Story Summary: Dr. Bakura Ryou is a scientist from the future. He's got a plan to stop a nuclear disaster that occurred in the early twenty-first century, and he takes the cyborg Captain Tristan along to help him. For some reason, they end up in medieval times where Bakura is confused with the resident evil sorcerer. With their only way to get back to their home-time destroyed by a knight's trained dragon, they must find a way to defeat the evil sorcerer and recover the court wizard's source of power.

A/N: Sorry if the Star Trek talk in the previous chapter weirded anybody out. I'm a slight Trekkie, and *only* for the original series ("The Wrath of Khan" is my favorite ST movie). But that's not the point. As you may have observed, I'm trimming down the notes, so I can save myself from being incredibly repetitive, and also because I know that my readers have intelligence levels high enough to remember a lot of my dumb lists and stuff. Not a lot of action in this chapter, but soon! A mini-quest will take over for the next couple of parts after this one, just wait and see!

Schiz's Shout-Outs:
Wow! This is the first time one of my fics has really had a good surge of popularity, lots of positive reviews in so short a time...
Ryan-Ookami--Advertisement for you anytime, Ryan-chan. I love the titles, too. You keep writing now, or I'll deprive you of more chapters of this fic. (Yesh, and I knew *someone* would take Seto 'jumping' Bakura in the wrong sense of jumping. Rereading it, I can see why. ::grin::)
Magicman/Smokegirl--Joseph v. Seto? I'll probably do that, but definitely not for the hand of Sorceress Taea. Hilarious idea, tho. You're welcome to write about it.
Reyana Draconis--It gets even more twisted later.
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"A Commando in King Yami's Court"
Part Three: The Motives of the Time-Travellers Are Detailed in a Handy Flashback

Bakura sniffled and dried his tears. It wasn't that he cried easily or anything, but you try being stuck thousands of years in the past with no way to get home and not feel soul-crushing despair.

Perhaps that was an exaggeration. But it was terribly frustrating, and Bakura was possessed by an odd, homocidal urge every time he beheld the damned idiotic knight who had trapped him in this totally backward time-period.

The blond glanced over at Tristan, who was in a state that might be classified as comatose, if it was a normal human being we were talking about. But Bakura knew, though nanotechnology and human cybernetics were not his field, that the man-machine hybrid was merely in an intense stage of the regeneration process.

Bakura's field of expertise was quantum physics, more specifically pure science applied to quantum physics influenced by existentialist thought. In the vernacular, attempting to make theoretic time-travel a reality. He supposed that he really could be thought of as an expert, now that he *had* made theoretic time-travel a reality, but without a way for him to get back and prove it, Bakura's collegues would probably assume that he and the captain had merely been phased out of their original universe of existence. Not that that wasn't also an achievement, but it was wrong! Bakura hated it when people were wrong, especially the person known as himself.

~All I wanted to do was change the past and make things better for people. Was that so wrong?~ He said to himself, or perhaps to God, although Bakura normally regarded religious beliefs with proper scientific skeptisism since his brief romantic entanglement with a female anthropologist.
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In the early twenty-first century, a double-nuclear disaster in western Europe and North America left the planet in a pretty shitty state of existence. The few survivors who did not suffer radiation poisoning, or those who could possibly be cured, were sent into space to live in the International Space Station (which had finally be completed after thirty years of bureaucratic delay and a few terrestrial wars). These survivors were mainly Asian, Polynesian, Antipodean, African, South American, eastern European, and Meditteranean people. A few specimens of other species were placed in cryogenic freezers and sent into space as well, for a time in the future when they could be genetically reproduced.

All useful materials were sent to the Moon, designated as Terra-Base Luna, for construction of a non-Earth-based human habitat. Therefore, for the middle part of the 21st century, most of human collective energy and manpower went into making Terra-Base Luna and the Lagrange Point space colonies a reality.

In the latter part of the 21st century, humans had advanced enough to send terra-forming shuttles to Mars. They had also cloned the animals sent into space with the original pioneers, and such creatures as cows, sheep, pigs, goats, monkeys, kangaroos, dingos, and even Tasmanian devils had adapted themselves to life on Terra-Base Luna.

As the Space-Terrans (as they called themselves, for it was unknown if any multicellular life was still sustained by their ravaged home-planet, and any such creatures would thus be Terrans) entered the 22nd century, Mars was declared habitable, and the strongest stock of the Luna animals were transported to Mars with a large group of willing colonists. It seemed as though things were looking up for the human race.

And then the aliens came.

It was something straight out of 20th vids and docs (video footage and documents of the twentieth century). An army of hostile Andromedan aliens came to the pitiful cluster of Space-Terran safe points and declared war on them. The destruction of Terra-Base Luna was the first, and the most horrible, scenes of battle. For a people whose days of war were ages behind them on a dark and decimated planet, the Andromedans were an Apocalypse.

That was when the famous quantum physicist Dr. Ryou proposed his plan to his collegues. Why not use their knowledge of quantum physics to attempt time travel, and if successful, stop the Cataclysm of 2034?

Some argued against him, saying that it was the Cataclysm which spurred the humans into their current state of expanded settlement and scientific advancement. He countered them by saying he would tell the Terrans of 2034 of their successes in space colonization and Mars terra-forming. Therefore, Terrans would have two planets and several space colonies, and of course the INSS upon which to base their defensive capabilities against the Andromedans.

It was by consensus that they chose Captain Taylor to accompany Dr. Ryou, as both proof of and an expert on the applied-sciences and military state of their time.
****
Tristan shook Bakura awake from where the scientist had curled up on the grass. "The knight is waking up," was all the cyborg said.

Seto of Kaiba sat up and groaned, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his forehead on his knees. The dragon-gecko creature began to trill and chirp, and Bakura was struck by how similar it sounded to the recordings of Terrans birds. No Terran birds had been saved in the aftermath of the Cataclysm, simply because there had been no birds left.

The dragon chirruped and Seto looked up at the two men he'd attacked earlier. "Different, you say? Obviously. That's Ryo..." A sharp trill interrupted him, and Seto's dark blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "He's not? He thinks strange things? What things?"

Tristan looked at Bakura. "The biolog has ESP."

Bakura nodded. Extra-sensory perception was a fairly common trait in the Space-Terrans, to some degree; therefore, it was not something strange to them. Bakura was a mild Esper, while Tristan's talent was stronger, though usually used in conjunction with the computerized components of his unique body systems.

When the creature had finished, Seto stood up. Tristan was privately pleased to see that, while the man's jaw remained unbroken, it might be cracked, and there was definitely extensive bruising on his face and neck. The knight stared at them seriously and said, "Zafiro tells me that you think of living among the stars with the world destroyed, of dark powers. She also says that you wish to stop these dark powers from hurting your people, and that you are here by a mistake."

"Yes," Bakura said quietly, "It's true. And the sphere that you destroyed earlier was the only way we had to get home."

"Hm." Seto tapped his chin thoughtfully, then winced at the pain such an action caused him. "Well, I'll have to see a healer before long, but I will take you men to see King Yami. Perhaps his court-wizard, Yugi, could help you. It is an honorable quest, and I beg your forgiveness for impeding it."

~Why is he being so polite?~ Bakura wondered.

~He's a knight. His honor has been tarnished by stopping a good and noble effort to halt the forces of evil.~ Tristan sent to his companion. A smile accompanied his mental message as he finished, ~At least, that's what I picked up from his thoughts.~

Aloud, Tristan answered, "Of course, we forgive you. Thank you, Sir Seto."

Not missing a beat, Bakura echoed, "Yes, much thanks."

And therefore they set out on foot toward the great capital city of King Yami's kingdom.

END PART THREE