Chapter 11: Grievance

By: Agent Baron

A tragedy had stricken as Téa, Rebecca, Amy, and Von Stupor learned that while Yami lost the duel, Yugi had sacrificed his own soul to protect that of Yami. This was strategically advantageous for the duelists yet still depressing, as they had lost a dear friend and comrade. The entire group exuded universal melancholy, but still tried their hardest to keep each other's spirits up.

Universally, the only information they had managed to uncover about the secret organization Doma was that they were somehow linked to the mythical civilization of Atlantis.

"It's quite obvious what we gotta do," said Joey to the group. "We need to track these punks straight down to the source, and destroy that secret weapon of theirs."

"We can't do this alone though, Joey," Téa argued. "I want to help Yugi too, but we need help."

"That's not very possible," said Rebecca while looking up from her laptop, which she had been typing on the whole time. "Without any hard proof, there is no way anyone is going to believe our story."

"But what about the ruins that Professor Hawkins had discovered?"

Von Stupor clapped his hands together in excitement, and everyone looked at him oddly.

"What?" he asked. "This is all news to me. I'm rather excited to learn about Atlantis!"

"That's right…" Yami stated. "Baron Von Stupor doesn't know anything we've learned about until after we visited Industrial Illusions."

"Baron Von Stupor," Professor Hawkins said to him. "I had been researching the civilization of Atlantis my entire life and had finally managed to uncover its ruins. I had discovered writings on it, and made copies of the inscriptions to further research. All I can remember about the writings is that Atlantis was one of the most technologically advanced civilizations known to man, but it was completely destroyed when a great beast was called forth by an evil king. They were said to have drawn their power from an odd stone, and this stone drew its power from another world."

"You think that stone is those weird rocks are that they wear around their necks?" Joey asked.

"It's possible…"

"Unfortunately for us, the ruins are gone. Someone destroyed them," Rebecca chimed in, pointing at her laptop.

"Someone ruined the ruins?" Téa asked.

"It's like they're one step ahead of us all the way!" Duke ranted. "Why would they even destroy their own ancestors' ruins in the first place?"

"I would suspect that they're trying to hide something about their past," answered the professor. "You're right to look to the ruins for answers, but you don't have to worry. I can help you find the information you need. I know where the copies of the inscriptions are located. They're in Florida, where I was doing my underwater research."

"If that's all we gotta do, then let's get going!" exclaimed Joey. "Let's get to Florida and start translating those inscriptions!"

"Yeah, but how are we going to get there?" asked Tristan.

"I know a dear friend who can help us!" Von Stupor interrupted.

"Who would that be?"

"Good ol' Kaiba! We can rely on him for anything!"

"Yeah, as long as you're only relying on him to put you beneath his majestic pedestal," Joey commented.

"I suppose it's worth a shot," Téa sighed.

After setting up Rebecca's webcam, they sent a video call to Kaiba's personal office line. After a few brief moments, he answered.

"What are you doing calling me?" he answered grumpily, glaring at Von Stupor.

"I wish I was scratching my nose. I have a heck of an itch in there!" Von Stupor replied. "So, how's your love life lately?"

"How did you even get my personal line?"

"I take a few liberties here and there. As your friend, I should expect you to be only a little disturbed."

Kaiba began to hang up his phone when Von Stupor called his name multiple times, frantically.

"What do you want? I don't have all day!" he ranted.

"I would like to borrow some type of flight device. A helicopter is slow, but will do if no others are available. Personally, I wouldn't mind giving your Blue-Eyes White Jet a whirl!"

"No."

"Please?"

On hearing that simple word, Kaiba appeared frightened of him and hung up the phone forcibly.

"Kaiba? Friend?" Von Stupor called. "He must be hungry. I suppose we're out of luck there."

Everyone stared at Von Stupor with exasperated looks on their faces.

Sighing, Rebecca said, "I'll book us a flight, and we'll take a train to the airport."

"For the sake of everyone's safety, I say it's best that Rebecca and the professor stay here while we go and hunt down those inscriptions!" Joey proposed.

Rebecca nodded forlornly.

"Yeah, gramps," she said to him. "It's not good for you to be moving all over the country."

"Duke, why don't you stay here with the professor, too?" Tristan suggested, Duke nodding in agreement.

"I just hope we can get there in time to save Yugi…" lamented Rebecca.

OIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIOIO

While on the crowded train, Tristan and Joey had managed to make themselves happy by locating the diner car while Téa made vain attempts at idle conversation to cheer Yami up, or at the very least take his mind off of his lost friend for a few minutes. Amy was examining the scenery from another car on the second floor.

"I would like to drop a few friends off at the pool," Von Stupor mentioned to Joey and Tristan as they enjoyed their food.

"What? What about a pool?" Joey wondered aloud.

"I wanna poop."

"…Oh. Uh… restroom's thataway," Joey motioned toward the car's restroom and resumed eating, albeit slower.

Von Stupor happily marched to the restroom. While inside, he suddenly noticed the train braking. The force from it pushed him around and he ultimately fell aside. After he finally managed to crawl back out of the restroom, he was not happy to see that either end of the train was missing. He peeked outside and saw only desert on either side of the tracks, stretching for what seemed like forever. Hopping out of the train, he began to backtrack on the train tracks until he heard a familiar, yet sinister laugh from on top of the train.

"What's the matter, Von Stupor? Did you miss the bowl?" asked the voice.

Von Stupor turned to see his former opponent, Lighty von Light-Light.

"Lighty? You did this?" he asked.

"It was a joint effort between myself, Rex Raptor, and Weevil Underwood."

"Those boys…?"

"Yeah. Anyway, you and I have a little score to settle, you know."

Lighty jumped down from the top of the train. He landed with such force that his legs could not stop him and he tumbled forcibly onto his back. Groaning, he returned to his feet and had a slight limp for a few paces toward Von Stupor before regaining his full stride. From behind the train car emerged Marron.

"A score to… you mean Zombie McZombiefeister?" Von Stupor asked.

"Yeah… my step-brother… you took him away from me."

"He took himself away!"

"You were responsible for him losing his soul! You landed the killing blow on him! I'm here for revenge. Let's duel!"

"No, I don't want to. Let's eat instead—"

"You want that deck back?"

"My deck?"

"Yeah. Engar's got it. He's definitely one of the henchmen of Doma. If you can beat me in a duel… I'll tell you where you can find him. Deal?"

Lighty readied his duel disk.

After deliberating the situation, Von Stupor responded, "I don't think my deck is worth the soul of another person…"

"Duel me, Stupor! I'd to hate to ask Marron to eat somebody, you know… maybe that pretty girl that was with you… Amy, was it? Or maybe I can go for Téa…"

"You leave them out of this! This is our affair!"

"Then face me, Stupor!!! Let's settle our score, now!!!"

"Why must you do these things to yourselves…?" Von Stupor thought out loud sadly as he readied his duel disk.

Ooh, emotions are flaring in this one! Lighty thought he had Stupor, but Stupor's just a tad too noble. Sorry for not posting Wednesday, I just completely forgot. I'll still post another chapter Sunday though... assuming I remember to.

Lighty's an interesting guy. I kinda developed his personality with Zombie as I went. Couldn't think of any real plans for them thus far save the ultimate results of the 3v3 duel. Come to think of it, I kinda did the same with Weakass. The Baron Syndicate Engar's personality really seemed to suit him so perfectly, although I developed his personality unintentionally similar. o__o; Anyway, hope you enjoyed chapter 11, prepare for another installment... the day after tomorrow! Yay!