He really shouldn't have challenged that idiot with the Time Wizard card to a duel. How the hell was he supposed to know that using Slifer against that monster in the middle of a charged up spell would cause this?
Waking up at the tender age of five, ten years to the day before he would originally solve the Millennium Puzzle had come as a massive shock to his system. He had only figured out something was terribly wrong after registering his control over the shadows was ridiculously weak...before he realized his hands were too tiny, even for someone as short as him.
Then he had seen the calendar, the familiar box which was full of golden puzzle pieces, his grandfather alive...and realized with hard shock that he had traveled through time due to a complete fluke.
It had taken him several months to come to terms with this new reality. However this time he refused to let everything play out like they had before.
For one thing, he had always hated how reliant he was on everyone else to fight his battles outside of duels...and even those he had relied so strongly on his other half to fight for him.
There was a reason he had spent over a decade with the Tomb Keepers to learn how to fight properly, and another three years with Bakura learning how to knife fight. Sure, it would be a pain to rebuild that muscle memory, but it would be worth it.
By the time he was ten, he was no longer the weak, wimpy kid he had been the last time.
Even if it made his heart ache something fierce to look at the box containing the Puzzle and knowing it contained the other half of his soul, sleeping but waiting for the time to arise again. To know he was waiting for a chance to complete what he started five thousand years ago.
Every time he meditated and saw that locked door with the familiar symbol of the Millennium Items and to know what was waiting on the other side of it...it hurt like hell.
Losing the Pharaoh once had nearly killed him. He wasn't sure he could handle it twice, which was why he put a token effort into solving it...though he could easily do so in less than five minutes if he really cared to. His mind knew intimately how to solve the Puzzle, but his heart wasn't ready to see Atem just yet.
There was one thing he wasn't going to hold back on though. When he was training with the Tomb Keepers, he had dabbled in learning programming, mostly so he could make his own game and sell it. Kaiba had agreed to license it if it looked worth their time, but he had ended up in his younger self before they could make good on the promise.
Kaiba missed Atem as much as Yugi did, if not more...if for no other reason than their complicated feelings towards the Pharaoh. Yugi could never figure out if her interest in him stemmed from her past incarnation or just pure sexual frustration about being too prideful to admit she liked him before he left forever, since he was the ONLY male she deemed worth her time once they stopped arguing.
Any attempts to pick up where his other self left off died when Yugi realized that Kaiba was forever comparing him to her crush, even if she didn't realize it herself. That had been too awkward for him to even attempt to resolve, so he thrown himself into avoiding her as much as possible. It was an arrangement that worked out entirely too well for both of them.
So Yugi used his limited allowance to buy programming books and dove into them with glee in between doing his homework. His grandfather allowed it, since Yugi had been doing college level classes for years now and most of his homework was ridiculously easy to begin with in his opinion.
An unknown time later...
Pegasus looked at the e-mail sent from an unknown sender. Inside was a potential avenue for his game Duel Monsters involving computers. Intrigued, he opened it up and played the file.
What he found was too profitable to pass up, especially if the one who sent it could make a full version. Sure, the technology needed to really expand on it was expensive at this point, but the potential gold mine not only for the game but for the sales for cards alone would be worth every penny.
He was slightly curious how the sender knew he was rather fond of the older cartoons, because the town Pegasus found exploring (rather briefly, considering it was a demo) looked like something out of an older cartoon, with the NPC's based off the Toon Monster set.
Then he managed to make it to the "Mayor" of Toon Town, and had to hold back a laugh.
He rather liked the crude, but still recognizable form of "Mayor Max" who cheerfully greeted the player to "Toon Town" which was clearly set to be a beginner town for players. It even had a Toon Dark Magician Girl behind him acting as a sort of pseudo fairy to guide players to important locations.
He had to speak to this programmer, and to see if they would be interested in making a proper version of the game which did have some limited dueling mechanics that fully fit with the actual card game.
This "Shadow" as he called himself was delightfully imaginative and more than happy to expand on their concept.
It only took him a few days to realize that Shadow was living in an entirely different time zone...and to set things up so that he could catch the boy online.
Pegasus- You're a surprisingly hard man to contact.
Shadow- Technically not a man...yet. I'm not even sixteen.
Pegasus- That explains a few things. Your demo is rather inspiring.
Shadow- I was hoping it would catch your interest. Programming all those dueling codes into it was a pain
Pegasus- I'll be honest. Your game interests me greatly, even if we don't have the technology to implement it properly yet. I would very much like to see whether you would be able to make a full copy.
Shadow- Give it a few years and the technology will be there. As for making a full copy, I knew that I needed permission from the creator of Duel Monsters before I could even attempt to make a full game since I don't want to be sued.
Pegasus- Creative and smart. I could use someone like you, especially after trying the demo you sent me.
Shadow- Would definitely be more interesting to work on than the homework which bores me to tears.
Pegasus had to grin at that. He liked this kid's sense of humor.
A few days later...
Yugi was almost nervous. Mostly because the amount of shadow magic he had access too was really limited while Atem was asleep in the Puzzle. However Pegasus had no way of knowing about the Puzzle, or any reason to target him directly. All he knew was that "Shadow" had a game that would very easily sell for large amounts of money and promote his company's main source of income at the same time.
If Pegasus was thrown by the fact he was meeting a fourteen-year-old teenager with red eyes, he made no mention of it. Instead he was all business after confirming Yugi was indeed the one who made the demo sent to his company and knew what he was doing.
More importantly Pegasus was able to do something Yugi had yet to accomplish...get into the college-level courses which required money Yugi simply didn't have access to at this time.
So long as he worked with the programmers from Industrial Illusions to create a working product, Pegasus would happily pay for his college degree in game design. After all, if this worked out then Yugi would be making over ten times what the degree itself would be worth. In order to keep the timeline mostly intact, the college courses Yugi was taking would be on a night schedule. It was rather silly for him to have a college degree before he even had a chance to finish high school after all.
Silly, but not unheard of.
On the plus side, by the time he would have finished the Puzzle in the original timeline, Duel World Online became the hottest new MMORPG from Industrial Illusions. It was known collectively as DWO and was the hottest game available on the market.
Yugi was certain that it wouldn't take much to convince Kaiba to make it so that her pods were compatible with the software. It might take some considerable tweaking, but the profits alone from renting out the pods would be worth it.
"Are you sure you're okay Yugi?" asked Anzu with some concern. "You have almost permanent shadows under your eyes lately."
Yugi let out a bone-cracking yawn. He wasn't surprised...programming a game that involved dueling mechanics on top of taking college level courses on how to make your own games AND keep track of his investments was a pain. He didn't know how Kaiba dealt with it on a daily basis!
"I'll be fine. Power napping helps," said Yugi, not bothering to deny it.
"Is your grandpa overworking you or something?"
"More like cram school has an annoying habit of running super late," said Yugi.
Which was the official story he had been using when asked. His grandfather would stand by it if questioned, but if asked he would tell people honestly that his grandson was taking night classes in an actual college.
Anzu winced.
"Yikes, I don't envy you," she said with sympathy.
"It's not that bad...I at least get weekends off so long as I keep on top of it," said Yugi.
Though like most programmers who had a deadline, he often worked through his days off to try and complete the product in a way that would satisfy the higher ups. Pegasus was thrilled to bits over his character, who acted as "Mayor Max" of the starter town. Especially since Shadow had been kind enough to add a digital version of his late wife who was married to him in the game.
Yugi almost winced seeing Jounouchi stalk up to him. He knew that posture...clearly the older boy was planning to pick on him like he used to.
"What's this? Are you such a nerd you're taking even MORE classes?"
He knew it was an act, but it still hurt him seeing Jounouchi putting on an act like this.
"Leave him alone, you jerk," said Anzu rolling her eyes.
There were so many ways he could make Jounouchi back off, but he settled for the least painful method he could think of.
"You know what, screw this. Wake me up when the next class starts...I'm taking a power nap," said Yugi.
Dead silence, mostly from the shock of Yugi swearing so openly. The fact he laid his head down and actually fell asleep surprised them even more.
"Holy crap...how late has he been staying up?" asked Jounouchi, oddly concerned.
"I have no idea. I thought most cram schools let out around ten-ish," said Anzu honestly concerned.
Honda picked up some papers that fell out of Yugi's bag. And blinked.
"Can either of you understand half this?" he asked. Because he couldn't make a word in five, and that was pushing it.
"That is the weirdest math I have ever seen," said Jounouchi. Anzu snagged it out of his hands and put it back into Yugi's bag. It was clearly important if Yugi had it in a special folder.
She felt relieved when he woke up without any problems once lunch was over and had a bit more energy to him.
Yugi was about to leave school (and take another much needed power nap once he got home) when Ushio approached him.
Seeing Jounouchi and Honda hurt badly on the ground, he didn't think too hard about Ushio's "offer" for protection.
This time, he wouldn't need Atem's help to resolve this issue.
One minute Ushio was about to hurt Jounouchi again...the next he found himself flat on the ground after Yugi used his retractable staff to knock him flat on his ass.
"What do you think you're doing?" growled Ushio, not liking this sudden show of spine one bit.
Yugi was honestly too tired to really care about the consequences, and to be fair he never liked Ushio much anyway.
He couldn't carry his knives with him to school, but a staff was another story. He could get one of those practically anywhere, even if it meant breaking a broom or something.
It took him all of five minutes to kick Ushio's ass, using his staff with more competence than any of the larger boys would have credited him for.
"Holy shit, how long have you been able to do that?" said Jounouchi.
"And why haven't you ever gone after us?" asked Honda.
"Because your level of harassment never involved blatant extortion, and Anzu is usually enough to get you to back off," said Yugi, before he let out another yawn. "I hate losing an extra twenty minutes of sleep just to teach an idiot a lesson."
He had a hard enough time sleeping lately that losing any of it was enough to piss him off.
Jounouchi gave him an oddly measured look.
"Were you serious before? About calling us your friends?" he asked.
"You two act like idiots sometimes, but you never mean anything malicious when you bother me," said Yugi honestly. "I can tell you're really softies inside, regardless of how rough your exterior is."
Yugi was just glad he managed to get an entire extra hour of sleep, because one of the professors called in sick and gave them a study period.
Anzu was still suspicious about why Jounouchi and Honda were suddenly a lot less antagonistic towards Yugi, or why Ushio kept giving him dark looks.