at Yami to worry about anything else. Joey frowned, unsure of what to do. He glanced behind him, noting the Bakura and Ryou were still wrapped up in each other while Malik was trying to stay far away from Marik as possible.
He then saw Ishizu and Odion standing there, both keep a subtle on their brother and his other half. Joey took a step forward, placing a gentle hand on Yugi's shoulder. He smiled at his two friends, hoping they would understand why he was interrupting their staring contests. "Hey Yug? I'm sure you guys had a lot of catching up to do but we still have some things to figure out. Like why they are here and what's going on... Maybe you guys could do this later?" Yugi blushed, looking shyly away from Yami as he turned towards his friend.
"You're right Joey, we need to get things settled quickly. I don't want to be away from Grandpa that long when he's ill."
"What is wrong with him little one?" Yami asked, his deep baritone voice sending thrills down Yugi's spine.
"He was injured during an earthquake we had in Domino. He's alright, but Mai's home watching him and I don't want to burden her for too long." Yugi informed him, smiling as Yami took his hand.
"Well, let's not keep Grandpa waiting... I want to see the rest of our friends too!" With that, he began to drag Yugi over to the rest of the group, with Joey bringing up the rear.
"Hello Yami. It's good to see you again." Pegasus told him, bowing a little in the Pharaoh's direction. Yami frowned slightly at him, looking towards Yugi for confirmation that everything was alright. Yugi smiled brightly at Pegasus before squeezing Yami's hand.
"Yami, Pegasus, Kaiba, Joey and I have been working on a joint venture to help build a new hotel for the Children's Hospital... We had a tournament and everything! It was awesome and we raised a ton of money!" Yami chuckled at his lighter half before addressing Pegasus. "Perhaps now is the time for us to set aside our differences and work together? I could certainly use your expertise in helping us decode something." Yami reached into his robes and pulled out the parchment that they had been reading, and handed it over to the silver-haired man.
Pegasus perused it, his one good eye scanning over the ancient symbols as he silently attempt to read it. Bakura choose this moment to turn away from Ryou and approach the older man silently, watching him for any signs of recognition. When Pegasus did not even blink, Bakura grinned to himself, reaching behind him to grab his Hikari and walked over to Yami.
"Hey Pharaoh! Don't we have some driving to do? Maybe we should get going?" Yami nodded, still trying to puzzle out exactly what their next move should be.
"Where do we need to go Yami? Do we have some sort of secret mission to be on?" Yugi inquired. Yami nodded, looking over at Bakura.
"All we can tell is this message has something to do with the building of one of the Ancient Pyramids of Giza. We should probably head over there and see if it brings back any memories that could help us figure out what's going on." A loud groan was heard, and the group turned to see Joey laying on the ground, holding his stomach as he bemoaned the lack of breakfast he had had. Yami sighed, shaking his head at the sight as Yugi giggled.
"Well, perhaps after breakfast we could go." Yugi agreed, holding out a hand to help his best friend off the ground.
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Mai approached the living room, pausing to watch as Kaiba continuously typed on his laptop. She couldn't help but notice how exhausted the elder Kaiba looked, and wondered if it was such a good idea for him to be out of the hospital.
She shook her head at the thought, intent on continuing her mission. Marching into the room, she pulled out the photos and threw them at the brunet. Kaiba started, oblivious to the fact that Mai had approached him. He looked down at his lap to see the photo of him kissing Joey and frowned, trying to figure out who could have took it.
"Have anything to say about this Kaiba?" Mai asked, sitting down in a chair and staring at him.
"I didn't think you cared so much about him Valentine. I thought he was just your playtoy for a few weeks."
"I never said I didn't care about him you jackass. I took him in when his father abandoned him, and I gave him a place to stay until he found a better offer than the one he had before. What part of that tells you I didn't care!"
"Well excuse me to think that someone like you would just see the mutt as a fling. He's not worth much else." Mai shot up, slapping Kaiba across the face as hard as she could before he could even react.
"He's more of a man than you'll ever be Kaiba. Just because you manage to beat him in a few duels doesn't make him less than you. Just because you were able to take over a company doesn't make him poorer than you, and just because you don't believe in having friends doesn't make him weaker than you!" Mai snarled, ignoring the stinging in her hand.
Kaiba's eyes narrowed, acutely aware of his throbbing cheek as he shut his lap top and stood carefully. Blue eyes met purple, and he frowned, knowing somewhere that she wasn't wrong.
"Wheeler will always be, no matter what anyone says, a mutt. The only person in his life that ever had any sense was his mother, who was smart enough to take his sister and run. I never let anybody take Mokuba, and I would die before being separated from him. The 'bad situation' that you so carelessly speak of involved years of physical and emotional abuse so I could give Mokuba the life that he deserves. I had nothing, and I crawled out of the hole life buried me in with nothing but my own grit and determination. So before you judge me and my life, maybe you should look at yours and your 'boyfriends' and see who is the real man. Now get out of my house and off of my property before I have you removed!"
Mai flinched, turning on her heel and storming off, leaving Kaiba standing alone in the room. He sank wearily back on the couch, not enjoying how week his body was. Grabbing his phone, he called security to make sure that the blonde really did leave. After receiving confirmation, he turned his attention to the pictures she had thrown at him, looking them over carefully for clues as to who had took them.
He studied the hook picture first, punching in the serial numbers to see if anything popped up. Then he tried various key words, hoping that would do something. When nothing happened, he turned his attention to the pyramid, and continued his search. A few minutes later he hit paydirt, and picked up his laptop, intent on finding Mokuba and figuring out this mess.
As he approached the kitchen, he was perplexed to hear voices, and annoyed when he realized who they belonged too. Mokuba's face lit up at his appearance, and he ran over to hug his brother.
"Seto! You're up! You're just in time dinners almost ready. Dukes an awesome cook maybe we should hire him for the weekends when Chef is away!" Duke chuckled, stirring the soup around.
"I'm really not that great Mokuba, its just soup. If you really need a chef you should call Joey, that guy can make shoe leather taste good." Kaiba's eyes narrowed at the blond duelists name, and the mark on his cheek throbbed even more.
"I don't have any need for any of you in my home, so let's get this business taken care of so you can all leave and I can get back to work. This picture you received is of one of the Dixon relics which were found in the tomb of Khufu back in 1872. They were documented and given back to Dixon, where they disappeared. They were found in 1993 at the British Museum, and they should still be there." Kaiba offered his laptop to Yugi's Grandpa, who read over the information.
"Yes, I do remember hearing about this. It was a big scandal when the items turned up at the Museum. It's not the first time that they have been accused of 'loosing' important artifacts. The man in charge of the exhibit was a bit of an airhead to tell you the truth. They said he was in bed with the mob, but I think he wasn't very good at all that paperwork. I believe his name was John E. Smith. His father was a member of the British parliament, but he retired shortly after the artifacts were found. I believe John retired right after the start of the Millennium, after he was accused of 'misplacing' some other artifacts that were found in King Tut's tomb. Perhaps he knowns something of why we got these pictures?" Kaiba frowned, looking over Grandpa's shoulder as he considered their options.
"A name like Smith is going to be hard to track down, it is a common last name in England. Plus I wouldn't be surprised if he changed his name and moved far away to get away from the scandal. This might take awhile." Tristan frowned in thought, slicing the bread he had removed from the oven in thought.
"What about Ryou's father? Doesn't he own the Domino City Museum maybe he can help us?" Tea suggested, looking over at Grandpa. The old man nodded, thinking to himself.
"That could be a good start Tea, he might know someone over there who knows where John ended up. Maybe we should try to call him after dinner, or see if Ryou could possibly find him." Tea nodded, reaching for her phone to try text Joey to call when he could.
After the message went through she put the phone back in her pocket, making sure she could hear it if Joey called back. In the mean time Mokuba had gathered some bowls and was distributing the soup, pausing as he approached his brother.
"Seto?
What happened to your face?" Kaiba flinched, annoyed once again at the blonde duelist.
"Mai and I had a little discussion over the value of certain animals, and she choose to show her displeasure by slapping me. I suggest you find some better friends Mokuba, because she is not welcomed back into this house."
"Well that's not very friendly of you all at Kaiba, I'm sorry she hurt your ego but calling people names tends to get that kind of reaction from them!" Tea shouted, approaching the CEO.
"You can join her in leaving if you'd prefer Gardner. I'm not in the mood to deal with any of you at this point."
"Seto please, just sit down. You need to eat dinner, and I'm sure Mai will be willing to apologize for slapping you. Can I please call her and ask her to come back?" Mokuba asked, giving him brother huge puppy dog eyes.
Kaiba nodded his consent, too tired to continue this argument. He opted instead to drop in a chair, avoiding the eyes of the crowd as he silently asked for patience from whatever god could here him. Mokuba picked up his phone, hoping that Mai would pick up for him. He had finally started to truly make friends, and he didn't want Seto's issues getting in the way.
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Joey sat in the back of the Ishtars car, watching Marik out of the corner of his eye. In order to fit everyone for their trip, they had to split into two vehicles. Since Yami and Bakura had refused to be separated from their lights, they had gone in the limo. Joey was going to go with them, but Malik had begged him to go with them to help keep him from Marik.
Joey had agreed, not wanting to stress his friend out but seeing Marik stare at the two of them brought back not so pleasant memories, and he wondered what would happen when they all got back to Domino. Marik smiled, noticing Joeys discomfort and enjoying him fidgeting on the seat.
"Why hello Joey, it's been a long time hasn't it? How have you been? Have you recovered from being struck by Ra during our last duel?" Joey frowned, remembering how much pain he was in for a long time after Marik had been banished. If it hadn't been for his dads pill habit... Joey brushed the thought away, not wanting to remember how low he had sunk without his friends knowing.
"Yea I recovered Marik. Thank you so much for your kindness and concern for my health." Malik watched them talk, not wanting to interrupt but not wanting Joey to suffer either.
"How is that pretty blonde woman that I sent to the Shadow Realm? I can't remember her name... Meg was it? Or perhaps Mal?"
Joey clenched his fists, trying to ignore Mariks voice as he continued to taunt him. Ishizu turned her head, looking Marik straight in the eyes.
"Now that you are back, I think its time to lay down some ground rules. The first is that as a member of this family, you will be respectful to the Pharaoh and those he calls friends. Now apologize to Joey, or I'll show you what I've been up too since you were banished!"
Malik smiled, knowing that his sister was training in the art of Tahtib, or the stick dance. While many who practiced this fighting style did it to perform for tourists, there were some who took it to the next level and trained for fighting. It was surprisingly effect, since no one would expect someone to attack them in the middle of a dance. Ishizu took classes in several other martial arts forms, after all being a woman who traveled alone quite a bit had its disadvantages.
Marik frowned at her, rolling his eyes as he continued to look out the window.
"Fine, he bores me anyway. I don't enjoy playing with toys once they've been broken." Marik immediately began to hum to himself, ignoring everyone else that was in the car.
Ishizu sighed, wondering what she could have possibly done to deserve going through all this.
"Anyway we are about 15 minutes away from the pyramids Joey. Perhaps this would be a good time for you to call your friends? We can stop up here a little bit, once we get closer cell service can be a little sketchy." Joey smiled, relaxing a bit in his seat.
"That sounds like a plan to me! I'm sure everyone back home can't want to hear about how we found the Pharaoh!"
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Mokuba frowned as his phone hung up without even ringing. Checking that he had the right person he attempted the call again. Hitting send, he listened to the ringing before an abrupt beeping started, then a voice informed him that the number was no longer in service. He frowned as he stared at the phone, trying to figure out how Mai could have switched her number so quickly.
"Um guys? Can someone try to call Mai? My phone says that her number is out of order?" Tea quickly pulled hers out, frowning as she received the same message as Mokuba.
"Her phone was dead this morning, maybe she wasn't able to charge it? Would that give an error message?"
"I don't think so guys, this is kinda strange what do you think-" Duke stopped mid sentence as a maid appeared in the doorway, handing Kaiba a white envelope before walking back out. Kaiba stared at the envelope for a few seconds, unsure of what was going on. Finally he opened it, and he couldn't help but pale at the pictures.
"Mokuba, call Roland."
"What's going on Seto? Did something happen to Mai?"
"MOKUBA!.CALL ROLAND and get security in here this instant! Don't waste time asking me questions right now." Mokuba nodded, dialing Rolands number quickly before his brother could freak out.
As soon as Kaiba saw his brother was occupied, he placed the photos down on the counter so everyone else could see them.
Tea gasped, turning her face away from the images of Mai bruised and bloody and locked in the trunk of a car. Tristan growled, while Duke attempted to keep his boyfriend calm. Grandpa shook his head sadly, placing his hands together in a silent prayer to someone. Kaiba kept staring at the pictures, a frantic feeling deep in his bones that was much like when Mokuba was missing.
He flipped the picture over, looking for some clue as to what was going on. On the back, there was a series of numbers, which Kaiba quickly recognized as the numbers written on the hook they had received pictures of. Kaiba frowned at the picture, not understanding what had happened.
All he knew was that Mai was gone, and whatever game the group had gotten involved in just got bigger and more dangerous. His first priority was to find Mai. She had disappeared off his property, and Kaiba would not rest until the people who had taken her were caught. A sudden ringing broke the dazed confusion in the room, and Kaiba was barely listening when he heard Tristan whisper
"It's Joey! What do I tell him?"
Tristan began to panic, unsure of how to tell Joey that Mai may have been kidnapped. Grandpa held out his hand, smiling at the group reassuringly as he took the phone and answered it.
"Hello Joseph! How is your trip going?"
"Gramps! What are you doing answering Tristans phone?"
"I asked him for it because I wanted to see how my grandson is doing, is Yugi there?"
"I feel like we've had this conversation before Gramps I'm being to get a complex from handing the phone over all the time. Yugi's fine, hes off using the bathroom. I'm sitting here with Ryou, Yami and Odion while everyone else wanders around a bit. We're heading towards some pyramid, apparently whoever sent Yami, Bakura and Marik back did so with a message." Grandpa closed his eyes, absorbing the information he just got from Joey.
"Well, we received a message here too Joseph. That's actually why we tried to call you before. Someone sent pictures to the shop from an expedition at the Pyramid of Khufu, and we identified the object as one that is housed in the British Museum. We wanted to see if Ryou could get some information from his father for us."
"Hold on a sec Gramps, let me pass him the phone so you can talk to him." There was a brief pause, then Ryou's soft voice greeted Grandpa. Quickly outlining the information they needed, Ryou offered to send his father a message, and to pass along the Game Shop's number to him. Grandpa sighed in relief, hoping this information might lead them to whoever took Mai.
"Let me put Joey back on the phone with you, Yugi is coming back and I need to use the rest room as well."
"Before you do that, please let me talk to Yami. I have an urgent message for him as well." Ryou handed the phone to the Pharaoh, ignoring Joey's exaggerated sigh at being overlooked once again. Grandpa could hear Yami's deep chuckle, then his voice over the line.
"Hello Grandpa. It's good to speak to you again. What is it that you needed to tell me?" "Pharaoh, I know that you are in the middle of something,but we have a situation here. Mai has disappeared. We have received a photo of her, and it looks like someone has kidnapped her. Please, find Yugi and keep him safe, and be careful of how you tell Joey. They have gotten together, and I don't want him to do anything stupid until we know more of what could have happened." Yami didn't answer for a moment, and Grandpa was concerned that he had hung up.
"Grandpa? It's Yugi. How are you feeling? Are you resting like the doctor said or did Mai have to tie you to the bed?" Grandpa smiled a little, relieved at hearing his voice.
"I'm fine Yugi, I'm just in the middle of something. I talked to the Pharaoh, I just wanted to hear your voice. You need to finish what you're doing and come home. There is something going on and I want you safe where I can see you."
"Ok Grandpa, we will be home soon I promise. We just need to figure out how to explain Yami, Bakura, and Marik to customs." Yugi's confused voice answered, obviously wondering what his Grandfather was worried about.
"Just come home Yugi, as soon as you safely can. I'll let you go so Joey's phone doesn't give out, I love you Grandson."
"Love you too Grandpa. We will see you soon." With that they hung up, and Grandpa handed the phone to Tristan, placing his head in his hands as he attempted to avoid looking at the pictures of the kidnapped Mai.
A/N: If youre interested in learning more about this artifact, here's the website I found that shows pictures. /hawass/articles/secret_doors_inside_the_great_
Theres some interesting information there about the Pyramid, which isn't important to the story but if you want to know a little bit about this there it is!