)
14.
Spoilers: Um, actually, just the very beginning of Noah's arc.
Notes: No, I have no canonical basis for Mokuba's engineer friends. They just happened, when I was fustrated with the dub's logical fallacies and happened to read a Dilbert strip. It went something like, "So then the new CEO tied us up and stole our wallets." "Wow, what did the board of directors do?" "After they finished loading up the van?" It sounding like something that Pegasus would have done after he got control of KaibaCorp, so I decided he did, and it kind of spun out of control from there.
(-)
"You know, maybe if you'd been a little more tactful, none of this would have happened."
"Mokuba!"
"I'm serious!"
"I don't need this right now!"
"Neither does anybody else, but we're all here, huh?!"
"Tact, which, by the way, I do have, would not have changed a thing."
"Guess we'll never know."
"I used tact."
"You did not."
"You weren't there."
"I was, but I didn't have to be."
"Why not?"
"You never use tact anywhere else, why with these lunatics?"
"Mokuba!"
"I'm not shutting up, Seto!"
"This is what he wants!"
"It's what I want too!!"
Kaiba blinked, and Mokuba was perversely happy.
"Not the psychos and the duels and everything, but this? Talking? I want that. Desert thing sucks too, but the talking? Hell yeah."
"Since when do I not use tact?"
"Since, uh, ever? Especially since Kaiba. But never."
"Really."
"Yep."
"Then how does anything get done in my company?"
"Your private PR firm."
"We don't have a private PR firm."
"Yeah you do. Three of 'em, and they work real well together."
"Three firms? I think I'd know if I hired--"
"No, three people."
"Really."
"When you hand down an order, it almost always has to go through Gamma at some point."
"Who?"
"What, you changed the code names again?!"
"That name's from-- five years ago, at least!"
"The engineers, then!"
"Right. I suppose they do, yes."
"More specifically, the departments wind up getting their instructions from Kiseki Yumiko, Daidouji Renami, and Jacob Davenport."
"The lunatic?"
"Don't call Yumi a lunatic. She kind of is, but you don't get to call her that."
"Since when are you on first-name terms with that woman?"
Mokuba laughed. "Since two weeks after you became CEO."
"...Oh."
"It works like this: Renami tells everyone what has to be done, Yumi tells them how they're going to do it, and Jacob weighs in whenever he needs to and adds credibility."
"How does that slacker add credibility?"
"'Cos he never lies. Ever. They can ask him, 'Is this project ever going to get past beta?' and if it won't, he'll say, 'Yeah, maybe when they start ice-skating in the third circle.' If it will, he'll say 'Yeah, they're making a big deal out of it, and it's not gonna fall apart or something. I hope.' If he doesn't know, he'll say 'Hell if I know, but why do we do anything around here with what they pay us?' He's a pessimist, he's sarcastic to the point where you occasionally want to smack him, but he just doesn't lie."
"Really."
"Yeah, he's got no ambition and he knows you won't notice what he says, and even if you did notice, he wouldn't care."
"Why don't I notice?"
"'Cos your head's stuck too far u--"
"MOKUBA!"
"That's what he'd say, and he's right. That's why I put up with his sarcasm, because he never lies, he's really a good person and he's right a really scary amount of the time."
"Is he."
"Yes, he is."
"Yeah. Sure."
"Seto, it's three p.m. Do you know where your company is?"
"...What?"
"Do you have any idea who's running the company right now?"
"The board of directors."
"They're wusses and they hate us. They're trying to ignore this tournament, and even when they do get word we're missing, they've seen too many hostile takeovers fail to try one themselves. They aren't going to do anything at all. The whole company will stall."
"And you know this how?"
"Firm of Kiseki, Davenport & Daidouji, reluctant experts in office politics."
"Because I know I never told you."
"Which is why I had to learn from them. The Board isn't doing a damn thing, I'll bet you twenty dollars here and now."
"Then who is?"
"My friends there."
"No. They are not."
"Nobody else knows what to do, or is stupid enough to take the responsibility, or would be listened to if they tried."
"Those idiots are running my company?!"
"They're the best engineers in the country, Seto. I really don't think they're idiots."
"You're young."
"So are you."
"No, I'm not."
"Actually, you are."
Seto said nothing. Mokuba didn't.
"They're running KaibaCorp, and they're doing a damn good job, even though they're wondering why they're doing it and if we're coming back and when you're gonna go off the deep end and try to take over the world."
"When I'm WHAT?"
"Going to go off the deep end and try to take over the world," he repeated resolutely.
"They think I'm--? Oh my God, and they're running the company??"
"Don't worry, they know too much about the job to try and take it off your hands until you actually do."
"They think I'm going to try to take over the world, and they're talking to-- to people?!"
"Yep, 'cause you aren't there."
"Oh, great."
"They're not the only ones who think that, you know," Mokuba said carefully.
"What? Who else?"
"The entire company... Yugi... Yugi's friends... and me."
"...--You?!"
"Yes. Me."
"You think-- you think I'm going to try to take over the world?!?!"
"Yes, Seto, I do."
"What-- where the hell did you get that idea?!"
"When you almost hit me after I touched your deck of Duel Monsters cards. When you nearly gave an old man a heart attack just for a stupid card you didn't want him to have. When--"
"Mokuba--"
"--we came back from the island," Mokuba continued, only faltering for a second, "and you had that meeting with all the 'disloyalty will not be tolerated' and the 'we won't have any competitors in two years' talk. When you--"
"Mokuba--"
"--made a virtual video game even when everyone you asked said it was one of the stupidest ideas they had ever heard. When you found the people who tried to take over the company. When you canceled all your meetings when you saw that Yugi was in a duel on TV. When you came home--"
"Mokuba!"
Mokuba ignored him, building up steam. "--from an innocent trip to the museum holding a damn Duel Monsters card in your hand and cackling to yourself, when you tested it out without using the safeties, when you arranged a tournament that looks a hell of a lot like Peggy's--"
"Mokuba, listen to me, you--!"
"When you started caring more about winning than you care about me!!"
Silence, except for the blood pounding in Mokuba's ears and the sound of his own deep breaths. There, he'd said it. He'd said it and he wasn't taking it back.
"I don't care more about winning--"
"Yes you do."
"I don't!"
"You do. Seto. You do."
Seto Kaiba, confused, looked into his brother's eyes. Mokuba apparently believed this. Didn't he see that all of this was for him? Dammit, teenagers!
"I do not," he said, in a low tone that killed all argument.
(It isn't for me, Seto, it isn't and it never will be, but I guess it could have been once.)
"This isn't the time or the place, Mokuba. Let's go."
(His answer to everything.)
Silently, Mokuba followed.
15.
Spoilers: If you haven't had to wonder exactly how and when a 3-5,000-year-old card game got a card so obviously based on Jeanne d'Arc... You might want to skip this.
Notes: Sorry. The end of the episode posed a loose end, and these people exist only to tie up loose ends, so...
(-)
"Jerk."
"Renami--"
"You weren't here yesterday!!" She glared at him.
He glared right back. "For the last time, it was my day off, and I don't get very many of those!!"
"So you run out on me on the day Captain Rational is driving his flock of schoolchildren out on a field trip to the Church of Divine Retribution?!"
"...You're referring to the tournament, right?"
"As politely as I can."
"Captain Rational and the schoolchildren I got, but the Church of Divine Retribution?" he asked, bemused.
"Where the old geezer ran off."
"Ah."
"And you ran out on me!"
He snorted. "Heaven's sake, Renna, we're not Mokuba's bodyguards."
"No, but we're about as close as he's got."
"Uh, that really sucks for him, then."
"Shuddup."
Jacob sighed and pushed his black hair out of his eyes. "So what happened?"
"Just 'cos I'm mad you ran out on us doesn't mean something happened."
"No, the fact that Kaiba, Yugi, and Megalomaniac-of-the-Week are going out to play Duel Monsters means something happened," he explained sweetly.
"If you knew something was going to happen, why the hell did you leave?!"
"Because it was my off day."
She groaned and hit her head against the wall.
"Hey Jacob!" Kiseki Yumiko, a woman who was way too old to wear pigtails but did so anyway, poked her head around the doorway, beaming.
"Hey, Yumi. What went wrong now?"
"Uh, lessee. First, the blimp got hijacked." She smiled lopsidedly.
"WHAT??"
"Not by armed people or anythin', by computer."
"Oh. That's so much better," Jacob said, dripping with sarcasm.
"Shuddup, Jacob," Renami said, her head still against the wall.
"An' then they sucked everyone on the ship into a virtual world."
"Oh s--"
"And that's where they all are right now."
"Doing what?"
"You have to ask?" Renami asked, bemused.
"Uh... Wild guess... Dueling."
"Give the man a cigar."
"Don't smoke."
"Yeaah." Renami cut to the chase. "Some kid wants to take over the company."
"Hell and damnnation!" he muttered.
"Greenish hair, calls himself Noah. May or may not be his name. Don't really care."
"Typical?"
Renami cocked her head thoughtfully. "Little less feminine than usual, actually."
"Huh. That's a switch."
"But he makes up for it with the stupidity."
"Oh good, tell me more."
She grinned. "You will never guess who he recruited to duel 'em."
"Uh... the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"
"No, he wasn't that smart."
"Wow. Who'd make a worse choice than the Ninja Turtles?"
"Remember those guys who tried to take over with Peggy?"
"No. Not them. No way."
"Disembodied spirits who want bodies." She grinned again; it really was funny, which was a nice change.
"He recruited them?!"
"And they're calling themselves the Big Five."
"And that didn't tip the kid off?!"
"This one isn't just stupid, he's damn stupid. Think about it. He dragged Kaiba to a virtual world to make him play Duel Monsters. C'mon, is there anything he's better at??"
Jacob shook his head. "And he wants the company."
"Yeah."
"...Oh my God," Jacob said, wide-eyed. "That... that's so stupid as to defy description!!"
She shrugged. "Maybe he just hired really cheap private investigators."
"What the hell was he thinking?! My God!!"
Renami blinked. "...This is more than the standard 'his plan is so damn stupid' thing, isn't it."
"Hell yeah! What was he thinking?! There's a better plan right in front of him!!"
"Like what?"
"Take over the company legally!!"
Renami blinked rapidly. "Whoa, what about that clause that says only a Kaiba--"
"I've told you a million times, that can't be true! That'd be so illegal it'd--"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard. But they think--"
"Even so. How much persuading do you think it'd take??"
"..." It slowly started to dawn on her. "One case of cheap wine, five fruit baskets, and twenty bucks, and that's if they got stubborn."
"No, that's if the board of directors refused and he had to get the shareholders to replace 'em." Jacob snorted. "It wouldn't take much. He could've done it covert, and he'd be CEO by now."
"Kaiba would've noticed..." she said slowly.
"And if Mokuba did too?"
"Which he would, if Kaiba did..." Yumi said thoughtfully.
"You know what he'd do, better than anyone," Jacob said.
"He'd try to talk Kaiba into it..."
"And even if he didn't, the kid would probably win," Jacob said.
"And if he did, the Kaiba brothers would retire on a nice fat pension and we'd all live happily ever after," Yumiko added.
"Except us, who'd be saddled with the kid, and Yugi-san, who still has his megalomaniacs, but that's beside the point..." She shook her head slowly. "Oh my God. That would work. That would work beyond a shadow of a doubt."
"Yeah, thanks a lot, kid." Jacob snorted. "Coulda solved most of our problems, but he's too damn stupid..."
"He might have some sort of reason..."
"So did Pegasus. He'll have a reason, no doubt, but it'll suck." Jacob rolled his eyes.
Renami sighed. "So, that's where we are. We can't hack into the system 'cause Noah had a lot of time on his hands."
"I think he hired Marah," Yumiko said thoughtfully.
"Really?"
"It'd be a bit smart for him, but the security's got her fingerprints all over it, and she's whimsical enough..."
"Whimsical?" Jacob asked.
"Yeah, she'd think of it as paying me'n'Sera back for... couple of favors a few years back. She's a nutcase." Yumiko giggled.
Renami and Jacob looked at each other, wondering exactly how strange a person would have to be to induce Yumiko of the boundless giddy energy to call them 'nutcase' and 'whimsical'.
"She wants revenge on you?" Jacob asked skeptically.
"No, she owes us a couple favors. I figure Noah asked her on board, she saw how damn stupid he was, and she figured she'd do us a favor by making sure he didn't come up with anything smarter. Yeah, Marah's crazy that way."
Jacob and Renami looked at each other again, unnerved.
"Still made the security a wench, though. Probably she figured it's not in our best interest to foil this Noah's plan, he might come up with something less abmysally stupid. So we can't help anything that direction."
"So what can we do?"
"Nothing," Renami answered, throwing her hands up. "Not a damn thing. That's what's so fustrating! All we can do is keep the company running and hope they don't get their butts kicked. And watch over the bodies."
"Uh... What bodies?"
"I told you, the idiot sucked them into a VR world. While their minds are in there..." She gestured in the direction of the room their corporeal forms were still in.
"Weird."
"Yeah, like I told you, the 'Big Five' are trying to duel them and take over their bodies."
"And if they do?"
A red light on the wall started to flash.
"If they do," Renami explained, deadpan, "there'll be an alarm so that we can go stop them before they get out."
"And that's the alarm."
"Brilliant work, Holmes." Renami grabbed his arm, and started running toward the room.
She skidded to a stop outside the door, causing the off-balance Jacob to keep running, trip, and roll headlong further down the corridor.
He got up, rubbing his head, and went to stand by her, glaring.
"Taylor kid's up," she said, not having seen his gymnastic display.
"Think it could be him?"
Tristan's body looked around and started to laugh insanely.
"No, don't think so," she said, and grabbed a weapon from a holster by the door.
"FREEZE!!" she yelled, kicking open the door.
"Tristan" obeyed, startled.
"Whoa," Jacob commented, nearly as surprised. "What's with the Charlie's Angels thing? Not that it wasn't cool, 'cause it was damn cool, but there were three of Charlie's Angels and I don't think I'm cut out for the job."
"Shuddup," Renami said. "So. Which one are you?"
'Tristan" looked startled, then sneered. "Oh, it's you. Little miss 4-point-oh with the naiveté and the goody-two-shoes attitude."
"Oh, it's Nesbitt," Jacob said, disgusted. "Figures it'd be you. Better than the psycho penguin guy, though. The hell'd you manage to win anything?"
"If you know what's good for you, kid, you'll get out of my way." He stepped forward threateningly.
"Na-ah-ah-ah-ah!" Renami waved her gun. "You want to find out what kind of gun this is?"
"Stun gun, B-47 model," Nesbitt said.
"...Ah yeah, you would know, wouldn't you." She laughed nervously.
"Doesn't change anything. Sit, wench," Jacob commanded.
"All right, I'll just--" Lightning-fast, Nesbitt leapt at Jacob.
"Yah!" Renami swung the gun at him at him and pulled the trigger.
Nesbitt screamed as something that wasn't quite electricity poured through him. He staggered back to the bed, eyes wide.
"What--thehell?" he managed, breathing heavily.
"It used to be a B-47," Renami said calmly, eyes flashing. "But I... fiddled with it a little. That was a mild setting. Unless you want to see what happens when it's set on you full blast, I'd stay still. That all right?"
Without waiting for any sort of answer, she glanced down at Jacob. "You're okay, right?"
"Yeah... really touched by your concern..." he said, glaring at her from the floor.
"Is that a yes?"
"Got a concussion, but I already had one, so I think maybe they'll cancel out. You think?" He got up, groaning. "The hell'd you come at me for, wench?"
"You're the weakest," Nesbitt answered simply.
Jacob's mouth dropped open.
"Yeah, well, you try that again and it won't be pretty. Even I'm not sure what this thing'll do." She glared at him.
"I-- I may be weak, but at least I'm not stupid!" Jacob yelled.
"Oh really? Good for you. I would never have guessed," Nesbitt said dryly.
Jacob glared at him.
Yumiko, who had just arrived, turned around. "Hurry up!" she yelled behind her. "He called Jacob's hand!"
"What?!" Jacob whirled around.
"It's a good hand, that's why it's gonna be fun," Yumiko explained quickly.
"Riight." Jacob turned back around. "So you think I'm stupid?"
"Yes."
"Oh really." Jacob glared at him. "So, as I recall, you said you turned against Kaiba because you wanted to keep building military equipment, and he was turning KaibaCorp into a game company."
"He was subverting everything we stood for!"
"So, yes. And because he blew up your plant?"
"Yes."
"So, when Seto Kaiba walks up to you and tells you 'This is how the company's gonna be now, take it or leave it'-- why the hell don't you leave it?"
"I don't have time for this," Nesbitt said angrily.
"Think about it a second. Why the hell didn't you just quit?"
"You are irritating me, child..."
"There are other defense contractors. You don't have any sort of binding contract. The terms of it expired when old Kaiba did, and you didn't have a new one at that point. In fact, Seto Kaiba would've probably been glad to be rid of you. You could have left at any time!"
"..."
"And leaving would have been the smartest thing you ever did. You'd keep doing what you loved, and you'd get highly paid for KaibaCorp's secrets! Seto Kaiba wouldn't care if you took the patents with you; he probably still doesn't even know they exist! What kind of idiot are you?!"
Nesbitt looked startled. "I..."
"And another thing!" Jacob cried, not nearly done. "Why were you on Pegasus's side? Did you think he'd go into defense contracting?? His company was even more involved in Duel Monsters than ours!! The only thing that would have changed was that your boss would be a dangerous, unpredictable lunatic! He wasn't even trustworthy, even setting aside the fact that he was your worst nightmare!"
Nesbitt looked even more startled. The junior engineers that had gathered behind Yumiko looked stunned.
"And why the hell did you join up with those guys?"
"They--"
"The one guy's obsessed with penguins! Penguins, for god's sake! The other won't stop yammering about his damn lemonade stand! And the other guy-- the other guy's a lawyer! A corporate lawyer! For KaibaCorp!! Is there anything about him that DOESN'T scream 'untrustworthy'?!?!"
"They're good people!" Nesbitt defended.
"They're lunatics!! And finally, what were you thinking?! Joining up with the Noah kid, who's too stupid for words?!"
"He--"
"He's trying to beat Seto Kaiba in a VIDEO GAME!!!" Jacob yelled.
Nesbitt sat there, stunned, the point hitting home.
"Virtual reality is the ONLY type of reality that Seto Kaiba can adaquately deal with!" Jacob yelled. "How stupid do you get?!"
Nesbitt said nothing, getting Jacob's point.
"And on top of that, you drag Yugi Moto and his friends along. Yugi Moto! The only person in the world who's better than Kaiba at this! You saw what Pegasus could do. You saw how Yugi beat him. You honestly think you're gonna keep that body long?"
Nesbitt opened his mouth, then shut it, looking troubled.
Jacob was silent for a moment, calm. "This," he said finally, "is why the Taylor kid has no need to worry. This is why none of them do. You're a moron, and you're still probably smarter than the rest of these imbeciles." He shook his head.
"Enjoy being alive again," he said. "You won't be here very long." He turned and walked away, pushing through the crowd.
Renami looked after him, smiling fondly.
"See?" she said softly. "You don't play with my Jacob. Not if you're smart."
She walked outside and barred the door.
"Tsukino, Adamson, guard the door," she said, handing one a gun and gesturing at the other. "I don't think he'll give you any trouble for a while. Call if he does."
She walked away, looking for Jacob.
Yumi grinned at her disciples. "Y'see?" she said proudly. "I told you it'd be good."
There was a flash from inside the room, and Yumiko whirled around.
"Huh, he is the smartest of the bunch," she murmered. "Rena!"
Renami, just barely still within hearing range, turned around. "What?"
"Nesbitt went back into the virtual world!"
"Really?" Renami blinked.
"Yeah, we're that damn good." Yumiko chuckled. "He knows he can't do anythin' good on this end..."
Renami grinned. "Okay then, but we still need the guard. Just in case."
Yumiko nodded at the two designated guards. "And that is why we do this. 'Cos we can," she told her disciples. "C'mon, back to work..."
The junior engineers slowly filtered back to their posts.
16.
Spoilers: Um... If you can't answer the question "Does Joey know how to drive?", then you're too early.
Notes:
This piece owes quite a lot to the brilliant works of Douglas Adams, which are, needless to say, the books Mokuba references. I do as well; though I've always thought that there's someone behind all this, it hadn't occured to me that Noah wasn't an outside part of the proceedings. Almost makes you feel sorry for the kid. But, not quite.
(-)
"You really still think your 'big brother' is going to rescue you?"
Mokuba rolled his eyes, ignoring that the remark kind of hit home.
"Because, he's tied up at the moment..." Noah smirked.
"Oh, please," Mokuba snapped. "Shut up, you moron. Brighter bulbs than you have tried to take over the company, with better plans."
"Really." Noah kept smirking.
(The kind of smile that makes you want to hit it with a brick,) Mokuba thought angrily.
"Why are you so certain that my plan is flawed?"
"Because." Mokuba looked at him pityingly. "You're trying to beat my brother in a virtual game. And virtual games are what my big brother does best."
"Ah, yes." Noah smirked.
"But that's not all," Mokuba said.
"Oh really? What else, then?"
Mokuba stared at him, wondering how the hell anyone who could create such a technologically advanced virtual world could be so obtuse. "Because. You brought along the best duelist in the world."
"Your brother?"
"Uh, no..."
Noah looked startled. "Oh, really? Who, then?"
"You really don't know."
"What sort of game are you playing?!"
"Yugi Moto!" Mokuba cried, honestly confused.
Noah stared at him for a second, then started laughing. "The pointy-haired kid?!"
"Yes, the pointy-haired kid!" Mokuba cried, incredulous. "Not only did he beat Seto, but he also beat the only other guy who ever beat Seto! How the hell do you not know this?!"
"You're lying."
"No, I'm not!" Mokuba stared at him.
"Y-you're just trying to stall me because you think your big brother will rescue you."
Mokuba snorted. "He really will, 'cos he thinks he cares about me, at least. And also he's really good at this. And the pointy-haired kid? How the hell did you miss this? Even if you only researched me and Seto, his name would've come up."
Noah looked very slightly uncertain, and switched the view on the screen to Yugi and his gang, riding down the highway in a big, old pickup truck.
"See?" Noah said arrogantly. "They're all bumblers."
"See?" Mokuba said, and pointed at the screen.
Noah looked more closely. The pointy-haired kid... was looking away, eyes unfocused, in an extremely unnerving manner. It was almost as if...
"So he's crazy," Noah said, trying to sound more confident than he was and succeeding. "So?"
"Little closer," Mokuba said.
So Noah looked. The pointy-haired kid cocked his head slightly. Then he turned his head, and--
Noah actually stepped backwards. The pointy-haired kid was looking at him-- right at him-- even though it was on a screen, Noah knew that the kid saw right through it, was actually looking at him, with those eyes suddenly red.
"See?" Mokuba said again, quietly.
The pointy-haired... un-kid on the screen closed his eyes, shook his head slightly, and said two syllables, which Noah knew were directed at him. Then one of the kid's friends called him-- and the spell was abruptly broken, the kid was a kid again, and absolutely no threat.
Briefly, very briefly, Noah entertained the thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a slight chance that Mokuba was telling the truth.
Briefly, very briefly, he felt the edge of panic.
(What the hell have I gotten myself into?!)
Mokuba saw this, and suddenly, he got something. An idea popped into his head, unreasoned, without any words explaining it except these: "And somewhere, in the shadows behind them--who?"
Slowly, Mokuba started to reason it out.
"He's not smart enough to come up with such a stupid plan," were the next words that came into his head.
That confused him for a second, until he remembered something else, which was probably how he had come up with this in the first place.
(That book, one of the ones I was thinking about earlier, with the brick thing. The planet Krikkit... They were all manipulated into trying to destroy the universe. A whole lot of really unlikely events... And...)
He remembered a passage of the book--
"You expect me to believe that you are bright enough to invent something that brilliant and be too dumb to realize that it would take you with it as well? That's not just stupid, that is spectacularly obtuse."
(He couldn't have come up with this plan,) Mokuba thought. (He would've thought it out better. I mean, there are certain things you'd have to think about if you came up with this sort of plan, and he hasn't thought about one. Like, why Duel Monsters? He'd have to know that Seto was great at it... How could he do this without knowing that Seto's great at this, and Yugi Moto is better?)
(It's like in the book; someone's feeding him information for their own benefit. He can't be this good at programming and Duel Monsters and be too stupid to recognise that this is a spectacularly stupid plan. This plan can't help him at all. It's completely doomed to failure.)
(So whom is it designed to help?)
Mokuba looked at Noah, who was trying to pull himself together, and knew that he was right.
(Pegasus was manipulated, too, Jacob said. By that guy who gave him the Millenium Eye. Yeah, that was a damn stupid thing to do, give the mentally unstable guy an evil magic eye. No way he wouldn't know it'd make Peggy more unstable.)
(Could he even really have brought that girl back?) Mokuba thought suddenly. (If he'd done whatever he was doing...)
(He was trying to take over the company! And we don't do ressurection! No, no, no. Same thing with Peggy. Not smart enough to come up with such a stupid plan.)
(And this Marik guy? Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised. People who try to beat Yugi have this really pronounced tendency to get their butts kicked.)
(People who try to beat Yugi...) Mokuba froze.
Noah, who had just shakily said something meant to affect Mokuba, was very buoyed by this fact, unaware that Mokuba didn't even know he'd said anything at all.
(Seto,) Mokuba thought. (Seto.)
(That thing with testing the card without the safeties-- that didn't do him any good. Couldn't have. It was completely pointless, and all it did-- was help convince me that he's crazy. Like this vendetta against Yugi. A lot of times-- with a lot of things-- I don't think even he knows what he's doing--)
(Oh my God.) Mokuba felt sick. (Oh my God.)
(Something's manipulating Seto.)
Mokuba started shaking. (Oh, no. Hell no.)
Noah was talking, something about some sort of satellite. Mokuba didn't care.
(Seto...)
(I can't let them do this to him. I will not let this happen! Whatever they want, they can go-- I don't know, die in some gruesome and really painful way or something, but THEY AREN'T GETTING WHAT THEY WANT!)
(They aren't playing with my big brother, dammit! This will end, and they will pay! Whoever they are, hell with them! You can't play with my big brother!)
Mokuba stared into the flames, filled with fury.
(-)
17.
Spoilers: Same as above.
(-)
/How did I not know Joey could drive?/
/It never came up./
/Still. How'd he learn, anyway?/
/I wouldn't know./
/Weird.../
/What are we doing, anyway?/
/Chasing after Kaiba./
/Why?/
/Nowhere else to go. Unless we look for Tristan, and he's likely to be where Noah is, isn't he?/
/Um, no, not really./
/Er.../
/Yugi. Why really aren't we looking for Tristan?/
/'Cause we've got to make sure Kaiba turns out okay, because our lives'll be a lot harder if he doesn't. And also.../
/Yes?/
/I've got this crazy feeling... that we already found him./
/What??/
/It's absolutely crazy, I know, but--/
/Yugi. Lesson One. NONE of your feelings are crazy!/
/How could he be with us, though? Unless he's the truck, or a bug, or--/
/Or that very helpful little monkey?/
/No way./
/No way? Yugi, have you been paying attention at all? He helps us, understands what we're saying, and jumps into Serenity's arms./
/Well, yeah, he understands what we're saying, but.../
/Why not? Is there anything it's done that's not consistent with it being Tristan, trapped inside a robot monkey?/
/Wouldn't Tristan have tried to talk, or write on the ground, or something?/
/Yes, you'd think so, but it is Tristan.../
/Yami!!/
Yami sighed to himself. /I'm sorry./
Yugi paused. Something in the way he'd said-- thought that made it seem that he was apologising for far more than slighting Tristan. /Yami, what is it?/
/We should never have let them come./
/Here? We didn't have much of a choice./
/Any of this. We shouldn't have let them come. Kaiba's tournament, Pegasus's tournament.../
/They wouldn't ever have stayed away./
/Then we should have made them. Yugi, the stakes are getting higher./
/Yeah... I know./
/And there's a point at which we'll have to make them stay away. Maybe we've already passed it./
/Yami--/
/Look at Mai, look at Tristan, look at what's happened to them. We're going to have to fix this, and then we're going to have to make sure they stay out of the next round./
/How could we do that? Knock them unconscious? Pretend we hate them?/
/Yes./
/We can't do that!/
/We have to! They've been involved in too much already./
/That's not our fault./
/It is. They're trying to use our friends against us, and there's no way to stop them./
/You're not saying.../
/A time is going to come, Yugi, when we'll have to drive them away for their own good./
/No./
/I can't let anyone else get hurt just bacause they want me!/
/...Including me, right?/
/I.../
/Including me. Don't you get it, Yami? There are some people you can't drive away./
/I'm sure as hell going to try./
/You can't buy me out of this, Yami. I'm as much a part of it as you are./
/We don't know that./
/I do. I don't know what you are, or what I am, or why they want you, but I'm in this way too deep. You're never getting rid of me, Yami. Try if you want, but it'll never work./
/.../ Yugi was right. This did not in any way make Yami feel better.
Yugi realized why. /It's a heck of a responsibility./
/Yes./
/You can do it, Yami. We can do it./
And Yami knew there was no way to get rid of him, even if they both tried, which they wouldn't. It was too late, they were too far gone.
/Why, why, why do they all want us?.../
/This one wants Kaiba./
/Doesn't matter./
/No.../
/None of this really matters.../
Yami knew that this Noah child was watching them. Wearily, he glanced with Yugi across the sky. There-- that was where Noah was taking his view from. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Well, he could do one thing. He glared up at the sky-- then closed his eyes and shook his head a bit.
"Dumb," he muttered wearily to himself, and looked away.
(-)
14.
Spoilers: Um, actually, just the very beginning of Noah's arc.
Notes: No, I have no canonical basis for Mokuba's engineer friends. They just happened, when I was fustrated with the dub's logical fallacies and happened to read a Dilbert strip. It went something like, "So then the new CEO tied us up and stole our wallets." "Wow, what did the board of directors do?" "After they finished loading up the van?" It sounding like something that Pegasus would have done after he got control of KaibaCorp, so I decided he did, and it kind of spun out of control from there.
(-)
"You know, maybe if you'd been a little more tactful, none of this would have happened."
"Mokuba!"
"I'm serious!"
"I don't need this right now!"
"Neither does anybody else, but we're all here, huh?!"
"Tact, which, by the way, I do have, would not have changed a thing."
"Guess we'll never know."
"I used tact."
"You did not."
"You weren't there."
"I was, but I didn't have to be."
"Why not?"
"You never use tact anywhere else, why with these lunatics?"
"Mokuba!"
"I'm not shutting up, Seto!"
"This is what he wants!"
"It's what I want too!!"
Kaiba blinked, and Mokuba was perversely happy.
"Not the psychos and the duels and everything, but this? Talking? I want that. Desert thing sucks too, but the talking? Hell yeah."
"Since when do I not use tact?"
"Since, uh, ever? Especially since Kaiba. But never."
"Really."
"Yep."
"Then how does anything get done in my company?"
"Your private PR firm."
"We don't have a private PR firm."
"Yeah you do. Three of 'em, and they work real well together."
"Three firms? I think I'd know if I hired--"
"No, three people."
"Really."
"When you hand down an order, it almost always has to go through Gamma at some point."
"Who?"
"What, you changed the code names again?!"
"That name's from-- five years ago, at least!"
"The engineers, then!"
"Right. I suppose they do, yes."
"More specifically, the departments wind up getting their instructions from Kiseki Yumiko, Daidouji Renami, and Jacob Davenport."
"The lunatic?"
"Don't call Yumi a lunatic. She kind of is, but you don't get to call her that."
"Since when are you on first-name terms with that woman?"
Mokuba laughed. "Since two weeks after you became CEO."
"...Oh."
"It works like this: Renami tells everyone what has to be done, Yumi tells them how they're going to do it, and Jacob weighs in whenever he needs to and adds credibility."
"How does that slacker add credibility?"
"'Cos he never lies. Ever. They can ask him, 'Is this project ever going to get past beta?' and if it won't, he'll say, 'Yeah, maybe when they start ice-skating in the third circle.' If it will, he'll say 'Yeah, they're making a big deal out of it, and it's not gonna fall apart or something. I hope.' If he doesn't know, he'll say 'Hell if I know, but why do we do anything around here with what they pay us?' He's a pessimist, he's sarcastic to the point where you occasionally want to smack him, but he just doesn't lie."
"Really."
"Yeah, he's got no ambition and he knows you won't notice what he says, and even if you did notice, he wouldn't care."
"Why don't I notice?"
"'Cos your head's stuck too far u--"
"MOKUBA!"
"That's what he'd say, and he's right. That's why I put up with his sarcasm, because he never lies, he's really a good person and he's right a really scary amount of the time."
"Is he."
"Yes, he is."
"Yeah. Sure."
"Seto, it's three p.m. Do you know where your company is?"
"...What?"
"Do you have any idea who's running the company right now?"
"The board of directors."
"They're wusses and they hate us. They're trying to ignore this tournament, and even when they do get word we're missing, they've seen too many hostile takeovers fail to try one themselves. They aren't going to do anything at all. The whole company will stall."
"And you know this how?"
"Firm of Kiseki, Davenport & Daidouji, reluctant experts in office politics."
"Because I know I never told you."
"Which is why I had to learn from them. The Board isn't doing a damn thing, I'll bet you twenty dollars here and now."
"Then who is?"
"My friends there."
"No. They are not."
"Nobody else knows what to do, or is stupid enough to take the responsibility, or would be listened to if they tried."
"Those idiots are running my company?!"
"They're the best engineers in the country, Seto. I really don't think they're idiots."
"You're young."
"So are you."
"No, I'm not."
"Actually, you are."
Seto said nothing. Mokuba didn't.
"They're running KaibaCorp, and they're doing a damn good job, even though they're wondering why they're doing it and if we're coming back and when you're gonna go off the deep end and try to take over the world."
"When I'm WHAT?"
"Going to go off the deep end and try to take over the world," he repeated resolutely.
"They think I'm--? Oh my God, and they're running the company??"
"Don't worry, they know too much about the job to try and take it off your hands until you actually do."
"They think I'm going to try to take over the world, and they're talking to-- to people?!"
"Yep, 'cause you aren't there."
"Oh, great."
"They're not the only ones who think that, you know," Mokuba said carefully.
"What? Who else?"
"The entire company... Yugi... Yugi's friends... and me."
"...--You?!"
"Yes. Me."
"You think-- you think I'm going to try to take over the world?!?!"
"Yes, Seto, I do."
"What-- where the hell did you get that idea?!"
"When you almost hit me after I touched your deck of Duel Monsters cards. When you nearly gave an old man a heart attack just for a stupid card you didn't want him to have. When--"
"Mokuba--"
"--we came back from the island," Mokuba continued, only faltering for a second, "and you had that meeting with all the 'disloyalty will not be tolerated' and the 'we won't have any competitors in two years' talk. When you--"
"Mokuba--"
"--made a virtual video game even when everyone you asked said it was one of the stupidest ideas they had ever heard. When you found the people who tried to take over the company. When you canceled all your meetings when you saw that Yugi was in a duel on TV. When you came home--"
"Mokuba!"
Mokuba ignored him, building up steam. "--from an innocent trip to the museum holding a damn Duel Monsters card in your hand and cackling to yourself, when you tested it out without using the safeties, when you arranged a tournament that looks a hell of a lot like Peggy's--"
"Mokuba, listen to me, you--!"
"When you started caring more about winning than you care about me!!"
Silence, except for the blood pounding in Mokuba's ears and the sound of his own deep breaths. There, he'd said it. He'd said it and he wasn't taking it back.
"I don't care more about winning--"
"Yes you do."
"I don't!"
"You do. Seto. You do."
Seto Kaiba, confused, looked into his brother's eyes. Mokuba apparently believed this. Didn't he see that all of this was for him? Dammit, teenagers!
"I do not," he said, in a low tone that killed all argument.
(It isn't for me, Seto, it isn't and it never will be, but I guess it could have been once.)
"This isn't the time or the place, Mokuba. Let's go."
(His answer to everything.)
Silently, Mokuba followed.
15.
Spoilers: If you haven't had to wonder exactly how and when a 3-5,000-year-old card game got a card so obviously based on Jeanne d'Arc... You might want to skip this.
Notes: Sorry. The end of the episode posed a loose end, and these people exist only to tie up loose ends, so...
(-)
"Jerk."
"Renami--"
"You weren't here yesterday!!" She glared at him.
He glared right back. "For the last time, it was my day off, and I don't get very many of those!!"
"So you run out on me on the day Captain Rational is driving his flock of schoolchildren out on a field trip to the Church of Divine Retribution?!"
"...You're referring to the tournament, right?"
"As politely as I can."
"Captain Rational and the schoolchildren I got, but the Church of Divine Retribution?" he asked, bemused.
"Where the old geezer ran off."
"Ah."
"And you ran out on me!"
He snorted. "Heaven's sake, Renna, we're not Mokuba's bodyguards."
"No, but we're about as close as he's got."
"Uh, that really sucks for him, then."
"Shuddup."
Jacob sighed and pushed his black hair out of his eyes. "So what happened?"
"Just 'cos I'm mad you ran out on us doesn't mean something happened."
"No, the fact that Kaiba, Yugi, and Megalomaniac-of-the-Week are going out to play Duel Monsters means something happened," he explained sweetly.
"If you knew something was going to happen, why the hell did you leave?!"
"Because it was my off day."
She groaned and hit her head against the wall.
"Hey Jacob!" Kiseki Yumiko, a woman who was way too old to wear pigtails but did so anyway, poked her head around the doorway, beaming.
"Hey, Yumi. What went wrong now?"
"Uh, lessee. First, the blimp got hijacked." She smiled lopsidedly.
"WHAT??"
"Not by armed people or anythin', by computer."
"Oh. That's so much better," Jacob said, dripping with sarcasm.
"Shuddup, Jacob," Renami said, her head still against the wall.
"An' then they sucked everyone on the ship into a virtual world."
"Oh s--"
"And that's where they all are right now."
"Doing what?"
"You have to ask?" Renami asked, bemused.
"Uh... Wild guess... Dueling."
"Give the man a cigar."
"Don't smoke."
"Yeaah." Renami cut to the chase. "Some kid wants to take over the company."
"Hell and damnnation!" he muttered.
"Greenish hair, calls himself Noah. May or may not be his name. Don't really care."
"Typical?"
Renami cocked her head thoughtfully. "Little less feminine than usual, actually."
"Huh. That's a switch."
"But he makes up for it with the stupidity."
"Oh good, tell me more."
She grinned. "You will never guess who he recruited to duel 'em."
"Uh... the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"
"No, he wasn't that smart."
"Wow. Who'd make a worse choice than the Ninja Turtles?"
"Remember those guys who tried to take over with Peggy?"
"No. Not them. No way."
"Disembodied spirits who want bodies." She grinned again; it really was funny, which was a nice change.
"He recruited them?!"
"And they're calling themselves the Big Five."
"And that didn't tip the kid off?!"
"This one isn't just stupid, he's damn stupid. Think about it. He dragged Kaiba to a virtual world to make him play Duel Monsters. C'mon, is there anything he's better at??"
Jacob shook his head. "And he wants the company."
"Yeah."
"...Oh my God," Jacob said, wide-eyed. "That... that's so stupid as to defy description!!"
She shrugged. "Maybe he just hired really cheap private investigators."
"What the hell was he thinking?! My God!!"
Renami blinked. "...This is more than the standard 'his plan is so damn stupid' thing, isn't it."
"Hell yeah! What was he thinking?! There's a better plan right in front of him!!"
"Like what?"
"Take over the company legally!!"
Renami blinked rapidly. "Whoa, what about that clause that says only a Kaiba--"
"I've told you a million times, that can't be true! That'd be so illegal it'd--"
"Yeah, yeah, I heard. But they think--"
"Even so. How much persuading do you think it'd take??"
"..." It slowly started to dawn on her. "One case of cheap wine, five fruit baskets, and twenty bucks, and that's if they got stubborn."
"No, that's if the board of directors refused and he had to get the shareholders to replace 'em." Jacob snorted. "It wouldn't take much. He could've done it covert, and he'd be CEO by now."
"Kaiba would've noticed..." she said slowly.
"And if Mokuba did too?"
"Which he would, if Kaiba did..." Yumi said thoughtfully.
"You know what he'd do, better than anyone," Jacob said.
"He'd try to talk Kaiba into it..."
"And even if he didn't, the kid would probably win," Jacob said.
"And if he did, the Kaiba brothers would retire on a nice fat pension and we'd all live happily ever after," Yumiko added.
"Except us, who'd be saddled with the kid, and Yugi-san, who still has his megalomaniacs, but that's beside the point..." She shook her head slowly. "Oh my God. That would work. That would work beyond a shadow of a doubt."
"Yeah, thanks a lot, kid." Jacob snorted. "Coulda solved most of our problems, but he's too damn stupid..."
"He might have some sort of reason..."
"So did Pegasus. He'll have a reason, no doubt, but it'll suck." Jacob rolled his eyes.
Renami sighed. "So, that's where we are. We can't hack into the system 'cause Noah had a lot of time on his hands."
"I think he hired Marah," Yumiko said thoughtfully.
"Really?"
"It'd be a bit smart for him, but the security's got her fingerprints all over it, and she's whimsical enough..."
"Whimsical?" Jacob asked.
"Yeah, she'd think of it as paying me'n'Sera back for... couple of favors a few years back. She's a nutcase." Yumiko giggled.
Renami and Jacob looked at each other, wondering exactly how strange a person would have to be to induce Yumiko of the boundless giddy energy to call them 'nutcase' and 'whimsical'.
"She wants revenge on you?" Jacob asked skeptically.
"No, she owes us a couple favors. I figure Noah asked her on board, she saw how damn stupid he was, and she figured she'd do us a favor by making sure he didn't come up with anything smarter. Yeah, Marah's crazy that way."
Jacob and Renami looked at each other again, unnerved.
"Still made the security a wench, though. Probably she figured it's not in our best interest to foil this Noah's plan, he might come up with something less abmysally stupid. So we can't help anything that direction."
"So what can we do?"
"Nothing," Renami answered, throwing her hands up. "Not a damn thing. That's what's so fustrating! All we can do is keep the company running and hope they don't get their butts kicked. And watch over the bodies."
"Uh... What bodies?"
"I told you, the idiot sucked them into a VR world. While their minds are in there..." She gestured in the direction of the room their corporeal forms were still in.
"Weird."
"Yeah, like I told you, the 'Big Five' are trying to duel them and take over their bodies."
"And if they do?"
A red light on the wall started to flash.
"If they do," Renami explained, deadpan, "there'll be an alarm so that we can go stop them before they get out."
"And that's the alarm."
"Brilliant work, Holmes." Renami grabbed his arm, and started running toward the room.
She skidded to a stop outside the door, causing the off-balance Jacob to keep running, trip, and roll headlong further down the corridor.
He got up, rubbing his head, and went to stand by her, glaring.
"Taylor kid's up," she said, not having seen his gymnastic display.
"Think it could be him?"
Tristan's body looked around and started to laugh insanely.
"No, don't think so," she said, and grabbed a weapon from a holster by the door.
"FREEZE!!" she yelled, kicking open the door.
"Tristan" obeyed, startled.
"Whoa," Jacob commented, nearly as surprised. "What's with the Charlie's Angels thing? Not that it wasn't cool, 'cause it was damn cool, but there were three of Charlie's Angels and I don't think I'm cut out for the job."
"Shuddup," Renami said. "So. Which one are you?"
'Tristan" looked startled, then sneered. "Oh, it's you. Little miss 4-point-oh with the naiveté and the goody-two-shoes attitude."
"Oh, it's Nesbitt," Jacob said, disgusted. "Figures it'd be you. Better than the psycho penguin guy, though. The hell'd you manage to win anything?"
"If you know what's good for you, kid, you'll get out of my way." He stepped forward threateningly.
"Na-ah-ah-ah-ah!" Renami waved her gun. "You want to find out what kind of gun this is?"
"Stun gun, B-47 model," Nesbitt said.
"...Ah yeah, you would know, wouldn't you." She laughed nervously.
"Doesn't change anything. Sit, wench," Jacob commanded.
"All right, I'll just--" Lightning-fast, Nesbitt leapt at Jacob.
"Yah!" Renami swung the gun at him at him and pulled the trigger.
Nesbitt screamed as something that wasn't quite electricity poured through him. He staggered back to the bed, eyes wide.
"What--thehell?" he managed, breathing heavily.
"It used to be a B-47," Renami said calmly, eyes flashing. "But I... fiddled with it a little. That was a mild setting. Unless you want to see what happens when it's set on you full blast, I'd stay still. That all right?"
Without waiting for any sort of answer, she glanced down at Jacob. "You're okay, right?"
"Yeah... really touched by your concern..." he said, glaring at her from the floor.
"Is that a yes?"
"Got a concussion, but I already had one, so I think maybe they'll cancel out. You think?" He got up, groaning. "The hell'd you come at me for, wench?"
"You're the weakest," Nesbitt answered simply.
Jacob's mouth dropped open.
"Yeah, well, you try that again and it won't be pretty. Even I'm not sure what this thing'll do." She glared at him.
"I-- I may be weak, but at least I'm not stupid!" Jacob yelled.
"Oh really? Good for you. I would never have guessed," Nesbitt said dryly.
Jacob glared at him.
Yumiko, who had just arrived, turned around. "Hurry up!" she yelled behind her. "He called Jacob's hand!"
"What?!" Jacob whirled around.
"It's a good hand, that's why it's gonna be fun," Yumiko explained quickly.
"Riight." Jacob turned back around. "So you think I'm stupid?"
"Yes."
"Oh really." Jacob glared at him. "So, as I recall, you said you turned against Kaiba because you wanted to keep building military equipment, and he was turning KaibaCorp into a game company."
"He was subverting everything we stood for!"
"So, yes. And because he blew up your plant?"
"Yes."
"So, when Seto Kaiba walks up to you and tells you 'This is how the company's gonna be now, take it or leave it'-- why the hell don't you leave it?"
"I don't have time for this," Nesbitt said angrily.
"Think about it a second. Why the hell didn't you just quit?"
"You are irritating me, child..."
"There are other defense contractors. You don't have any sort of binding contract. The terms of it expired when old Kaiba did, and you didn't have a new one at that point. In fact, Seto Kaiba would've probably been glad to be rid of you. You could have left at any time!"
"..."
"And leaving would have been the smartest thing you ever did. You'd keep doing what you loved, and you'd get highly paid for KaibaCorp's secrets! Seto Kaiba wouldn't care if you took the patents with you; he probably still doesn't even know they exist! What kind of idiot are you?!"
Nesbitt looked startled. "I..."
"And another thing!" Jacob cried, not nearly done. "Why were you on Pegasus's side? Did you think he'd go into defense contracting?? His company was even more involved in Duel Monsters than ours!! The only thing that would have changed was that your boss would be a dangerous, unpredictable lunatic! He wasn't even trustworthy, even setting aside the fact that he was your worst nightmare!"
Nesbitt looked even more startled. The junior engineers that had gathered behind Yumiko looked stunned.
"And why the hell did you join up with those guys?"
"They--"
"The one guy's obsessed with penguins! Penguins, for god's sake! The other won't stop yammering about his damn lemonade stand! And the other guy-- the other guy's a lawyer! A corporate lawyer! For KaibaCorp!! Is there anything about him that DOESN'T scream 'untrustworthy'?!?!"
"They're good people!" Nesbitt defended.
"They're lunatics!! And finally, what were you thinking?! Joining up with the Noah kid, who's too stupid for words?!"
"He--"
"He's trying to beat Seto Kaiba in a VIDEO GAME!!!" Jacob yelled.
Nesbitt sat there, stunned, the point hitting home.
"Virtual reality is the ONLY type of reality that Seto Kaiba can adaquately deal with!" Jacob yelled. "How stupid do you get?!"
Nesbitt said nothing, getting Jacob's point.
"And on top of that, you drag Yugi Moto and his friends along. Yugi Moto! The only person in the world who's better than Kaiba at this! You saw what Pegasus could do. You saw how Yugi beat him. You honestly think you're gonna keep that body long?"
Nesbitt opened his mouth, then shut it, looking troubled.
Jacob was silent for a moment, calm. "This," he said finally, "is why the Taylor kid has no need to worry. This is why none of them do. You're a moron, and you're still probably smarter than the rest of these imbeciles." He shook his head.
"Enjoy being alive again," he said. "You won't be here very long." He turned and walked away, pushing through the crowd.
Renami looked after him, smiling fondly.
"See?" she said softly. "You don't play with my Jacob. Not if you're smart."
She walked outside and barred the door.
"Tsukino, Adamson, guard the door," she said, handing one a gun and gesturing at the other. "I don't think he'll give you any trouble for a while. Call if he does."
She walked away, looking for Jacob.
Yumi grinned at her disciples. "Y'see?" she said proudly. "I told you it'd be good."
There was a flash from inside the room, and Yumiko whirled around.
"Huh, he is the smartest of the bunch," she murmered. "Rena!"
Renami, just barely still within hearing range, turned around. "What?"
"Nesbitt went back into the virtual world!"
"Really?" Renami blinked.
"Yeah, we're that damn good." Yumiko chuckled. "He knows he can't do anythin' good on this end..."
Renami grinned. "Okay then, but we still need the guard. Just in case."
Yumiko nodded at the two designated guards. "And that is why we do this. 'Cos we can," she told her disciples. "C'mon, back to work..."
The junior engineers slowly filtered back to their posts.
16.
Spoilers: Um... If you can't answer the question "Does Joey know how to drive?", then you're too early.
Notes:
This piece owes quite a lot to the brilliant works of Douglas Adams, which are, needless to say, the books Mokuba references. I do as well; though I've always thought that there's someone behind all this, it hadn't occured to me that Noah wasn't an outside part of the proceedings. Almost makes you feel sorry for the kid. But, not quite.
(-)
"You really still think your 'big brother' is going to rescue you?"
Mokuba rolled his eyes, ignoring that the remark kind of hit home.
"Because, he's tied up at the moment..." Noah smirked.
"Oh, please," Mokuba snapped. "Shut up, you moron. Brighter bulbs than you have tried to take over the company, with better plans."
"Really." Noah kept smirking.
(The kind of smile that makes you want to hit it with a brick,) Mokuba thought angrily.
"Why are you so certain that my plan is flawed?"
"Because." Mokuba looked at him pityingly. "You're trying to beat my brother in a virtual game. And virtual games are what my big brother does best."
"Ah, yes." Noah smirked.
"But that's not all," Mokuba said.
"Oh really? What else, then?"
Mokuba stared at him, wondering how the hell anyone who could create such a technologically advanced virtual world could be so obtuse. "Because. You brought along the best duelist in the world."
"Your brother?"
"Uh, no..."
Noah looked startled. "Oh, really? Who, then?"
"You really don't know."
"What sort of game are you playing?!"
"Yugi Moto!" Mokuba cried, honestly confused.
Noah stared at him for a second, then started laughing. "The pointy-haired kid?!"
"Yes, the pointy-haired kid!" Mokuba cried, incredulous. "Not only did he beat Seto, but he also beat the only other guy who ever beat Seto! How the hell do you not know this?!"
"You're lying."
"No, I'm not!" Mokuba stared at him.
"Y-you're just trying to stall me because you think your big brother will rescue you."
Mokuba snorted. "He really will, 'cos he thinks he cares about me, at least. And also he's really good at this. And the pointy-haired kid? How the hell did you miss this? Even if you only researched me and Seto, his name would've come up."
Noah looked very slightly uncertain, and switched the view on the screen to Yugi and his gang, riding down the highway in a big, old pickup truck.
"See?" Noah said arrogantly. "They're all bumblers."
"See?" Mokuba said, and pointed at the screen.
Noah looked more closely. The pointy-haired kid... was looking away, eyes unfocused, in an extremely unnerving manner. It was almost as if...
"So he's crazy," Noah said, trying to sound more confident than he was and succeeding. "So?"
"Little closer," Mokuba said.
So Noah looked. The pointy-haired kid cocked his head slightly. Then he turned his head, and--
Noah actually stepped backwards. The pointy-haired kid was looking at him-- right at him-- even though it was on a screen, Noah knew that the kid saw right through it, was actually looking at him, with those eyes suddenly red.
"See?" Mokuba said again, quietly.
The pointy-haired... un-kid on the screen closed his eyes, shook his head slightly, and said two syllables, which Noah knew were directed at him. Then one of the kid's friends called him-- and the spell was abruptly broken, the kid was a kid again, and absolutely no threat.
Briefly, very briefly, Noah entertained the thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a slight chance that Mokuba was telling the truth.
Briefly, very briefly, he felt the edge of panic.
(What the hell have I gotten myself into?!)
Mokuba saw this, and suddenly, he got something. An idea popped into his head, unreasoned, without any words explaining it except these: "And somewhere, in the shadows behind them--who?"
Slowly, Mokuba started to reason it out.
"He's not smart enough to come up with such a stupid plan," were the next words that came into his head.
That confused him for a second, until he remembered something else, which was probably how he had come up with this in the first place.
(That book, one of the ones I was thinking about earlier, with the brick thing. The planet Krikkit... They were all manipulated into trying to destroy the universe. A whole lot of really unlikely events... And...)
He remembered a passage of the book--
"You expect me to believe that you are bright enough to invent something that brilliant and be too dumb to realize that it would take you with it as well? That's not just stupid, that is spectacularly obtuse."
(He couldn't have come up with this plan,) Mokuba thought. (He would've thought it out better. I mean, there are certain things you'd have to think about if you came up with this sort of plan, and he hasn't thought about one. Like, why Duel Monsters? He'd have to know that Seto was great at it... How could he do this without knowing that Seto's great at this, and Yugi Moto is better?)
(It's like in the book; someone's feeding him information for their own benefit. He can't be this good at programming and Duel Monsters and be too stupid to recognise that this is a spectacularly stupid plan. This plan can't help him at all. It's completely doomed to failure.)
(So whom is it designed to help?)
Mokuba looked at Noah, who was trying to pull himself together, and knew that he was right.
(Pegasus was manipulated, too, Jacob said. By that guy who gave him the Millenium Eye. Yeah, that was a damn stupid thing to do, give the mentally unstable guy an evil magic eye. No way he wouldn't know it'd make Peggy more unstable.)
(Could he even really have brought that girl back?) Mokuba thought suddenly. (If he'd done whatever he was doing...)
(He was trying to take over the company! And we don't do ressurection! No, no, no. Same thing with Peggy. Not smart enough to come up with such a stupid plan.)
(And this Marik guy? Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised. People who try to beat Yugi have this really pronounced tendency to get their butts kicked.)
(People who try to beat Yugi...) Mokuba froze.
Noah, who had just shakily said something meant to affect Mokuba, was very buoyed by this fact, unaware that Mokuba didn't even know he'd said anything at all.
(Seto,) Mokuba thought. (Seto.)
(That thing with testing the card without the safeties-- that didn't do him any good. Couldn't have. It was completely pointless, and all it did-- was help convince me that he's crazy. Like this vendetta against Yugi. A lot of times-- with a lot of things-- I don't think even he knows what he's doing--)
(Oh my God.) Mokuba felt sick. (Oh my God.)
(Something's manipulating Seto.)
Mokuba started shaking. (Oh, no. Hell no.)
Noah was talking, something about some sort of satellite. Mokuba didn't care.
(Seto...)
(I can't let them do this to him. I will not let this happen! Whatever they want, they can go-- I don't know, die in some gruesome and really painful way or something, but THEY AREN'T GETTING WHAT THEY WANT!)
(They aren't playing with my big brother, dammit! This will end, and they will pay! Whoever they are, hell with them! You can't play with my big brother!)
Mokuba stared into the flames, filled with fury.
(-)
17.
Spoilers: Same as above.
(-)
/How did I not know Joey could drive?/
/It never came up./
/Still. How'd he learn, anyway?/
/I wouldn't know./
/Weird.../
/What are we doing, anyway?/
/Chasing after Kaiba./
/Why?/
/Nowhere else to go. Unless we look for Tristan, and he's likely to be where Noah is, isn't he?/
/Um, no, not really./
/Er.../
/Yugi. Why really aren't we looking for Tristan?/
/'Cause we've got to make sure Kaiba turns out okay, because our lives'll be a lot harder if he doesn't. And also.../
/Yes?/
/I've got this crazy feeling... that we already found him./
/What??/
/It's absolutely crazy, I know, but--/
/Yugi. Lesson One. NONE of your feelings are crazy!/
/How could he be with us, though? Unless he's the truck, or a bug, or--/
/Or that very helpful little monkey?/
/No way./
/No way? Yugi, have you been paying attention at all? He helps us, understands what we're saying, and jumps into Serenity's arms./
/Well, yeah, he understands what we're saying, but.../
/Why not? Is there anything it's done that's not consistent with it being Tristan, trapped inside a robot monkey?/
/Wouldn't Tristan have tried to talk, or write on the ground, or something?/
/Yes, you'd think so, but it is Tristan.../
/Yami!!/
Yami sighed to himself. /I'm sorry./
Yugi paused. Something in the way he'd said-- thought that made it seem that he was apologising for far more than slighting Tristan. /Yami, what is it?/
/We should never have let them come./
/Here? We didn't have much of a choice./
/Any of this. We shouldn't have let them come. Kaiba's tournament, Pegasus's tournament.../
/They wouldn't ever have stayed away./
/Then we should have made them. Yugi, the stakes are getting higher./
/Yeah... I know./
/And there's a point at which we'll have to make them stay away. Maybe we've already passed it./
/Yami--/
/Look at Mai, look at Tristan, look at what's happened to them. We're going to have to fix this, and then we're going to have to make sure they stay out of the next round./
/How could we do that? Knock them unconscious? Pretend we hate them?/
/Yes./
/We can't do that!/
/We have to! They've been involved in too much already./
/That's not our fault./
/It is. They're trying to use our friends against us, and there's no way to stop them./
/You're not saying.../
/A time is going to come, Yugi, when we'll have to drive them away for their own good./
/No./
/I can't let anyone else get hurt just bacause they want me!/
/...Including me, right?/
/I.../
/Including me. Don't you get it, Yami? There are some people you can't drive away./
/I'm sure as hell going to try./
/You can't buy me out of this, Yami. I'm as much a part of it as you are./
/We don't know that./
/I do. I don't know what you are, or what I am, or why they want you, but I'm in this way too deep. You're never getting rid of me, Yami. Try if you want, but it'll never work./
/.../ Yugi was right. This did not in any way make Yami feel better.
Yugi realized why. /It's a heck of a responsibility./
/Yes./
/You can do it, Yami. We can do it./
And Yami knew there was no way to get rid of him, even if they both tried, which they wouldn't. It was too late, they were too far gone.
/Why, why, why do they all want us?.../
/This one wants Kaiba./
/Doesn't matter./
/No.../
/None of this really matters.../
Yami knew that this Noah child was watching them. Wearily, he glanced with Yugi across the sky. There-- that was where Noah was taking his view from. And he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Well, he could do one thing. He glared up at the sky-- then closed his eyes and shook his head a bit.
"Dumb," he muttered wearily to himself, and looked away.
(-)