Chapter 29
Field Trip
"Pharaoh, please reconsider. You are needed here." Mahad struggled to keep his voice low. He was really getting tired of his friend's desire to fix everything himself.
"Mahad, they will be fine without me for a day."
"But.."
"No, Mahad, I will go. You will not change my mind on this, and you can not convince me otherwise."
"Then take Seto and I with you... and Mana." He said adding someone he was hoping the Pharaoh would see as a kind of peace offering, rather than a protection. Atem didn't buy it.
"And leave the palace with whom? Isis? And don't think that sticking Mana in there is going to help your chances any."
"Than just Mana and I."
"Mahad, I need you here."
"Doing what?"
"Making sure men can actually do what they are trained to do, or did you forget that you have a job outside of protecting me?"
"I..."
"Mahad, I need those men to guard the palace, and as much as I hate to admit it something is clearly lacking in their training if an army can get by them just by being invisible. Unless you can convince me they were somehow intangible and completely silent as well as invisible."
"Than just take Mana with you." Mahad said giving up, he hated putting that on Mana's hands but she was his best student and the only one the Pharaoh would ever even begin to consider.
"Alright, Mahad. I will see if Mana is willing to come."
"Thank you." Mahad replied, not entirely happy, but willing to be content.
"No, Mahad. Thank you." Atem said giving him a small smile. "Not many Pharaohs can claim to have friends like you."
"I could say the same about my kind." Mahad said quietly, not entirely willing to look his friend in the eye.
"Mahad, do not insult yourself. You are just as human as the rest of us. 'Your kind' are no different than my kind."
"I wish I could say I agree with that."
"Some day I will convince you."
"I wish you luck."
Atem laughed. "I am sure I will need it," he said, smiling before changing the subject. "Go get some rest, Mahad. I now have to wake Mana and she will not be happy."
"No, I doubt she will." He said nodding and left to do what he was told. Atem sighed. He was not looking forward to waking Mana.
Atem walked into the throne room, looking exactly like the enraged teenager he was at the moment. He was soaking wet and covered in sand, as well as sporting a large cut down his arm. Shada and Mana looked in even worse shape.
"Your Highness what it the world happened." Shimon said as the guardians ran over to him.
"We managed to catch up to a few of his friends. They ambushed us, I walked straight into it. I should have seen it, how could I have been so foolish!" Atem replied angrily as Isis looked at his cut.
"Come, your highness, you should see the healers." She told him gently, expecting his reaction.
"I am fine, it is just a scratch." He said absentmindedly though he let her lead him there anyway, everyone followed them.
"Where were you two?" Mahad said angrily, more at Mana than Shada, due to her being his charge.
"I was just as surprised. The first shot knocked him into the Nile. He cut himself on a rock falling in. The enemy didn't touch him again." Mana answered, successfully calming her master's wrath.
"She fought very well Mahad. Don't be angry, it was my fault. I saw all the signs of a trap and failed to connect them." Atem said as the healers took care of his arm.
"It is not your fault, Pharaoh. It is their job to protect you, thus the fault is theirs." Seto added choosing to answer before Mahad had the chance.
"There is no need to place blame." Shimon decided to end the conversation before it turned into an argument. "What is important now is that the thief's friends are dangerous as well, what ever they are, and we must plan our next move."
"We've made our move, and we walked right into a trap." Atem said closing his eyes against the pain of the alcohol being used to clean his wound. "Now it is his move."
"Your highness. This isn't a game, there is no reason why we shouldn't just destroy them right now." Seto said annoyed by the Pharaoh's games.
"I can think of many. Starting with, we have no idea where to find them, including the fact that we have absolutely no idea what they even are, and ending with us not knowing if they are really out to get us or just wanted to get him out of prison."
"The last one does not really matter."
"Yes it does. I am not going to attack if they have no further intention to harm the people. I could not care less if they broke him out, I am not even sure why he was here anyway. Tomb robbers do not get caught."
"If you let them get by with this what will the people see it as?"
"That if an army comes to get them after they are thrown in in jail than we will not come after them."
"I suppose not many people are going to have armies come to save them." Seto agreed, willing to admit he was wrong when it was so glaringly obvious.
"Bingo."
Seto sighed. "So we are just going to wait then?"
"Not completely, we still have a chance to defend ourselves." Atem stood now that his arm had been successfully bandaged. "Mahad were you able to make any success with your men?"
"I think so. Though I am not exactly sure what they are to be looking for."
"Anything more than they were before is fine." Atem told him. "Karim?"
"His cell was demolished, completely demolished. It looked like Mana had tried to use the room next to it as target practice and naturally missed every time."
"Hey!"
Atem failed at hiding a laugh. "No ideas what caused it?"
"None."
Atem paced. "This guy, who ever he is, is very good."
"What if he doesn't attack back?"
"Then we have nothing to worry about."
"He will." Shimon said. "Something in the boy's eyes before he ran off told me this was not merely a prison escape."
Atem looked at Shimon with an understanding look. "I did not think it was either."
It wasn't long before the next pawn stepped forward, surprisingly only one space instead of two.
There was an attempt at food poisoning. Not even a lethal dose. Mahad noticed it quickly, the Millennium Ring reacted; it wasn't drastic but it was noticeable, Mahad was able to use magic to check for it.
"I do not understand. If they were trying to poison you why did they not use something that would actually harm you? This would probably make you ill for, maybe twenty four hours, and that is it. You probably wouldn't even need to stay in bed."
"I do not know yet, Mahad. We need to wait, I have a feeling their turn is not over." Atem told him; Mahad sighed.
"I'm a little worried that by the end of this 'turn' you are going to be dead."
"If they wanted to kill me now they would have put more poison in that food." Atem reasoned, Mahad had to admit he was right. It seemed like they were just being played with at the moment.
"How do we even know that this was him?" Isis asked, she was trying to be hopeful that it was only a mistake in the chief's part.
"We will know tomorrow."
They watched as Atem left the room.
"How will we know tomorrow?"
Atem tried to act normally the next day, though it was hard considering he hadn't really been a Pharaoh long enough to know what was normal or not. He was looking for specific actions in everyone he met though. Everyone that passed by him and everyone that spoke to him.
It was midday before his search paid off.
One of the servants was uncommonly inquisitive about the Pharaoh's health. He was not supposed to be speaking to the Pharaoh at all, let alone asking questions that he could have asked anyone. Atem answered the questions kindly as he would any other person, but took note of everything that was being asked. The servant was fired... as well as half of the kitchen staff. Clearly someone managed to get into the food storage area, thus they were not doing their jobs correctly.
Without bias, by the end of the day he knew exactly what had happened.
"He is testing our limits." the Pharaoh told his guardians the next day. "He is trying to see where our guard is weak, so he knows where to attack. If you had not been able to notice before hand we would have never been able to guess what the illness the next day came from. I personally would have attributed it to a normal illness. We would not have set up our guard against it and he would have known how to strike."
"So then why did he not just attack you when he broke out of prison?"
"Probably because everyone would have known it was him."
"But we already know it was him."
"We have no proof though."
"We do not need proof."
"In order to maintain a clean conscious I do need proof."
"So what do we do next?"
"We need to find him, not just his men. Now we know that we know he is targeting us, we can fight back."
"So how are we going to do that?"
"We need to lure him out again, instead of just his friends."
They expected him to come out with a plan, he walked from the throne room instead.
"I hope he doesn't spend to much time thinking on it, or it might be too late."
It was late that night before they realized he already had his plan. He was gone.
Atem climbed out of the Nile, he was soaked to the bone and, due to the late hour, freezing. He glared at the man on the horse in front of him, angered by the smirk the man wore.
"You people really like pushing people in the river." He observed.
The thief laughed. "You shouldn't have come alone, 'Pharaoh.'" He said in a mocking tone.
Atem attempted to stand, but didn't get all the way up the freezing cold made him stiff.
"Why exactly didn't you bring your little minions?" He asked, knowing the Pharaoh couldn't go anywhere.
"They are not minions." He said though his anger. "They are my friends."
"If that's what you want to call them." The thief shrugged. "If you want to be so technical then my friends, as you called them earlier, aren't really my friends."
"Then what are they?" Atem realized he asked something he probably shouldn't have. The thief's demeanor changed completely from likely mocking, to hard and cruel.
"My family." He paused, Atem assumed it was for dramatic effect as he doesn't seem to expect a response. "The family your so called noble father killed!"
A/N) O_O wow I'm actually letting someone speak in contractions! I feel like a time rebel. Mwahahahahahaha
***Ok I'm taking a vote. I can't decide whether to either: use Bakura as the king of thieves name, give him his own name, or just be ambiguous and call him veryations of thief. So I'm letting my audience decide. Send me a review or a PM with your vote, I'm even considering not updating until I have at least one vote because I really can't decide myself. Would it be to confusing to give him a name? Would Bakura be annoying because there is no way it can be his real name? Or should I just let your imagination wander to what ever you want him to call it? Though the last option is probably harder. ***
Please vote. I need opinions. _
