The Parasite

Power: Special thanks to RinRye for reviewing. At least someone appreciates this story. The story so far: A parasite finds its way out of the Shadow Realm and into the real world. Looking for a host, it attacks Mokuba but Yami and Yugi come to his rescue.
I noticed that some of the puncutation in the first Chapter didn't appear for some reason. Hopefully it'll appear in this one. If it doesn't. . . VV.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, so don't bother sueing.


( ) Speaking in thought.
[ ] Yugi to Yami
[[ ]] Yami to Yugi
Italics - text concerning the parasite, usually applied when the parasite is by itself or used in the "pov" of the parasite.

Chapter 2

Seto Kaiba paced impatiently up and down the waiting room with folded arms. Yugi figited. Yami leant calmly back in his chair. The minute hand on the clock slowly moved around the clock.
[What's taking so long?]
[[Aibou, it's only been 15 minutes since they bought him in.]]
[It seems like longer though.]
Yami grasped Yugi's hand and smiled reassuringly at him. [[Mokuba will be fine.]]
At that moment a nurse walked in. Kaiba practicaly pounced on her. " How is he?"
" He's fine-"
All sighed with relief.
" But we're waiting on some tests to see what is holding him in the coma-"
" Coma! I though you said he was-" Kaiba started to demand.
" His condition is stable. Once the tests are back we'll be able to determine what to give him to counteract the coma."
" So what exactly happened?" he asked looking at both the nurse and Yugi.
" Well we don't exactly know the details but we're fairly certain that the creature injected some sort of powerful sedative or coma inducer into the back of Mokuba's neck which explains the puncture wounds. As for the actual attack, your friends will have to explain that to you. Oh yes, we've called in the police, there's one waiting outside to take statements from you two. If you're ready that is."
Yami and Yugi exchanged looks then nodded.
The nurse smiled. " I'll send him in and shall inform you the moment he wakes up, unless, Mr. Kaiba, you'd like to sit by him."
" I'll sit in on their statements, then I'll go to him."
The nurse nodded and opened the door, inviting the policeman in. She then left them to it.
" Excuse me, but is it all right if I sit in? Mokuba's my little brother and I want to know what happened."
" Of course Mr. Kaiba." The policeman sat down and pulled out a note book and pen from his jacket's front pocket. " Let's start from the beginning shall we? Where were you when the attack happened?"

Kaiba looked bleak. " So it was a giant bug?"
Yugi nodded. " It appeared to be, although I'm no expert."
The policeman ripped out two pieces of paper and pulled two pencils from the same pocket. " Could you draw it for us?"
The pair nodded took the offered items and began to draw. Kaiba leaned in to watch Yami draw. He raised an eyebrow at the artistic quality of the former Pharoah's "drawing" but said nothing. Yami stared fixatedly at his picture, stubbornly refusing to even scowl at Kaiba. Through their mind link, Yugi could feel Yami's acute embarassment and frustration. Momentarily stopping his drawing, he glanced at his other's "drawing" and fought to keep his face straight, pulling this off with remarkable skill. Yami could sense his hikari's amusement and shot him a glare.
[[Would you care to explain what's so funny?]] he asked rather icily.
[You draw like a child.]
[[Well then, perhaps you would like to give up drawing for a good 5000 years and then we'll see how you get on.]]
" There, I think that's it." Yugi handed his picture to the policeman who looked at it then handed it to Kaiba.
Blushing slightly, Yami relunctantly handed his over. The policeman stared at it with an oddly blank expression on his face before swapping drawings with Kaiba.
" Thank you both for your descriptions and your drawings," he shot a slightly amused expression at Yami, who stared at the floor as if he'd never seen it before. " You're free to go, but we may need to speak with you later."
" Yes, of course. We can usually be contacted at the Game Shop, here's our number." Yugi pulled out a card and handed it to the policeman, who thanked them, bid them a good night and left.
Yami looked at Kaiba. " What do we do now?"
" We wait."
Not long after the policeman left, the nurse reappeared. She looked a little worried. Kaiba was immediately on his feet. " What is it?"
" Your brother is stable and in otherwise good health. However, we got the results back and the coma inducer appears to be a powerful unknown sedative."
" Unknown?" asked Yami glancing at a deeply concerned Kaiba.
" Yes. And it appears to irreversible without an antidote."
The CEO of KaibCorp was understandably very grave. " So he won't wake up unless you administer the antidote?"
" I'm afraid so. But we have our researchers looking into it. They're pretty confidant they'll find it."
" Is there anything we can do to help?" Yugi asked.
" You can only wait I'm afraid. . . . . . . However. It would be a help to know what kind of insect it was. . . "
" Good. There's an Entomology department in the BioSciences building, we'll go there and. . . " Without warning, Kaiba's knees buckled and he collapsed into his chair.
The nurse looked stern. " First, go home and get a good night's sleep. Mokuba's in safe hands so don't you worry. If you give me your phone number, Mr. Kaiba, the hospital will contact you the moment there is any change. Understood?"
Kaiba opened his mouth to protest. She gave him a fierce glare. He shut his mouth and fished out a card. She nodded at the remaining two then left. " Hey Kaiba, do you mind if you drive us home?" Yugi beamed winningly at him.
He sighed and stood up. " All right then. Let's go."

A long black limo pulled up in front of a large building. A sign over the door read "Welcome to the BioSciences Laboratory". The driver got out to let the limo's occupants out. Seto Kaiba looked at the group assembled before him. The group consisted of Yugi, Yami, Tea, Joey, Tristan and Ryou.
Bakura had refused to participate and locked himself in his soul room.
" Right. Here's the plan. We all go in and talk to the receptionist about the bug. Hopefully he or she will direct us to the Entomolgy department. Now we move out."
" Yes sir!"
The group marched into the building and upto the Receptionist.
Kaiba cleared his throat. " Excuse me ma'am. We need information reguarding this bug," he pulled out Yugi's picture of it. Yami at the time had been disappointed that his picture hadn't been chosen but he eventually agreed that it was. . . less than worthy to be seen by the public.
" It's for a school project," he added rather unconvincingly.
The receptionist nodded and smiled anyway. " If you'll wait a moment, I'll set up an appointment for you." She picked up the phone on her desk and dialed in a number. " Hello? Dr Foster? It's Emily at Reception. A group of school kids have brought in something you might like to see. . . Well I'm no bug expert, but it doesn't look like anything I've seen. . . O.k, I'll tell them." She put the phone down and turned a pearly-white smile on the gang.
" The Entomology department's on the third floor, Mr Foster's waiting for you."
Kaiba sighed with relief. " Thank you." He led the gang to the lift.

A short, slightly plump man with greying hair awaited them. He was wearing a grey lab coat, black trousers and shoes and a blue shirt. " Hello there," he said cheerfully, I'm Dr Foster."
The gang introduced themselves.
" So then Mr. Kaiba, what is it you came here for?"
Kaiba cleared his throat. "Dr. Foster, my brother, Mokuba has been attacked by something and we were hoping you could identify it."
" I'm sorry to hear that, I hope he's all right."
" He is. Yami and Yugi here, were the ones who I suppose you could say, came to his rescue. They were the ones who saw the bug thing. I have a picture of it right here." He handed it over.
Dr. Foster stared at it intensely. " Fascinating. I've never seen an insect like this. The mandibles - it's mouth parts look like they have been designed gripping or piercing or both but definately not crushing. It could be a predator. However, it's body isn't very well armoured, most unusual in a hunting insect. . . What are these?" He pointed to the creature's underbelly.
" It appeared to have an extra row of legs with funny endings, sort of feathery. Or lots of toes," Yugi replied readily.
Dr Foster pondered over that, muttering. " Mandibles for piercing and gripping, weak body armour, extra set of legs with feathery endings. . ." He went on to speculate that the feathery endings could attack to nerve endings, possibly to the spinal cord itself - granting it full control over the animal, the mandibles being used to inject some sort of sedative to make the bonding process easier.
The group raised eyebrows and exchanged looks as he continued to sum up this information from a simple drawing.
" I believe we may be looking at some sort of parasite." He concluded at last.
" Is there anything you can do to help?" asked Tea.
" We have an expert on parasites, a parasitologist, Dr Ash West. If there's anyone who can help you, he can. If you'd like to follow me."
He lead the group through to a lab at the far end of the Entomology department. " Ash, these children here have something very interesting to show you." Dr Ash West was a lot younger, thinner and even shorter than Dr Foster. When he stood up to shake their hands as they introduced themselves, he stood a good head taller than Yami. He had a kindly face and eyes, contrasted by the cold blue of his eye colour. He had shortish emerald green hair which, no matter how many times Ash raked a comb through it, refused to be tamed. The small man came across as kind of shy as he bobbed his head in a self-conscious manner at them. " Hello there."
Dr Foster handed Ash the paper and the gang watched in astonishement as after removing his small, wiry, blue-framed spectacles, he rambled about the picture, almost exactly repeating Foster's earlier conclusion word for word.
" That's what I thought. So I'll leave you to get on with it," he nodded curtly to the group as he left. " Tell me how you get on, Ash."
" Sure thing, John." He glanced nervously around at the group. " Would you like to sit down?"
The group pulled out stools and chairs from under the work benches as Ash sat down himself. " So what happened?" He listened carefully to Yami and Yugi's tale. " So your brother's still in coma and it's still at large."
" Yeah that's right," said Joey. " We were hoping you would be able to suss out an antidote or help us track it down."
" Well I can't come up with an antidote without studying the sedative used. I certainly can't help you track it down."
Kaiba elbowed Ryou. The white-haired teen put on his most imploring look. " Please, will you help us Mr. West?"
Ash stared at him. Then smiled. " All right."
Kaiba stood up. " Right, what do you need?"
" The sedative will still be present in Mokuba's bloodstream. We can go to the hospital for a blood sample, but you'd have to be there in person to give your consent."
" Let's go!"
Ash blinked. " Now?"
" Yes now."
" Uh. . . O.k. Hang on a minute, I have to get this cleared with Jo-Dr Foster."
The gang didn't have to wait long, before Ash reappeared and the gang and an awed Ash was piling into Kaiba's limo, the hospital their destination.

Power: That ending could've been much better. Anyway, I hope your enjoying it so far. Just another five chapters and it's all over.