Disclaimer: WookieeBeta does not own Yuugiou. Except in her stranger dreams.
Warning: Language.
Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude
Chapter Seventeen: Communication
By WookieeBeta
White-coated doctors were trying valiantly to hold the blonde's limbs down as he thrashed and writhed; trying, but not succeeding. He'd already broken the nose of one and knocked a few teeth out of another.
"We need a tranquilizer!" a tall woman shouted over the general melee.
There was a moment of frantic movement before someone shouted back, "What kind?"
"Any kind, as long as it's strong!" a different doctor replied. "And hurry, damn it!"
"Everyone shut up so we can hear what he's saying," the first doctor snapped. "Are you idiots listening? Shut up!" The room was suddenly much quieter, and the blonde's shouts were much more pronounced.
"Nooo! Get out of my head, you Egyptian bastard - I don't care if you want to follow your pretty-pretty! No! Get out of my head! ... Stupid stupid mortal, thinking you can defeat me that easily! ... I said, get...out...of...my...head!"
The doctor with the broken nose raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah. He's a strange one, all right. Delirium and almost schizophrenia, at the very least."
"We'll diagnose him later," the woman doctor said. "Go open a room. We're going to hold him here until he calms down."
The bloodied man shook his head. "No can do. We're out of rooms."
From where he was preparing the tranquilizer, the Asian doctor asked, "What about Ishtar's room? I don't think we're going to find him anytime in the next few hours - it's not a permanent solution, but it'll do for now."
The woman doctor gave a relieved sigh. "Akira, you're a lifesaver," she said. "We'll put him in there for now - look out!" The blonde, who had been relatively quiet for a few moments, had started jerking again, and his fist narrowly missed her colleague's jaw.
"Tranquilizer coming through!" One of the smaller doctors ducked out of the circle, leaving room for Akira to slip in and plunge the needle into the blonde boy's arm. Within seconds his screaming stopped, and then he fell deathly still.
For a moment there was no sound but that of the doctors' panting.
"All right," the woman said wearily. "Let's get him into Ishtar's room."
Unbeknownst to the many doctors, the mental battle still roared on. /Damn you, Marik, get out of my mind/
/Want - to - find - the - pretty-pretty/
/He has a name, you know/
There was a moment of silence. Jounouchi could almost hear the dark spirit blink in surprise. /Name/
/You're an idiot, Malik, you really are. Did you know that? Now, get OUT!/ With a sudden burst of energy, the Brooklyn blonde managed to force the Egyptian spirit completely out of his head and back into his own brain. Then, exhausted, he fell into a deep not-entirely-drug-induced sleep.
Standing unnoticed in the back of the visitor's area, a deeply tanned man in a doctor's lab coat with spiky blonde hair murmured, "What name?"
There was a long silence as Kaiba clambered out of the sub and landed gracefully on the steel floor. Slowly, the stun lasers lowered back to their normal resting positions.
"Ah, Mister Kaiba?" Smith said, poking his head out of the hatch. "They're talking on the radio again. I still can't understand it."
Kaiba glared up at the ceiling, where he knew there had to be at least a few video cameras. "Speak English, Mouto," he snapped. "Or better yet, use the speakers Noa used instead of the radio. I can't hear you out here."
He heard the radio crackling; Smith said, "He says he can't figure out how to do it. He says you're the first person who's found this place; he's never bothered with the real-world technology before. Do you understand any of that?"
Kaiba chose to ignore the American's question, instead saying, "Then bother with it now, Mouto. You've got a lot of explaining to do."
Smith ducked back down into the sub for a moment, but then, satisfied that the radio was silent for good, climbed back out to stand next to the much taller teen.
"So...care to tell me what's going on here?" he asked lightly.
Kaiba glared again at the unseen video cameras. "Not particularly, considering I don't exactly understand it myself. But it appears that one of those people I said died here, didn't."
"...forget I asked."
"I'm running out of patience, Mouto," Kaiba snapped.
"...en! Gomen, gomen nasai, Kaiba-san..." The voice was excited, nearly crying, but still speaking Japanese. Smith raised an eyebrow.
"English," Kaiba growled.
"Oh...sorry," Yuugi's voice came again, this time in halting English. "My English is...not so good. I haven't - er - speaked it in a long time."
"Then here's your chance to practice. I want to know exactly what happened, from the time we left you and Jounouchi by the truck."
There was a moment of hesitation. "I have...better idea. I can run the virtual reality program and speak to you face-to-face. It...cross-speaks...talks each person in their…general…language."
Kaiba frowned. "I thought you said we were the first. How can you know that, if there's no one but you to test it on?"
"Mou hitori no boku doesn't speak Nihon-go or English."
"Are you sure you can handle the program? Because I swear if you get me trapped in it, I'll blow this base to smithereens with you still inside."
"The program is...less difficult than this," Yuugi reassured him. "One moment."
Smith was looking jittery. "Could you please, please, please explain what's going on?" he asked.
"My friend - that voice is my friend - is going to transport us into the virtual world I told you about so that we can speak face-to-face and all understand each other. Apparently the program can address each player in his native language."
"But I thought you said the world is dangerous!"
"It was. But if what I think happened happened, then we have nothing to fear. Now be quiet."
Both men watched with more than a little apprehension as the portal opened in the floor in front of them; Smith, because he still had no idea what was going on, and Kaiba because he had very bad memories of this particular kind of portal.
"It is not dangerous," a new, slightly deeper voice said. "You have my - our - word on it."
"You'd damn well better be right, Pharaoh," Kaiba said, stepping forward, "or I'm going to make your afterlife hell." He jumped into the gaping hole.
"Kaiba!" Yuugi exclaimed, giving the CEO a tight hug as he climbed back to his feet. Then he backed away, face burning in embarrassment, and mumbled, "Sorry...it's just...I've been really lonely here."
Kaiba's stern expression softened. "It's all right, Mouto - Yuugi. I don't blame you."
"Yaaaah!" Smith stumbled as he landed, and picked himself up off the ground with a conspicuous lack of grace. He eyed Yuugi's small form a little uneasily. "Who're you?"
"I'm Mouto Yuugi," the spiky-haired duelist said in introduction, bowing. "I'm sorry if I frightened you earlier..."
But Smith's eyes were smiling. "Ah, don't worry about it, little guy. I figure, as long as Mister Kaiba here isn't worried, I shouldn't be. I'm Smith, by the way." He extended a hand, and Yuugi shook it tentatively.
"I'm still waiting for that explanation," Kaiba said, but less coldly this time.
Yuugi took a deep breath before launching into the story of how Jou had carried him away from the truck, and how they had gotten turned around and ended up walking in circles until the helicopter had shown up. "And from there, you pretty much know what happened," he said. "You landed, Jou got in, I got attacked, and you took off; after that, there's not much to say. I managed to summon a few monsters and hold the Big Five off for a while, but my luck ran out; they knocked me unconscious, locked me into the game, stole my body and escaped into the real world, I suppose." He shrugged. "And that's it."
"And you've been here, alone, ever since?"
"Other than Yami, yes," Yuugi replied quietly. His eyes were shimmering.
Kaiba bit his lip in uncertainty, a rare thing for him. Then he knelt and pulled the shorter duelist into an embrace. "It's going to be okay, Yuugi, I promise. Everything's going to be okay."
Yuugi sniffed into his shoulder and tightened his grip on the CEO's waist. "That's what Yami keeps telling me...but I just don't see it, Seto," he murmured. Tears were streaming uncontrollably down his face, but his voice was calm, controlled, even. "I just can't see how you or anyone else can do anything. The Big Five have probably already disappeared to some third-world country; they'll never show their faces again, I'm sure of it. And even if they do, what can we do about it? Noa was the only one who knew how to transfer minds to and from bodies, and he's long dead..."
"I'll figure it out," Kaiba promised. "If Gozaburo could do it, I can do it. Just don't worry anymore, all right?"
"Yeah...thanks, Kaiba," Yuugi said, smiling weakly. He stepped away from the CEO and rubbed his arms vigorously.
Smith cocked his head. "Hey, Mister Kaiba, Yuugi...do you hear something?"
Yuugi frowned and nodded slightly. "Yeah...Yami, what is it?"
A fourth figure shimmered into existence behind Yuugi, one hand on the smaller form's shoulder. "Yes. It's your cell phone, Kaiba. I can't redirect it here; you'll have to return to the real world to answer it."
"I'll go open the portal, and see if I can't clean up the signal for you," Yuugi offered. "Reception down here is horrible, but I may be able to do something..." He faded suddenly, leaving Kaiba and the Pharaoh with a very confused Smith.
"It's...good to see you again, Kaiba," Yami said after a short moment.
"And you, Pharaoh," the CEO replied. "You seem to be holding up much better than your lighter half."
The former ruler gave a wry smile. "You forget, I was imprisoned in the puzzle for three thousand years, completely alone. Four weeks in a computer system with my hikari at my side and an entire game system to explore and defeat..." He shrugged. "I'm afraid it's been something of a vacation for me."
He looks rather pale and thin for it to have been a vacation, Kaiba couldn't help but think. Noa was unaffected by the time, and so was Yuugi; it's stress, not a lack of nourishment, that's wearing on him. The Pharaoh isn't quite as jaded as he'd like to believe.
Smith jumped slightly when a solid oak door suddenly appeared in front of them. Mentally slapping down the not-so-unreasonable fear that jumped up in his throat at the sight (after all, he'd nearly lost his brother to one of these doors), the CEO grasped the handle and flung it open, stepping through calmly. The transition was unbelievably smooth; aside from the usual drop to the ground, the only thing that told him he was back in his own body was the sudden sound of his phone ringing. He'd been curious, after the first run-in with the program; it shouldn't have affected their physical forms, and yet they'd all materialized out of thin air. He wasn't sure he believed Bakura's explanation - "stupid Pharaohs can't keep their hands off their powers" and other growled comments of that nature – but it did make sense, in a twisted sort of way.
Shrugging off his uneasiness, he vaulted back into the sub, unlocked his briefcase again, and picked up the phone on its sixth ring.
"Kaiba speaking," he said tersely.
"Nii-sama!"
