A/N – This is it folks! Last chapter! For those who are confused you won't be after this chapter. :)
In one hand Seto held the reins of Critias as he led the large, black stallion through the cavern. In his other hand, Seto gripped Yami's hand as the spiky haired prince showed him the way to the Rebels secret underground village.
As they walked, the pair discussed various things including coming up with a strategy to bring down the Emperor. Keeping themselves busy with their conversation, it wasn't long before they were back at the Rebels base. At the entrance to the place, they were met by Jiichan.
"Murderer!" Jiichan hissed upon seeing Seto.
"Jiichan, it's not like that," Yami told him with a firm look on his face. "Seto didn't kill Mother. Those were just lies of Bakura. He's here to offer his help to stop his adopted father."
"I don't like this one bit," Jiichan sternly replied with a glare at the Dark Prince. "But I'll go along with whatever you say."
Yami gave the old man a nod of his head of approval. Seto meanwhile glared back at Jiichan. "Where is Mokuba?" he demanded to know.
With another glare at the Dark Prince, Jiichan turned around and silently led them into his home where Yugi, Otogi, Shizuka, Honda and Jounouchi were gathered. Upon seeing Seto, Jounouchi bared his teeth and started to lunge at the tall brunet but Yugi held him back by pouncing on the dog. Honda also normally would have tried to attack Seto but at the moment he was contently in Shizuka's arms who was holding and rocking him as if he was a baby. Neither Shizuka nor Honda noticed the angry look Otogi was giving them.
"Where's Mokuba?" Seto demanded once again.
"Sleeping!" Yugi cried as he continued to wrestle with the large shaggy dog. "He was extremely tired!"
"Good," Seto replied satisfied that Mokuba was okay. He then smirked down at Jounouchi. "Hello Bonkotsu. That look suits you."
"Seto…" Yami warmed as Jounouchi tried lunging at him once again.
"What?" Seto asked giving his lover an innocent look. Yami in return just shook his head at his lover before turning back to the others.
"Seto is here to help," he told them. "He has informed me that at this minute, even as we speak, Draak forces are marching towards us."
"I was set to join up with the main force by now," Seto explained. "When we fled the castle our scouts were close to finalizing the location of this place. Since Mokuba and I were able to find this place easily enough there is no doubt in my mind that this location will be known by now."
"That is why we need to attack now," Yami added. "According to Seto, the majority of the soldiers at Gozaburo's castle have joined with this army that is making its way here. This leaves the castle itself vulnerable to a surprise attack."
"Empty this place now," Seto advised. "Anyone who can fight will be involved on the attack against Draak Castle. The rest should retreat to a safe place."
"If we take a shorter route we will arrive at Draak Castle before their forces reach here," Yami explained. "With a little luck our own forces will be able to overthrow and kill Gozaburo before the main army realizes anything."
"There could be a problem with the commanders when that army returns," Seto added. "But the troops themselves are loyal to me. I practically grew up in the army. They know and respect me. They'll follow my orders."
"And that's it?" Otogi asked in disbelief. "You expect us to organize ourselves in mere hours to abandon this place and march to the heart of the Draak Empire?"
"It can be done," Yugi argued. "We knew right from the beginning we might have to abandon this place quickly. Pretty much everyone here knows how to handle a weapon. We can do this! I know we can!"
"We leave in an hour," Seto coolly ordered them before strolling off to find Mokuba.
"Leave everything behind except for what you'll need in battle," Yami told them. "The lighter we are, the faster we'll travel. Spread the word to the others."
The others grumbled as they began to hurry about their business. Yami then wandered off to find Seto and to spend some time with him.
"Why do I have to come along?" Bakura complained as he walked side by side with Ryou. In front of them was Mokuba riding Critias' saddle while Seto lead the horse along as he walked next to Yami. "Lets ditch them and take off somewhere safe."
"Why don't you do this…help us defeat the Empire and then seize control for yourself when the others are not paying attention?" Ryou suggested causing Bakura's eyes to light up.
"Come on! Let's get a move on it!" He yelled up to Seto and Yami. In an attempt to move them along faster, Bakura began pushing at Critias' causing the massive horse to become extremely annoyed.
Kicking his hind legs, Critias hit Bakura in the chest causing the thief to go flying in the air. Bakura landed a few feet behind, his landing cushioned by Yugi whom his fell on top of.
"I'm going to have you for dinner tonight!" Bakura angrily yelled up at the horse. Around him and Yugi, the others silently walked on, ignoring the white-haired thief.
"Why don't we end this stupid thing?" Seto suggested to Yami as they walked hand in hand while leading the Rebel troops.
"Sorry Babe but you promised," Yami reminded him. Pausing his stride slightly, Yami leaned up on his tiptoes and gave Seto a kiss on the lips.
"Get a room you two!" Yugi protested from on top of Critias. Upon Yami's insistence, after the incident with Bakura, Yugi had joined Mokuba in riding on Seto's horse. This of course led to a string of curses from Bakura who thought he should be the one allowed to ride since he hated walking and he claimed to be hurt from the kick he received.
Pulling slightly away, the two lovers continued on their way, but would shoot looks at each other every so often.
"Come on! I'm an expert with horses," Bakura protested yet again to Seto. The hick hadn't really hurt him, except for his pride, but he was trying to take advantage of the situation and it wasn't working. "Tell him Pharaoh!"
"I don't know anything."
"You'll regret that someday Pharaoh!" Bakura threatened with a growl.
"There, there, Bakura," Ryou said as he tried comforting the thief while patting his back.
'Kaiba's dead, Kaiba's dead, Kaiba's dead,' Jounouchi chanted inside his head while giving the Dark Prince an evil doggy glare. The only thing that kept him from attacking Seto again was the fact Mai was walking beside him praising him for his good behavior.
"Good boy!" Mai cooed again as she reached down to pat his head. She would do that every so often and Jounouchi was enjoying the attention.
Wagging his tail, Jounouchi looked up at Mai. But while doing that out of the corner of his eye he found Honda once again in Shizuka's arms, cuddling up to her breasts.
'Honda's dead, Honda's dead, Honda's dead.'
In a sly move, Otogi, who was walking next to Shizuka, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his body.
'Otogi's dead, Otogi's dead, Otogi's dead.'
'The Pharaoh's dead, the Pharaoh's dead, the Pharaoh's dead,' Bakura thoughts chanted for no reason whatsoever. Bakura was bored and wanted the journey over.
"The Pharaoh and the priest in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage then comes the Pharaoh with a baby carriage!"
"Bakura shut up!" Yami yelled back at the thief and it was only then Bakura realized he hand been singing out loud. But he decided to take advantage of the situation.
"I can't help it if the only way people know you're not a girl is because you haven't been knocked up yet!" Bakura taunted.
Thwack.
Once again Critias hooves came into contact with Bakura chest and once again the thief went flying through the air. Unfortunately this time he did not land on anyone.
"Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Bakura asked as he now limped along. Beside him Ryou was giving him a concerned glance. Wisely the pair had moved away from Critias and both were now walking up front with Yami and Seto.
"I thought I told you to shut up?" Yami replied.
"Since when have I ever listened to you Pharaoh? Are we bitchy because w haven't gotten any lately?"
With a hard shove from Seto, Bakura quickly found himself underneath the water of the lake they had been walking next to. Adding to Bakura's new annoyance, when he had popped his head out of the water, he ended up with a duck on top of his head.
"I'll get you for this Pharaoh," Bakura growled as he watched the others walk away. Underneath the water, against his chest an object glowed briefly before disappearing.
"No," Bakura muttered under his breath. Now was not the time for such thing as he need the Pharaoh and the priest to get him out of there.
"Are you all right?" Ryou called from shore. Grabbing a hold of Bakura's hand, he helped pulled the thief from the lake.
"I'm fine," Bakura grumbled as he sloshed along in his now wet clothes as they hurried to catch up with the others.
"Now, I remember why I lived in the desert," the still wet Bakura complained as he tried wringing out his hair.
Bakura sighed as he thought about his former home. Sometimes he missed it a lot. He had been a sexy badass back then who gave the Pharaoh nothing but trouble.
A side-glance at Ryou told the thief why it was worth it to remain away from his home. Besides his home was no longer what he remembered it to be. Ryou had told him so and showed him the pictures. But still it would be nice to visit there again once everything was done.
'Besides," Bakura though to himself as a smirk appeared on his lips. 'It'll be nice to bug Malik again.'
"We're here," Seto finally announced as he stopped at the edge of the forest. Across the plain they could see Draak Castle.
"Mokuba, I want you to stay here," Seto commanded as he lifted down his younger brother. Yugi hopped down after Mokuba and a few seconds later Seto was picking up Yami and placed him onto the horse's back before climbing up himself and sitting in front of the prince. Since they were both summoners, Seto and Yami would be leading the attack aboard Critias. The others would be on foot.
"Ready?" Seto asked as he glanced over his shoulder at Yami. The prince nodded his head so Seto kicked his heels causing Critias to begin to gallop.
Clutching tightly to Seto's waist, so that he wouldn't fall off, Yami allowed his magic to flow through him. In the sky above them, the Black Magician and Black Magician Girl formed and they flew on ahead to the castle to unleash a powerful magic attack.
As the troops left at the castle rushed forward to strike back, Seto unleashed his own ka. Three majestic White Dragons briefly appeared in the sky before transforming into the ultimate beast, the Ultimate Blue Eyes Dragon.
It's Ultimate Burst attack destroyed any advancing troops that did not dodge out of the way. Seto then had his Ultimate Dragon turn it's attack onto the castle itself, blowing a huge hold in the side of it.
While that was happening, Seto jumped off Critias and began attacking with his sword. Yami meanwhile stayed on top of the horse as he called back the Black Magician and Black Magician Girl to help Seto. But Yami and Seto were not the only ones who were fighting.
Like Seto, Mai was using her sword to attack the troops. Yugi and Jiichan used their black magic while Otogi, Anzu and Shizuka, who had finally let Honda go, pummeled the enemy with arrows.
Across the battlefield Jounouchi ran with Honda again on his back. Jounouchi would leap at a soldier biting him, while Honda would simultaneously jump onto the soldier's head and attempt to claw at the person's face. When the soldier was down and out, Honda would jump back to Jounouchi who would then race off to find a new victim.
Bakura meanwhile was slicing down soldier after solider with a dagger in each hand. Normally Bakura would enjoy shedding so much blood but not this time. Before the fighting had started Bakura had wanted to tell Ryou to stay back with Mokuba. But before he had the chance, Ryou had taken off running into the battle and now Bakura was desperately trying to find him.
"Just completely destroy the castle!" Yami yelled to Seto. The prince was on the ground now as well, using his staff to hit the troops. Sending the Black Magician, and Black Magician Girl back to the castle to help the Ultimate Blue Eyes, Yami summoned Kuribo, which began sinking his teeth into the arms of the men around him.
"Ryou get out of here! Wait with Mokuba!" Bakura ordered while grabbing Ryou's arm. Bakura had finally found his smaller boyfriend among the fighting.
"But I want to help!" Ryou protested.
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
As the two lovers argued they didn't notice that they were being surrounded by eight soldiers all armed with swords.
"Oh, shit," Bakura muttered when he saw what had happened. Looking down at his daggers, then at their swords, Bakura knew there was no way he could take them all on.
"Bakura, I'm scare!" Ryou whimpered as he tried hiding behind Bakura's back.
Feeling Ryou tremble against him Bakura knew what he had to do. Dropping the daggers to the ground, Bakura stood up straight and gave the soldiers all an innocent look. "Would you all like to see a magic trick before you mercilessly kill us?"
"Like what?"
Smirking, Bakura closed his eyes and held his hands up to chest creating a circle. Chimes were head as Bakura began to chuckle. Moments later a gold ring appeared around his neck with pointy spikes dangling down from it.
Bakura's smirk grew as he snapped opened his eyes. The ring around his neck began to glow and a few seconds later all the soldiers around them dropped to the ground dead.
Yami snapped his head up upon feeling the shadow powers at work.
Ripping open his robes, an upside down golden pyramid hung from his neck. The object began glowing and the Wadjet Eye formed on Yami's forehead.
"Bakura!" he roared.
"This ends now!" Seto declared equality annoyed as his lover. Reaching up to his collar, Seto pressed a small KC buttons and the world around them went dark.
Jounouchi had no clue what had happened. One minute he had been racing across the battlefield with Honda on his back, the next thing he knew everything had vanished.
Sitting up, Jounouchi's head came in contact with the clear, plastic covering of the VR pod. Rubbing his head, Jounouchi was finally able to sit up as the cover lifted completely away.
"Kaiba!" Jounouchi yelled as he jumped out of the pod and marched down the room to the tall CEO who was already out of his own pod and was helping Yami out of his. "You turned me into a dog! And your stupid game stopped working!"
"I stopped it," Seto replied with a roll of his eyes. Next to him Yami frantically searched around for Bakura but both the pods for the white-haired thief and Ryou were already empty.
"Leave Kaiba alone," Mai scolded as she strolled over to Jounouchi and patted his head. If Jounouchi still had his tail it would have been wagging madly by then. "You made a very cute dog!"
"Besides shouldn't you be more concerned about your sister?" Seto asked pointing to where Otogi and Honda were both helping her out of her pod.
"Get away from her you creeps!" Jounouchi yelled as he hurried back down the line of pods to save Shizuka with Mai following close behind him.
"Well I think it was a great game!" Yugi said as he walked up to Seto and Yami with Anzu and his grandfather by his side.
"I agree!" Jiichan happily cried. "It's not everyday that someone old like me gets to join in with your adventures!"
"It was rally cool," Anzu added. Behind them Jounouchi was now beating the crap out of Otogi and Honda while both Shizuka and Mai chatted with each other while they ignored the boys.
"So when do you plan on adding the game to Kaibaland?" Yugi asked.
"In about three months hopefully," Mokuba replied. "There's still some tweaking that needs to be done. Plus the story we were playing won't be available to the general public. Three different story lines have been created to debut the game with more to come later."
"But what happened at the end there with Bakura?" Anzu asked. "He was using the powers of his Millennium Ring but that was not programmed into the game."
"That's easy," Seto scoffed. "He was unconsciously using his powers in this world. I built in an emergency response system so that if something went wrong while we were inside Yami could control the system through his puzzle. Bakura either figured this out or took a gamble and got lucky."
"Oh."
A few minutes later everyone except for Seto and Yami had left the Kaiba Corporation testing labs. Mokuba had gone with the others to show them the way out and he was still a tad upset with his brother at the moment for not letting him take part in the battle.
"What's wrong?" Seto asked Yami while rubbing his back once they were alone. "You've been very quiet since we got back."
"It all just seemed so real," Yami murmured. "Well at least when Bakura wasn't around since he obviously didn't believe in remaining in character."
"It's supposed to be that way," Seto told him while frowning. "I thought you were enjoying yourself."
"I was…but I was wondering what other types of environment this VR thing could produce."
"Any type I want," Seto told him as he wrapped his arms around Yami and hugged him. "What were you thinking about?"
"Home," Yami mumbled as he buried his face into Seto's chest.
"I take it you don't mean the mansion," Seto replied with a small sigh and Yami looked up at him.
"I love it there with you!" Yami quickly cried, not wanting Seto to get the wrong idea. "But sometimes I miss the palace, the ocean of sand, seeing the magnificent Ka of people as they sailed up high in the air…I just miss it so often and seeing my parents 'alive' again along with the Ka for Mahaado and Mana made me miss home again."
"Someday I'll take you there again," Seto whispered before gently kissing the petite, former Pharaoh.
"Got the tickets!" Bakura triumphantly declared as he held up the two first class tickets he had stolen to Cairo, Egypt.
It had been a few days after they had been apart of the game testing for Seto's knew VR game and Ryou had to wonder if Bakura really did want to visit his home again, was running from Yami whom they had yet to face since that day or had to flee the country for the time being for one of the thousand other crimes Bakura recently committed. Ryou didn't really care though because he had never seen Bakura so happy before.
Picking up their bags the two headed towards their gate where an attendant was explaining to an elderly couple that they it wasn't the airports fault that they had lost their tickets and would have to buy new ones if they couldn't find them.
Meanwhile on the other side of Domino Airport, the private Kaiba Corp plane was being prepared for takeoff.
"Thank you so much for surprising me with this trip!" Yami squealed for about the hundredth time that day. "I'm really looking forward to seeing everything! Do you think we can stop by my tomb? I want to see if everything is still intact and that no tomb robber," immediately Yami thought of Bakura, "has robbed it!"
"Yes we can go there," Seto replied with a small smile on his face. He liked seeing Yami so happy, which was why he arranged the private getaway for just the two of them. "Don't worry though, I've already called Isis and she assured me that no one has been in your tomb since Yugi's grandfather. She checked the records herself."
"Yes, but I want to visit it anyway!" Yami declared as he leaned back into his posh seat.
As both 3000 year old spirits sad aboard their respective planes, neither could contain their excitement about seeing their home, no matter how much it had changed over the years, for the first time since they were reborn in the modern world. But the thing they were enjoying the most was finally g getting away from the other for the time being.
'So long loser,' they both thought about each other as the planes lifted off into the air leaving Domino behind.
A/N – Okay, I have to ask. When did everyone figure out they were in a VR world? There were hints all the way along in the other chapters but no one seemed to pick up on them. So did you figure it out before they woke up in the KC lab or at that point?
The easiest way to have figured it out was to pay attention to Bakura. Unlike the others who were playing the characters they were given, Bakura decided to just be himself most of the time, which was why he was always calling Yami "Pharaoh". As well at certain times the others would step out of character like when discovering that Jounouchi and Honda were animals and Seto's and Yami's reunion.
BTW, this story originally wasn't going to take this route. But after the first chapter I decided it would be fun since no one would expect it. After I decided on the VR route, originally it was only going to be Yami in the VR world who was bored one day while Seto was at work and the others at school. VR Seto was going to be killed which was when Yami would wake up to find that it was the doing of the real Seto who wanted his baby back in the living world. At that point Seto declared Yami had too much time on his hands and they stopped at an animal shelter on their way home.
The second ending involved it being only both Yami and Bakura in the VR. Hey I like Bakura, he's good for humor, and wanted him it in.
Finally I came to this ending having them all there. The part where they leave Domino for Egypt however was added in at the last minute while I was writing it. I'm not really sure why that part is there…