Chapter 18: The Interrogation

It was midnight in California. Three people were on the beach. Due to both the cold weather and how late at night it was, nobody else was around. One of the people was a muscular man with a shaved head two, while the other two had their heads and bodies nearly completely covered in a cloak. He was on the ground after just losing a duel, bleeding and scarred. On a closer inspection, one could see that the one of the cloaked figures was wearing glasses while the other had a metallic left hand and was crouching down for some reason. The latter deactivated his duel disk. "You lost."

"That-that duel hurt me! How?!" The man yelled.

The cloaked figure wearing glasses shook his head. "There's no need for an answer. You won't have any use for it where you're going." He patted the shoulder of his fellow cloaked figure. "Do it."

The other cloaked figure held his metallic hand towards his defeated opponent. A stream of white energy left him, and went into the cloaked figure, the defeated duelist screaming in pain all the way through.

"AGHHHHHH!" A few minutes passed by before the defeated duelist dissolved into light entirely, leaving behind nothing but his duel disk, deck, and clothing.

"That's another soul for The Light. That makes this the 6th one tonight" The figure with glasses said.

The cloaked figure with the mechanical right hand turned to his partner. "Why do you never gather souls?"

"Simple. Because that's not what I was assigned to do. I was assigned to teach Duel Spirits like you how to duel."

"But you continue to merely watch me duel rather than gather souls as well."

"The less information people like you and The Light have of me, the better." The figure with glasses turned away. "Remember why we came here. The Light told us those three boys would be arriving in California soon. Don't forget to introduce yourself to them Gagagigo." He walked away.

"Hmph. Odds are the human has motives that The Light wouldn't be too fond of. Well, as long as he doesn't get in my way, it's not my concern." The figure let down his hood revealing his face. A green, anthropomorphic, lizard like creature whose face was covered with cybernetics. "As long as it's after The Light gives me enough power, I could go either way if a betrayal from him is succesful or not. Time to deliver these souls." Giga Gagagigo started to shine before disappearing completely.


The limousine ride to KaibaCorp's American branch was much more uncomfortable than the plane ride to Sacramento. At least on the private plane, Damian, Scott, and Ghassan could keep their distance from Kaiba. Now, he and Mokuba were sitting on the opposite sides a couple of feet away. Much harder to try and avoid him now.

"So...about the Blue-Eyes monsters." Damian began to say. The silence was getting way too awkward.

"We'll discuss it when we get to KaibaCorp." Kaiba answered. He then got out a cellphone and dialed a number. "Yeah, whoever's the president of KaibaCorp of America? If you're in your office, get out of it. I'm holding a meeting there." There was a pause. "For as long as the meeting takes, that's how long." There was another pause. "No. Why would I know your name? I assume your office is on the top floor, right?"

Damian turned to Mokuba as Kaiba talked on his phone. "So... what made you suspect us to begin with?"

Ghassan decided to answer for Damian. "Because the Gladiator Beast Mokuba gave me was bugged."

"Bingo." Mokuba said.

"Wait, Mokuba gave you a Gladiator Beast deck?" Damian asked.

"I'll explain the story to you later." Ghassan replied. Ghassan reached into his backpack, and got out the Gladiator Beast deck. "You can have your bugged deck back."He gave the deck back to Mokuba.

"Not even gonna use it huh?" Mokuba put the deck in his pocket "You hardly took it out of your dorm, and you tended to sound pretty muffled. You must have put the deck in a drawer or something. So we didn't get too much off you. But we heard you talk about a few things. Getting some kid named Jaden expelled, and how Synchro and Xyz monsters are being introduced at the academy." Mokuba stated. "Couple that with how your Jurrac deck is filled with monsters that even Pegasus doesn't know about, and your Extra Deck having several Synchro and Xyz monsters that were never even sold online, and it was clear that you were either responsible for, or an accomplice to the illegal production of these cards."

"How'd you even bug the deck? I didn't see anything out of the ordinary when you gave it to me."

Mokuba smiled. "That's because the listening devices are tiny, and were specifically designed to blend in with the back of the cards." Mokuba got out a card from the Gladiator Beast deck, held a hand below it, and scraped the back of it with his other hand. Something brown and black fell into the palm of his hand.

"So that's the listening device." Ghassan said. Mokuba nodded.

"So why bring Damian along too?" Scott wondered.

"Wouldn't hurt to have the little brother of our suspect questioned too. He could be an accomplice or the culprit as well."

"We've arrived sirs." The driver said. The limousine stopped at a large glass skyscraper. At the very top of the building was a giant monument of the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

"About time." Kaiba replied. He hung up the phone, opened the door and got out of the limousine, Mokuba following hm. "The three of you, follow me."

"Well, here it goes. We either spend Winter Break vacationing in Sacramento, or spend years behind bars." Scott said.

The three got out, carrying their luggages and backpacks, and followed Kaiba and Mokuba inside KaibaCorp. As they enetered the lobby, several people there stared in stunned silence as Kaiba and Mokuba came in. It seemed that unlike the Japanese branch of KaibaCorp, they didn't come to the American branch of KaibaCorp too often.

"So, to double-check, there's also a KaibaLand in California, right? After interrogation, if we get let off the hook, can we have free access there as compensation?" Damian asked.

"Only if you want me to take back paying for your hotel rooms and plane tickets." Kaiba answered.

"Hmmm..."

"NO Damian." Ghassan said.

Kaiba walked towards a receptionist. She looked to be in her early 20s, and had short blonde hair. She had a name tag that said 'Emma' on it. "Has Pegasus arrived yet?"

'Pegasus is interrogating us too?' The three thought simultaneously.

"Y-yes Seto Kaiba sir." She was attempting to hide her shivering, to no avail.

"Evidently, you're afraid of me. Tell me, why is that?"

"Well, with-with all due respect, I've heard you're quick to fire people."

"Only fire? Debbie, I'm the head of one of the most powerful companies in the world. I don't have to stop at merely firing people. I can destroy their lives and have them living on the street if they so much as make me spill my coffee. Do you understand."

The receptionist nodded. Kaiba smiled. "Good to see you know your place. You didn't even try to correct me when I called you Debbie. You get a raise." Kaiba walked away from the receptionist, and towards the elevator.

"Something tells me that he didn't have the girl in mind when he was talking about destroying lives there." Scott muttered.

The elevator doors opened up, and the five walked into it. When the eleveator reached the top floor, the five exited it and headed towards the doorway that led to the office. Next to the doorway was a middle-aged man with brown hair, wearing a navy blue business suit. "Seto Kaiba sir. It's a pleasure to meet you in person. I'm the president of KaibaCorp's American-" Kaiba opened the door to the office and entered, the others following. "Alright, introductions after your meeting!"


Mokuba closed the door after everybody entered. "You know Seto, I'm not sure if it's the greatest idea to treat the preisdent of one of KaibaCorp's branches the same way you treat your interns."

"Nonsense Mokuba. Excluding you and Roland, I look down on all my employees equally."

The office was fairly spacious, with multiple cabinets, three couches that surrounded a table, and an office desk by the windows. By said office desk was a man in a red suit with long white hair that covered his left eye. "Kaiba boy! It's good to see you! I've heard that you brought our suspects. But I thought there were only two?"

"Pegasus..." Damian said.

Kaiba nodded. "One of these two insisted to coming along. They seem to know something about the illegal manufacturing as well. And...I have my own questions for him."

"Understandable." Pegasus stood up from his chair, and walked towards a couch. "Have a seat, I insist." Kaiba and Mokuba sat on a second couch, while Damian, Ghassan, and Scott sat on a third, tacking off their backpacks. "Now that our games of Cops and Robbers is over, we can play another game I enjoyed as a boy. Good Cop Bad Cop."

"Takes this seriously Pegasus." Kaiba said.

Pegasus chuckled. "No prize for guessing which one's which. Now boys, if you're co-operative with us and tell us the manufacturer of these cards, your punishment will be lenient, if there'll even be one."

"You don't think we're the manufacturers?" Scott asked.

Pegasus shook his head. "Three boys who spent the days before Duel Academy being barely able to afford a second-rate apartment in Kamakura? I doubt you'd have the resources to finger-paint, let alone design cards."

"How did you-" Ghassan began to ask.

"Around November, we found out that the original source for all the cards sold online came from Duel Academy." Mokuba said. "After I found out that you likely were involved, we looked into the application form you filled out for the entrance exams. We traced it back to the address you filled in and found out about the apartment you were staying in. A few questions to the landlord, and boom."

'Ok, if they're that capable at tracing Duel Academy students, how did a girl in elementary school sneak her way in Duel Academy without taking the entrance exam?' Damian wondered. 'Well, WILL sneak her way into Duel Academy.'

"So answer us. Now." Kaiba demanded. "Who gave you those cards of yours?"

"Why are you so dedicated to the idea that they're made illegally? They work on Duel Disks after all." Damian said.

"Counterfeit cards have been able to be displayed on Duel Disks before. I repeat the question. Who gave you those cards? Especially your Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards."

Pegasus widened his eye and turned to Kaiba. "Blue-Eyes White Dragon? Only four of those cards exist!"

"Well this kid has three of them just like I do." Kaiba glared at Scott.

"...I'm not a kid, I'm 18." Was Scott's only response.

"This makes you boys even more suspicious than I thought." Pegasus said. "Cards that only Industrial Illusions and KaibaCorp have knowledge about, cards that even I'm not aware of, and in addition, you have copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon?"

"Final warning before we turn you in to the police. Answer us." Kaiba demanded.

"Do NOT tell them about me." The Light of Destruction told Scott.

"I know, I know." Scott said. "I was hoping to avoid this, but..."

"We're from the future." Damian and Scott answered simultaneously.

"Huh. Guess Damian had the same idea as me."

Ghassan and Mokuba turned to the two in shock. Pegasus raised an eyebrow. Kaiba was utterly unimpressed. "You honestly expect me to believe something like that?"

"Kaiba, you're the re-incarnation of a priest from thousands of years ago. Your arch-rival was the pharaoh he served. And you were the chosen duelist of a warrior called Critias from a time even further back. Is this really out of the realm of possibility with the stuff you've seen?" Damian asked.

Kaiba's eyes widened. "Most of that isn't even public knowledge...how did you...?"

"In our time, it's fairly common knowledge." Damian said. It was technically the truth.

Scott smiled. He wanted to avoid the 'from the future' answer since it would require backing it up. Scott's knowledge of the anime was on the rough side. Good thing they had Damian around.

"I see. If your statement is true, that explains why you were able to sell Gladiator Beast and Synchro monsters online despite them still being developed by Industrial Illusions." Pegasus stated. "It's not that you stole data, but that they were completed and you bought them like regular cards."

"Wait a minute...does that mean-?!" Kaiba began to ask.

"Yes Kaiba. Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon, and all your other cards to support Blue-Eyes are mass produced and sold like regular cards in our timeline." Scott answered.

"YOU'RE LYING!"

"Kaiba-boy, let's not get off track." Pegasus said.

"I'M the only one who can use Blue-Eyes! You must have stole them in your timeline! Must have broken into a museum that was displaying my deck or something!"

"You saw the art of my Blue-Eyes cards right?" Scott asked.

Kaiba clenched his fist. "What is he talking about Seto?" Mokuba asked.

Kaiba gritted his teeth. "The designs of his Blue-Eyes cards...they're different from mine." Kaiba noticed the difference when Scott shown him the cards back in Duel Academy, but he didn't take much note of it since he assumed they were counterfeit. But now that he's accusing Scott of stealing Kaiba's, the different art designs of the card mean a lot more. The art of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons depict the dragon standing in an empty blue void. Kaiba remembered that each of Scott's Blue-Eyes White Dragons had a different design. One on a skyscraper during night time, one in front of a tablet, and one flying in the air as a light shined on it.

"Still, me or Pegasus could have simply had the art of the cards changed. That doesn't prove that they're mass produced in your time!" Kaiba challenged

Scott sighed. "Alright then." Scott opened up his backpack, and searched through it. "Let's see...here it is." Scott took out a deck. "I have a Blue-Eyes deck, but it's not the only deck where I use Blue-Eyes White Dragon." Scott took out two cards. "Here." Scott threw the cards to Kaiba, who caught them. "The fourth Blue-Eyes in this time period is torn in half, right? So I think you can rule out me stealing that one."

'He can't be...he's lying...' Kaiba slowly took a look at the two cards he caught. A fourth Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and a Ritual Monster called 'Blue-Eyes CHAOS Dragon'. "The fourth Blue-Eyes...it's not torn in half."

"That's not all. Take a closer look at the art of the card." Scott told him.

Kaiba already saw it, but he didn't want to believe it. Unlike the art of all the other Blue-Eyes monsters, this card had another figure in it. On the card, Seto Kaiba himself was depicted in front of the dragon. "I...endorsed this?"

Scott shrugged. "You died of old age long ago in our time, so I'm not sure, but probably. It's far from the only Blue-Eyes card with art like that back in our time. That Ritual Monster, Blue-Eyes CHAOS Dragon, gets extra effects if Blue-Eyes White Dragon is used to Ritual Summon it."

Kaiba wasn't listening. He was too shocked at what he found out. Blue-Eyes White Dragon wasn't his alone in the future. Pegasus cleared his throat. "So, if you three are from the future, how'd you come to this time, and why?"

"To answer both questions, it was by an accident." Scott answered. "A freak malfunction occured with KaibaCorp's newest project. Think it had to do with creating windows in time to look at Duels from hundreds of years ago or something. I dunno, we were just summer interns."

'Scott's not missing a beat. Did he prepare for this lie?' Ghassan wondered. 'I have to play along though. If I look confused as well, they'll find out it's a lie.' "We were pretty certain than if we told anybody this, they'd think we're either liars or throw us in a funny farm. So we kept it to ourselves."

"I started to sell some individual cards and some old decks online so that we could make more money." Damians aid. "So, does that clear up everything for you?"

Pegasus said nothing for a while. "Well...it answered all the questions I had for you. But now I just have several more." Pegasus replied. The three hid their relief. It looked like he believed their story. Thank God he no longer had his Millenium Eye.

"So, I take it that Industrial Illusions started to make Synchro and Xyz monsters after you found out about them?" Damian asked.

"Indeed. We figured that if the person selling these Synchro and Xyz monsters was a threat, we could be ready for it by making Synchro and Xyz monsters of our own. The selling of these cards sped up our production of Synchro monsters by quite a bit. And we didn't even think of the idea of Xyz monsters until we found out about these mysterious cards."

Mokuba was looking at his brother in concern. Kaiba wasn't paying attention to anything that was going on anymore. "Maybe...we should have another meeting in a few days or so. I think this is a lot of information to process." Mokuba took the cards out of Kaiba's hands, and gave them back to Scott. "Like we said before, KaibaCorp will pay for a hotel room for you guys to stay in for the rest of Winter Break. However, while the cards might not have been illegally made, we'll still need to discuss the impact you guys made by irresponsibly bringing them into the present."

"Agreed. We'll come to you the day after tomorrow to continue discussing." Pegasus said.

"Works for us I guess." Scott replied.

Kaiba stood up. "We'll take you to the nearest hotel we can find. Let's get going." Kaiba walked towards the doors.

"Seto..." Mokuba said. He got off the couch, and followed his brother. When the two exited, the president of KaibaCorp's American division was still there.

"Ah good, your meeting's over! Now Seto Kaiba, introductions are in order. I'm-" Kaiba and Mokuba went into the elevator.

"So, acceptable turnout for you?" Scott asked.

"Absolutely. Seto Kaiba has a stronger will than I was anticipating, but with time, I'll subdue his spirit." The Light of Destruction replied.

"Wait, what do you mean? Were you trying to possess him?"

"Of course. Why do you think I told you to let him hold Blue-Eyes CHAOS Dragon? I slipped a portion of my self into the card. And as time passes, it'll be harder and harder for him to fight off my influence.'

Scott said nothing as he, Ghassan, and Damian got off the couch and headed towards the exit alongside Pegasus. Scott was gonna have to tell Damian and Ghassan about a major advantage they gave The Light. In time, Seto Kaiba would be his puppet.


We find out that The Light of Destruction has more people than just our protagonists working for him, one of them a Duel Spirit. And thanks to Scott, The Light of Destruction managed to put it's influence inside Seto Kaiba himself. Will Kaiba be able to fight off The Light, or will our protagonist make a powerful ally? And what do the other two people who are working for The Light of Destruction want with the trio? Only time will tell.

No dueling this chapter, but this was a ton of fun to write. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and are looking forward to the next one!