Yugi couldn't help but silently cackle when Jounouchi and Honda found out what his username was on DWO.
"No way, you're Shadow_Fist_Yugi?!" said Jounouchi, gawking.
That guy was practically a GOD on the game, and consistently held the top ranking spot on the international servers!
Yugi grinned at them. Now that the latest update was almost ready to be added, he could get some real sleep again. Did not help his narcolepsy, much to the amusement of Anzu who found it hilarious to draw on his face whenever it happened around her.
"Hold on, I thought that the DWO game was strictly limited to beta testers and rich kids?" asked Honda frowning.
"I know a guy who knows a guy," said Yugi. And by that, he meant he had two copies of the game...one to play as a normal player, and the other to work out the kinks on the brand new gamer's laptop Pegasus had given him upon the official launch of the game.
Duel Monsters (the card version) had exploded once people realized they could buy a special scanner to add their personal duel deck to the MMORPG and use it against the digital versions of the monsters in the game. Most of the humanoid ones like Dark Magician were NPC's, but ones like Komori dragon could be fought and used to add to the player's digital deck. And for a special fee, the player could even buy the card in real life to add to their actual deck.
Some of the weaker duelists were happy to shore up their decks by doing quests online to amp up their real life duel decks for the tournament. It was an interesting cycle that made Pegasus a very happy man because he was making money hand over fist.
Best of all they could add the new expansion packs to the game as 'special quest monsters' for players to get their new favorites out before the cards were available, at a higher fee of course.
Yugi was swiftly becoming a multi-millionaire because Pegasus agreed to share the legal rights to the game, mostly because he still needed Yugi to add in new programs and maintain it. Add in the fact that because of his work with Industrial Illusions he got copies of all the best cards that caught his interest before anyone else, and he was going to be a name to beat once he finally re-entered the dueling world officially.
As it was, he had already rebuilt his personal deck he had made after Atem had left.
"Man, I wish I could play it. DWO looks really interesting," said Jounouchi with a sigh.
"No internet?" asked Anzu with sympathy.
"No computer, and the game is super expensive," said Jounouchi.
"If you want to try it out, you can come to my house," said Yugi. He had a few spare laptops at this point, and the game could be downloaded onto the computer so that you didn't need the disc to play online.
Sure, you needed it to install the thing onto the computer for the first time players, but if you were willing to sacrifice the memory space you could download the full version.
Jounouchi perked up at that.
"But..." said Yugi, waiting for Jounouchi to pay attention to what he had to say next. "If you do play at my house there is a minor condition to it."
"What's that?" asked Jounouchi.
"Grandpa could use a bit of help around the shop, especially with the heavy lifting. I'm too busy of late to be of much use, besides we're both rather short. If you'd be willing to help around the weekends, I don't mind loaning you my computer to play the game on your day off."
"I can do that," said Jounouchi, with relief.
Solomon accepted the idea of extra help around the shop, because it was obvious his grandson had come up with the idea on the spot to avoid hurting Jounouchi's pride.
And on the days that Jounouchi happened to work a little too late, Solomon had no problem letting him crash in the spare bedroom.
Besides, Yugi shamelessly used Jounouchi to get some real time feedback on the game (discreetly of course) on how it could be made better.
Solomon was worried about his grandson. His sleeping patterns were only getting worse, and it was obvious Yugi was having a lot of trouble sleeping in the first place. He was working too hard on his game or on his night school studies.
The bags under his eyes were really starting to worry him.
So he decided to give his grandson a proper distraction. He knew Yugi was always fascinated by the gold puzzle he had brought back from Egypt, but he had never gone too close to it. Maybe trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle would distract him long enough to get some actual sleep.
Yugi's expression upon being given the box was rather amusing...and slightly odd.
"You want to see if I can solve this?"
"You need a break from the computers for a while. So why not give solving this a try?" said Solomon.
Yugi took out a single gold piece, the only one that had the indent of the Eye of Horus on it. His expression was rather hard to describe.
"I guess it couldn't hurt," said Yugi.
"I may not know much about computers, but I do know what the internet router looks like and I have no problem unplugging it and hiding it until you get some proper rest," warned his grandfather.
Solomon was pleased to see his grandson fiddle with the puzzle and that he turned off his laptop for the night.
Yugi idly wondered how his grandfather would have reacted if he knew he could solve the thing in five minutes.
Instead he played around with solving it, feeling the shadows coil around him in a familiar and comforting manner. They wanted the Puzzle to be solved, and for the Pharaoh to awaken once again.
Yugi just wasn't sure he was ready to see Atem again. He had already gone past the time when he originally woke the Pharaoh up from his long slumber, and he would turn sixteen soon.
Looking at the calendar, he decided that maybe he had put this off long enough. He wasn't the weak, timid child he had been all those years ago. He was likely better at using shadow magic than the Pharaoh was at this point, because he had over a decade's worth of practice with it and Atem had died so young. He had barely figured out how to use the shadows after Yugi originally woke him up before he had to go into the afterlife.
Yugi would fiddle with the puzzle, mostly to mentally prepare himself for the moment that he would see Atem again.
He could only hope that his heart was ready for it.
A few weeks later...
"Happy sixteenth birthday, Yug!" said Jounouchi. The shorter teen was actually pretty cool to hang out with, and he didn't judge.
Though Jounouchi couldn't help but mentally compare Yugi to Hirutani, if only because the short teen had this aura that caused others to follow his lead instinctively. Yugi was infinitely better than that jerk though.
Yugi grinned and blew out the candles. It was nice to have his friends back, even if they weren't the same ones that had gone through so many headaches...yet. But the potential was still there.
It was a few days after his birthday that it happened. Ushio had never really forgiven him for kicking his ass, and it was well known Yugi had a mild case of narcolepsy.
So the thug waited for Yugi's condition to kick in...before he went to kick Yugi's ass and reassert his dominance.
He managed to give Yugi a black eye and a broken rib before the last piece of the Puzzle, which had been in his bag for a while now, slipped into place...and the Pharaoh woke up with a vengeance.
Yugi couldn't find it in him to really give a damn about Ushio's fate. He had brought this on himself.
Having the Pharaoh's soul attached to him brought a familiar comfort that made it ridiculously easy to sleep properly for the first time since he approached Pegasus with his game demo.
The pharaoh's presence was comforting beyond words. It made sleeping far easier than he could remember. Like a unseen wound he couldn't really describe had finally patched over to the point he barely noticed it had been there to begin with.
Yugi knew that if he went into the 'hall' outside his soul room, he would find a door that would open if he were so inclined. However he vividly remembered how vicious Yami was when he first woke up. He was barely functional and had a nasty habit of attacking first, asking questions later to anyone he thought was a threat.
He would have great trouble believing his other half would already know how to speak to him directly so soon after waking up.
Just having him around was enough for now. Besides, even he wasn't at his best after just waking up.
For the next few days, everything was great.
Then he was reminded of the sheer crazies the Puzzle had an annoying habit of attracting when Anzu was taken hostage by an escaped convict.
He really had only one question to ask...mostly to distract the prisoner from what he was pulling out of his pants leg. He always carried his special daggers once school hours were over for a reason. Especially since Atem was back.
"Where did you get a gun? I mean this is Japan, not America," asked Yugi, honestly curious.
The question threw the prisoner.
"I'm holding your friend hostage, and your only question is where I got my gun?" he said baffled.
"You're obviously a criminal, and I don't see the prison guards being stupid enough to carry actual guns in a prison...especially the maximum security wing where you would have been held at. That's just asking for trouble. And guns are almost impossible to get in Japan," said Yugi.
"Well the guard I killed had one. So what's your point brat?" demanded the prisoner.
Yugi looked at the gun properly, before snorting. Lucky star his ass, this idiot just got lucky in that he shot close enough for the blanks in the gun to actually be fatal.
No sane guard would carry a weapon around with live ammunition. Not if he wanted to keep his job at any rate. Carrying around a gun with blanks was good enough for intimidation purposes considering most Japanese people wouldn't know the difference.
However Yugi had spent a considerable amount of time with the Tomb Keepers, who kept the real thing around and were more than happy to educate him to the difference.
Now to time his next move for maximum effort.
"How about we play a game to pass the time?" said Yugi with a hidden smirk.
The criminal didn't think twice, believing he was under a lucky star.
Yugi knew the guy would deserve everything he got if Atem woke up, but he wanted to solve his own problems every once in a while.
The moment the gun was faced away from Anzu, Yugi made his move.
The howl the creep let off was particularly satisfying. Especially when it was followed by a yell of agony as Yugi slammed his foot into the jerk's crotch so hard that he definitely would have felt it. Knocking the table upward with his other leg, he used it as a shield against the blanks before grabbing Anzu and yanking her down towards the ground hard. She got a minor bruise on her chin, but she took the hint pretty fast and started crawling away as fast as possible.
Yugi retrieved his dagger which was slick with the convict's blood and pulled out his staff. A quick twist lengthened it to half it's maximum length. The guy was starting to get his senses back and realized the 'wimpy, timid' kid he had forced to buy beer and cigarettes for was more of a fighter than he expected.
The next blow hit him so hard that he was knocked out cold.
By that time the cops had shown up, and were already putting the creep in cuffs before he could wake up.
"That was incredibly brave, but also fairly stupid," scolded the detective.
"How is it my fault no one else realized that the ammo he had in that gun were blanks?" countered Yugi with a scoff.
Anzu was definitely shaken.
"How did you do that?" she asked. She never thought her best male friend would be so calm in a situation like this.
"Trade secret. I will say I had a bit of training on how to handle myself from people who deal with worse though," said Yugi.
Though that wouldn't be for at least another decade, he neglected to add.
His grandfather was not amused when he heard the full story. Needless to say Yugi was grounded for a full week because of it.