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"Whoa!" Atemu exclaimed groggily. He was still not completely conscious and aware to the world it seemed.
"What are you doing in a cage?" The confused werewolf asked perplexed. His question was directed at Pegasus who happened to be the first person Atemu saw.
"Who me? How kind and thoughtful of you to ask. Well the reason that I am in a cage is that I saw this pretty cage here and I thought to myself 'why Pegasus, wouldn't it be a barrel of fun to get someone to lock me in a cage with my hands tied behind my back?" He said cheerfully.
"Really? Why would you think that?" Joey asked even more confused.
Pegusus blinked at him a couple times with a blank expression, then after a few moments of silence Pegasus scowled fiercely at Joey. "We were captured you dimwitted idiot!" He whispered harshly.
"We were?" Joey asked.
"No, I was just joking! Of course, we were you fool, or have you failed to notice that we are all sitting in cages due to your lack of possessing a functioning brain!" Pegasus asked dryly.
"Why are you acting so hostile towards me?" Joey asked indignantly.
"Who me? Hostile? Hostile towards you? You must be out of your mind, this is me being nice! Can't you tell?" Pegasus said with heavy sarcasm.
"Leave it alone, Pegasus. I've already got a pounding headache and you are not helping matters with your stupid sarcasm!" Atemu snapped in irritation.
"Oh, well aren't you chipper this morning! Well then, your royal highness, your wish is my command!" Sneered Pegasus, "You are not the only one with an increasing headache." Pegasus muttered to himself. The only one who heard him was Yugi because of his increased hearing, among his other heightened senses.
Yugi still couldn't decide whether this was a blessing or a curse. Most of the time though he thought it was the latter rather than the former. Yugi's only response to Pegasus' mutterings was to roll his eyes to the heavens and pray to whatever god that was listening to give him the patience that he desperately needed so that he would not rip his companions' heads off and put an end to their childish squabbles.
"So, have any of us seen the leader around here?" Atemu murmured.
"And here I thought you were the smart one." Pegasus mocked. "Of course none of us saw the leader, we have all been unconscious!"
"Well, I thought you were the smart one. Oops, my bad. You were the self proclaimed genius. You don't actually have any proof that you are smart." Sneered Atemu."Guess you're just an idiot like the rest of us."
"OI, children!" Yugi shouted.
Yugi's travelling companions heads immediately swivelled to look at him. It seemed that they were so caught up in their heated discussions that they had forgotten that there was a fourth person stuck in a cage.
Each of their heads held a different expression as they glared at one another. Atemu looked about ready to scream, Pegasus looked like he wanted to break out of his tiny wooden cage and break Joey face into tiny pieces, and Joey looked like he wanted to wring Pegasus' scrawny little neck, well, scrawny in his opinion.
"Now before you start putting your rather 'genius and brilliant' murder plans for each other into action, you might just want to hear me out first." Sighed Yugi.
Yugi waited what seemed like half a day, to him at least, for his companions to calm themselves down, so that they could think, more rationally than they had done so previously.
Atemu seemed to cool down the quickest, which wasn't much of a surprise. Atemu had never liked fighting either verbally or physically before, and he was never one to lose his head. Pegasus cooled down the second quickest, most likely because of his age. Although he still looked slightly miffed, which Yugi didn't have any desire to deal with at the moment. Joey, of course, was the last to cool down.
"I have seen the leader. He's quite the freak as well."
Yugi wanted to laugh out loud at Pegasus' shocked face and Joey's smug look that just screamed 'I told you so, I told you so' but he didn't have to for Atemu was laughing enough for a total of five people. After Atemu had calmed down enough, a heaviness fell upon the friends and serious expressions adorned their once cheerful faces.
"So, you've seen the leader? Guess you were the first to wake up then, weren't you? So, what did you deduce from your meeting with the leader of this merry band of werewolves?" Pegasus asked without mirth.
"They're savages."
"Yes, well we could deduce that from the rough handling of their own kin as well as the silver cages." Pegasus muttered with heavy sarcasm.
"I don't mean savages just because of that." Yugi said hotly. "What I meant is that the leader, well, he's tall."
"Anyone compared to you is tall. You're a shrimp remember?" Atemu said, amusement ringing clearly in his voice.
"UGH! You are impossible! I mean he's taller than Joey! Not only that but, his jewellery..." Yugi trailed off, thinking back to the shrunken human skulls.
"What about his jewellery, Yugi. What's so special about it?" Joey asked, noticing the far off look that his friend was now sporting.
"He wears beads in his hair and around his neck." said Yugi distantly, thinking back to when he saw those horrid human skulls the chief werewolf was wearing, donning them around his neck like some kind of sick trophy.
"So the guy wears a bunch of beads. In my opinion, that makes him more of a pansy than a savage. What's so bad about the girly-boy wearing beads?" Joey asked.
"They were human skulls." Yugi whispered more to himself than in answer to Joey's snide remark.
"Ugh, hate to break it to you, Yugi, but aren't human skulls a little too big to be worn as beads?" Joey asked perplexed. "I think they hit your head a little too hard when they knocked you out."
"No, I know it was a human skull. They somehow managed to shrink it." He said.
Pegasus glanced at each of his new found friends' faces, taking in all of their expressions. He glanced at Yugi's dazed expression, Atemu's confused face but amusement also lingered in his eyes. He looked at Joey's incredulous face as he stared at Yugi. It was clear to Pegasus that Joey and Atemu did not believe Yugi.
"I know that it is hard to believe in the concept of someone shrinking a human's skull. If I was in your position, I would not believe it either. But I have seen it first hand. I have seen shrunken human heads and have seen them in the process of being shrunken. It is not an uncommon thing to shrink a human's skull. Although, I have never, in all my life, seen or heard of someone wearing them as beads."
Joey turned to look at Pegasus so fast Yugi worried that he might have broken something in his neck.
"So, that means that Yugi isn't a nut job?" Joey asked, seemingly put out.
At that remark, Yugi turned so he faced Joey, narrowing his eyes and sending a fierce glare his way. "Are you saying that you want me to be a basket case! Who's the crazy one now?"
"You're still the crazy one, you ape head."
"Ape head, am I? Well at least I'm not a buffoon with a stick so far up his a..."
"Enough!" They both shut up immediately as they heard Atemu shout, but still continued to glare fiercely at one another. "Now is not the time to try beating each other up, or have you two idiots forgotten that the cages are made out of silver? When we are out of this mess then you can beat each other into oblivion, got it?"
Joey and Yugi meekly nodded their heads, backing away from the bars of their cages and turning their attention onto Atemu, but not before sending each other fierce glares that promised pain when they could manage to get out of their respective cages.
Pegasus shook his head sadly at the lack of maturity that the new generation of werewolves showed. "Anyways, back to the matter at hand. How are we going to get out of here?"
"Well, the easiest way to plan an escape is to find out what they want with us and why they captured us."
Pegasus rubbed his chin thoughtfully before turning his piercing gaze onto Yugi. "Tell me what the leader of these werewolves looked like."
Yugi didn't understand why he wanted to know what the sadistic werewolf looked like, but he complied with Pegasus' request none the less.
"Hmm. If what I remember is accurate, and no doubt it is because I am always right. I mean, I don't think I have ever been wrong..." Pegasus would have continued this line of thought if it were not for what Atemu said.
"Enough, we get it, okay? Now can you kindly please tell us what you figured out?"
Yugi thought he saw Pegasus pout before he answered, but then played it off as a trick of the lighting, There is no way in the seven levels of hell that a five hundred year old guy is pouting. It's just not possible.
"Alright fine, ruin my fun."
On second thought, maybe it is possible. Yugi thought wryly.
"Based on your description of the tribe's leader, it reminds me of one of the tribes that fought in the battle against the humans once. At that time though, they were part of a different clan. I think it was the clan that lived near the ocean..."
"Get on with it!" Joey said impatiently.
"Alright, jeez, you're so impatient, you know that? Anyway, at that time the tribe had begun to split in half."
"Split in half? You mean they were fighting amongst each other as well as against the humans?" Atemu asked.
"That's insane! Why would they start fighting among themselves when they have other enemies that could take advantage of that?" Yugi cried, biting his lip.
"That's exactly what they wanted." Pegasus said grimly. "The werewolf that was leading the mutiny wanted the humans to take advantage of it."
"What! He would sacrifice his own kind to the humans for power?" Atemu growled darkly.
"Yes, well he made a pact with some humans. And so the whole tribe went into 'battle' against the humans. The humans and the mutineers both fought the ocean clan and killed them. Then the werewolves turned on the humans and killed them as well."
"That's disgusting." Yugi muttered.
"It is." Pegasus agreed. "But the leader of the mutineers was a bloodthirsty, greedy and power hungry werewolf. He would do anything to gain power. The tribe leader that resides here, based on your description, has an eerily similar appearance to the one that led the mutiny."
"And, knowing our luck..." Atemu began.
"It just so happens that it will be the same person." Yugi finished.
"Shh!" Joey hissed. "They're coming!"
"Great. There go any plans for escape." Groaned Atemu.
