Chapter 3:
Title: Shadow Wars Inc.
Author: Fairyfae
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: SetoxYami (they meet here…kinda)
Genre: Action, Romance
Spoilers: None of which I am aware.
Warning: Cussing, blood, gore (mostly not to the main characters), squick (whats squick, I don't know if my story has this but I thought I should throw it in just in case), Semi-nudity and sexual imagery…kinda.
Disclaimer: Me no own...TT (Snuggles Seto plushie)
Summary: Memories long since forgotten have reemerged to haunt Seto. The world is suffering random and unimaginable attacks. Seto suspects his company is involved in weapons dealing and a Pharaoh is brought back to life for a limited time to stop a supernatural disaster and to save his undeclared love
Margret Chou here, live at the site of yet another mysterious, and deadly attack. Just looking around one cannot help but be chilled by the massive and brutal destruction that has occurred at yet another production plant in the heart of South Africa. As with the other attacks, the damage is inexplicable leaving experts, and spectators alike stymied. The few living witnesses seemed stunned into incoherency as they mumble about monster insects and breathing shadows….
Seto impatiently flicked off the T.V., causing the screen to fold into the Escalade's ceiling. /The reception sucks and the world seemed to get crazier everyday. He was thoroughly sick of all the news reports sensationalizing what were little more than gorilla attacks in third world countries. If the leaders of those countries had the balls to keep order, none of this would be happening and reporters would be back to dramatizing the rescue of kittens from tree branches. /
Seto stared out of the window, bored with the enforced inactivity. /He would have taken the helicopter but, unfortunately, he had no idea if there was anywhere in the proximity of the plant suitable to land. As it was, he hated to think how the sand coating the poor excuse for a road they were on was affecting the gears in the car. This region of Egypt was not set up for wireless reception so currently; he could not access the Internet. Furthermore, his satellite phone was practically useless in the middle of this godforsaken desert. His hands were tied for the moment. He would have to trust Bakura's 'special skills' for the time being. That chafed. He was unused to trusting anyone./
Still staring, he was almost mesmerized by the golden ocean of broken quartz and limestone above which the very air seemed to ripple. Out of curiosity, Seto scooted over to the door and lowered the window. Almost instantly, he was bombarded with the hottest breeze he could ever imagine encountering, scalding air that put man-made heaters to shame. He rolled the window up again and thanked the gods, the same ones he still didn't quite believe in, for the invention of air conditioning. Just about the time that the glare of sun on sand began to make his eyes water, Seto spotted his destination, a grey fortress that seemed to sway in the distance. It almost seemed as if he could get out and walk there even though he knew they were still a good hour away. He settled back, "Wake me when we reach the gates."
"Yes Sir. Mr. Kaiba." Seto closed his eyes, shutting out images of desolate surroundings.
"Mr. Kaiba, Sir." The guard stated quickly in a slightly raised, shaky tone.
Seto, instantly alert, straitened his back and leaned towards the front seat. "What is it?"
"Sir." The driver sounded nervous, disturbed. "We've arrived at the front gate but no one is here…and the gate itself seems to have been ripped off its hinges." Kaiba pursed his lips. He could see the driver shift back and forth in his seat, as if uncomfortable in his own skin.
"What! Stay here. Don't go anywhere until I can return." Seto ordered while stepping out of the back of the vehicle. He instantly felt coated with grime as the breeze blew a fine coating of yellow-brown dust all over him. After staying here for a short period, he now knew that all Egyptians were just pale people with dirt permanently ingrained in their skin. He resisted the urge to scratch himself, instead adjusting his hat to better keep the sun off his face and out of his eyes. As a concession to the heat, Seto had abandoned his usual trench coat in favor of a light, and as of now, untucked, cotton buttonup in light blue. His pants were off white linen also designed to keep him cool. Carefully, he stepped around the vehicle and eyed the spectacle in front of him. The place was a disaster. He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this but, if Seto Kaiba could be deterred from a course of action by anything so petty as a feeling, he would not now be one of the most powerful CEO's in the world.
He returned briefly to the car to reaffirm his orders to the driver and to retrieve the old building's blue prints. Although he had thoroughly studied the layout of the building on the flight to Egypt, he still thought they might be useful, especially since, what was left of the facility, seemed to be a mess. /Perhaps his information was incorrect and the building had, indeed been abandoned…but he would check things out just to make sure. The best place to start would probably be the offices. If there was any recent activity, it should be evident in there./
Seto calmly walked through the gates and turned to the left. He was facing the skeleton of what had once been a large office building. Most of the windows were broken, the building vandalized. /Who the hell would vandalize a building this far out in the middle of nowhere./ The glass doors to the building seemed to have been ripped off their hinges and were nowhere to be found. Seto gingerly stepped through the hole in the front of the building, where the doors used to be and found himself staring at an abandoned lobby. An overturned desk was across from him, on either side of which was an elevator. To the left was a door marked stairs. He took the stairs.
He stepped onto the second floor and into a hallway. The walls were a dull, institutional white; the same white that made buildings seem so listless and depressing. Only the occasional door and long window broke the monotony. That wasn't what disturbed Kaiba, however. The most disturbing element was that the building had been in use, and very recently. Someone had left the lights on…well, the lights that weren't broken and dangling in bits from the ceiling, throwing the occasional spark at unwary visitors were on anyway. The building was equipped with halogen bulbs, which ran in long rectangles down the hall casting a sickly yellow light over everything.
Almost defiantly, Seto moved to the center of the hall and began to walk, in perfectly timed steps, toward the first open door on his left. For some reason, he could feel his stomach churning, his muscles seemed to cramp in rebellion, as if trying to move his body backwards instead of forwards. Sweat began to bead on his forehead but he refused to give in to his own groundless fears. He was Seto Kaiba Dammit. He could handle anything. For the smallest instant, Seto's vision clouded and he was somewhere else, someone else…no, himself but younger. He was in another hallway…a dark, equally ominous hallway and his terror was escalating, threatening to engulf him. A sound to his left forced Seto back to the present. He turned to the side. He was in front of an office door. Looking in, his mind froze.
/WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT// Seto ears were assaulted with the sound of tearing flesh, a wet oozing sound that turned his mind to mush and his knees to jello. In front of him were two beasts, straight from his nightmares of another world, a world he had seen only briefly after his first duel with Yami so many years ago. In the middle of the room crouched two…wolves for lack of a better word, except these wolves were sixteen hands high, easily, with glistening coats covered in some sticky liquid. They occasionally snapped vicious jaws at each other while fighting over something sitting in front of them, what that something was, Seto's mind refused to say. It was red, it smelled awful, and that was all he was willing to admit.
Suddenly, a movement in the corner of his eye caught and drew his attention. Cautiously, Seto slid his focus to the side, carefully keeping the…things…within range of his vision. Sitting carelessly on, yet another, overturned desk was a small boy, no older than ten. Seto was close enough to him to see the emotionless expression on that young face, an expression that put his own poker face to shame. The child's eyes were bland, almost entirely black; his pupils enveloped his irises. Dull, tangled black hair hung in dirty clumps around a dark face; lips were set in an impassive line. The boy seemed uninjured, but he was filthy, covered in the blood.
Seto felt his fingers go lax and he dropped the blue prints he had been holding. The monsters' heads whipped around to face him with a snarl. Despite the danger, the boy's visage kept Seto still, almost as if his feet had been nailed down. Slowly, the boy's hand rose, he pointed at Seto and uttered a single, flat word, "Destroy."
Seto moved. He moved like he had never moved before. The monstrous dogs lunged at him as his feet pounded down the hallway. He tripped on something and crashed into the wall right before the hallway forked. The cheep lighting dazed him, casting creeping shadows; sweat poured into his eyes. His breathing so strained he could practically hear it over the clicking of claws and the gnashing of teeth, both of which indicated the extreme proximity of his pursuers. Seto's mind kicked into overdrive making the walls seems alive with malice, each side seemed to close in on him in an attempt to block his escape. Never pausing, he used the wall as a brace to push quickly around the corner moments before one of the beasts slammed into the spot he had just occupied. The other beast collided violently with the first and Seto had a moment to get further ahead as the two predators angrily fought each other. His only chance was to get to the experiment labs on the other side of this floor. Those rooms were always secured with steel doors and key codes. He would just need a moment of extra time to break the lock. This time he thanked his own paranoia for making him memorize the blue prints on the way over here.
Seto's feet pounded and his chest heaved. He made it. He was in the process of breaking the lock when a chilling sound reverberated down the passageway and directly into the center of his body. That unearthly howl marked the end of his temporary reprieve. Just as the monsters slid around the corner at the end of the hall, nails scraping in a high-pitched squeal, the steel door slid open with a hiss. Throwing his body inside, he slammed his fist on the button to his left without turning around; causing the door to slid shut again. Mere seconds later, the door shook with the impact of two huge bodies. Startled and, still panicked, he tried to jerk away from the door, only to find that the bottom of his pant leg was snagged.
Suddenly, an eerie quiet filled the building. Seto pressed himself flat against the door at his back and closed his eyes, trying to find his focus. Forcibly steadying both his heartbeat and respiration, Seto slowly opened his eyes to take in his surroundings for the first time only to have his heat freeze once more. Idly his mind wondered how many times one heart could pause like that without causing permanent damage.
All around him was complete carnage. Body parts were strewn about the room; faces were eternally sculpted into looks of abject horror. Directly at his feet lay the upper half of a woman, dressed in an amazingly unharmed lab coat. He couldn't find the rest of her and he was not sure he wanted to.
He would not break down. He would think. He would use his brain…to think… and he would get out of this.
A sound broke the silence, a light footstep…the tread of a child. The sound stopped in front of the door and he heard a yelp, almost friendly sounding. It would have sounded friendly, anyway, if the sound was possible anywhere in the realm of nature, but unfortunately it had an otherworldly quality. The same quality that told him he was still neck deep in shit and sinking. He glanced to the side and saw the key panel light up.
"Damn it!" the kid knows how to open the lock. Seto had only moments to free his leg and get out of there. Without another thought, he yanked off his loafers, unbuttoned his pants and slipped out of them. Ignoring the carnage, he looked around one more time. Directly across from him was a window. He was only on the second story and he had a better chance of surviving the fall than he had of surviving his furry friends outside the door. He dodged the long, island-like counters that were distributed throughout the room and tried to open the window. It was not his lucky day. These had to be the only windows in the entire building that 1) didn't open and 2) were not broken. Desperately, he looked around. Picking up a stool, he gathered all his strength and threw it at the window. The stool bounced harmlessly off the windowpane.
Seto screamed, "Damnnnn! I am never building another building with bullet proof glass and bloody be-damned hallways!"
Seto's eyes widened to an impossible size as he spun on his heal to face the door. There in the open doorway stood the boy and the monster-wolves. The wolves' jaws gapped in sadistic grins as they slinked with deadly grace into the room, one moving left, and the other right. In the center stood the boy, impassive and silent. Seto took a deep breath and pulled his body to its full height. Chin tilted to the ceiling, eyes narrowed and directed down at the small figure in front of him, Seto glared. If he had to die, he would not die cowering. Suddenly, the almost sacred feeling to the moment broke as the monster wolf on his right lunged, his partner lunging only a second later.
Light flooded the room, and Seto instinctively moved his arm to shield his eyes. He had long since lost his hat in the chase. Lowering his arm, Seto stared in wonder. If everything else that had happened in this forsaken wasteland had not convinced him he was hallucinating, this did. Floating a meter in the air and barely two meters in front of him, where the first wolf-monster should be right than, was a magicians box. Events tumbled into each other as the other wolf-monster slammed into the box and fell to the ground, stunned into unconsciousness. The impact caused the three doors on the front of the box to burst open and the figure inside to collapse onto Seto, driving him to the ground. The box disappeared.
Seto, now on his back, was enveloped by the exotic scent of lotus blooms and spicy Mediterranean body oils. His nose was buried in soft tufts of black and…Burgundy hair? His arms, arms that of their own volition, moved to encircle the weight now resting on top of him, brushed against the silky smooth surface of oiled skin. /This was definitely not the wolf-monster. / Without conscious thought, Seto allowed his hands to trail down the surface on which they rested until they encountered bunched material. Bypassing that, his hands encountered a smooth, delectable curve, the tips of his fingers digging into the crevice that separated the two mounds. His hands spasmed and clenched.
Seto's skin seemed to tighten and time stood still. Only one person had ever made him feel like this, insecure and excited all at once…And that person was wearing a skirt…WITH NOTHING UNDERNEATH.
Seto became acutely aware of the other's groin, pressed securely next to his own, separated only by the material of his thin shirt and satin boxers. His breathing altered from heaving gasps to short, uneven choppy breaths. He began to wonder if his body could handle the constant, abrupt changes in mood. Against his will, he felt the lower regions of his body stir.
Seto stayed where he was, incapable of movement, as the lithe figure on top of him moved its arms to either side of his body to brace on the floor. The figure pushed up, raising its head off of his chest. The head tilted to face him, flaming crimson eyes focusing intently on impossibly open blue orbs. Seto's eyes actually began to ache from being open too wide for too long. Seto's lids lowered and his gazed zeroed in on the lush, parted lips of his captor; he could fell the others breath brush over his face in a quick panting, rhythm.
"Seto," a voice reminiscent of his past penetrated his brain. /This could not be happening. He was not in the middle of a death trap with his lustful obsession…passionate enemy…hated rival…That's right…his hated rival on top of him…Practically NAKED. THEY WERE BOTH PRACTICALLY NAKED AND PRESSED CHEST TO CHEST, GROIN TO FUCKING GROIN. No. He had to calm down. He had to think through this rationally to die. NO, NO, NO! He had to think through this rationally to NOT die. He did not want to die, right/
"Seto? Are you alright?"
/That voice again. What the HELL IS GOING ON! Maybe he was dead. After all, he was never supposed to hear that voice again so that must be it. Well if this is death why the HELL hadn't he done this earlier. This wasn't so bad. /
Kaiba looked up just in time to see that filthy little apathetic bastard that sicked the monsters on him, leaning over the beast, helping it lumber back to its feet. The beast turned malevolent eyes on him and leapt.
Kaiba screamed, "Yami! Nooo!" and he rolled them both over, completely covering the body now beneath him. He only had enough time to glimpse Yami lifting his arm, a white object dangling from his clenched fist. He felt the excruciating bite of pain as claws ripped through his back and everything faded to black.