A/N: I've prided myself of being able to update my story at a reasonable pace. However, updates might slow significantly since I've recently taken up acting in our local theatre's musical production. This might mean no updates until October. I hope to find the time to keep writing, but if not, know that I haven't given up on this story. It has a clear direction and an end and I will reach it eventually.
With the jet fully fueled, there were no stops but somewhere east of the Canary Islands, the boys woke up to rejoin Kaiba in the cabin passing Sabrina on their way in. She seemed relieved.
"I'll get the whole sleeping quarters to myself?" she sighed in contentment, "I hate sleeping in a room with other people. I haven't slept good this whole trip." She walked in between them to exit, looking over her shoulder one last time at Seto who nodded with something on his lips that could almost be interpreted as a smile.
In tandem, the matchmakers slid into the seats across the table from Kaiba, who hand claimed the tabletop as his workspace.
"Did you see that?" Mokuba asked half to his brother, half to Yugi. "I take it your alone time was …productive?"
"Seto sat back and folded his arms, the hint of a smile turning into a scowl. "I don't know where either of you have been for the past ten years, but I am both the head and the face of KaibaCorp, a billion-dollar, worldwide corporation. My net worth is more than the CEO of Sony Entertainment, Phillips, and Oculus Rift and RECT Inc. I started out at sixteen completely changing the direction of the company and managed to not only retain my investors but was able to make new ones and create partnerships. You know how I did all that? I know how to talk to other people to make them trust me. So, you can stop treating me like an idiot savant that's good with computers but can't talk to people like the movies always portray them."
"So…that's a yes?" Mokuba squinted, nervous the question would set his brother off into another monologue. He seemed in a jovial enough mood.
"Yes. We had a good little chat," he replied, uncrossing his arms and tapping the sketch-pad she'd left on the table. Clearly, she trusted him enough to leave it behind. "Unlike her ancient counterpart, Sabrina isn't the least bit shy. She volunteered a great deal of information about herself and her roommates."
Both boys leaned on their elbows to get closer. "Do tell." Mokuba smirked, well aware that the three of them looked like sorority freshmen gossiping around a table at a café.
"For starters," he said flipping the sketchbook open, "Egypt is jogging some of her memories." He directed their attention to her sketches for costume concepts. Even with erase marks and no color, Isis, Set, and Atem's figures came to life on the page in striking likeness. "I asked where she came up with these, and she said they 'just came to her', complete with their own ka's."
"She even has one of herself," Yugi commented, noting the peasant's clothing and dirty appearance she'd drawn over her own image, and white dragon to supplement the character.
"And the villain suggestion?" Kaiba leaned across the table to turn the page for Yugi. "Aknadin." The image of the man who was once Yugi's uncle and Seto's father was unsettling, particularly the images of him after he had descended into the Dark Priest. "Obviously she didn't have names for any of her characters, but memories are still there.
The blonde flipped the page again, "Look it's me!...sort of." He said excitedly pointing to a picture of Atem in full pharaoh regalia, his skin colored in with pencil to indicate his darker complexion. Seto rolled his eyes.
"Yes, her suggestion of the hero that they players have to assist." Seto explained, though his tone took on a less enthusiastic tenor.
"You sound jealous," Mokuba noted.
"Jealous? No. A little worn out on the same plot I lived through in high school, perhaps a little."
"What about her?" Yugi asked to change the subject, "You've gotten to know her in a comfortable environment. What is she like?"
"She talks too much," Kaiba admitted as he picked up a foam coffee cup and sipped, "but in this isolated instance, that's a good thing." He mentally sifted through all the information he'd absorbed in the past few hours, "She's driven, hardworking, as you can tell, artistic. She ran track in high school. Her favorite color is purple. She likes Broadway musicals, and she is a fan of some band called The Sticks. She also has this morbid fear of train crashes. Odd. She has cats. She has no idea how her hair is that white since both of her parents are brunette."
"What did you two talk about?" Yugi finally stopped the endless stream of tidbits, shocked that he had so many random facts in such a short time."
"I asked her what she would miss about home by moving to Japan." It was admittedly, a clever question. "That just got her started and before long I couldn't get her to stop."
"Million dollar question," Mokuba leaned and whispered as if she were afraid he would hear. "Is she single?"
"No. She has a boyfriend." Kaiba put the foam cup down tersely. "Justin Hayes."
"The lawyer?" Mokuba almost snorted.
"Apparently after we settled in her favor she offered to pay him a percentage of her new inheritance but he insisted as a date to be his form of payment. They're trying to make long distance work."
Both Yugi and Mokuba sighed, dismayed at this new information.
"Anything else we should know?" Yugi inquired.
"She told me that Karin thinks Mokuba is hot."
Mokuba smirked to himself. "And she's not wrong."
Their topic of conversation changed a few times before dying down entirely, leaving the cabin quiet. Seto went back to working on the code, Mokuba put on his headphones to listen to a book on tape, leaving Yugi alone to admire the ocean out the window.
Brian Harker walked with a spring in his step toward the fishbowl. As he passed rows upon rows of the stone tablets with their odd etchings, he smiled inwardly, knowing he'd finally make the boss happy. The Limey finally had something to share. It was at the best time too; the kid's brain was probably suffering from irreparable damage with all of the hallucinogens Harker kept him on, and he might not have his mind for much longer. As he approached the office, he saw Maple already inside, sitting on a desktop talking to their boss. Balthazar Nimr looked up, almost pleased to see Harker through the glass and beckoned him to come in with his hand.
"Just the man I wanted to see," Nmir smiled, "Miss Figaroa here has determined that much of the research collected from Maximillian Pegasus' expedition is kept in his private home in New York. You have connections in the Big Apple, do you not?"
"Several, all of which would be interested in this line of work," Brian said, seating himself in one of the office chair surrounding the conference table. "I can make a few calls as soon as I'm done here."
"Oh, so you have something more for me?" he sounded shocked. With a nod, Maple slid off the desk and exited the office, leaving the door open.
"Bakura finally gave us something useful," Harker said, steepling his fingers.
"It's about time." Balthazar Nmir seemed entirely unimpressed. "He knows where the Ring is?"
"The ring was taken from him some ten years ago when all of the Millennium Items were re-seized," Harker explained, "From his endless babblings and hallucinations, he talked about his friends taking the ring from him. He doesn't know where they are, but he does know that they're all in one place and he knows who has access to them."
"We've dug up Kul-Elna," Nmir said, tapping on the arm of his chair impatiently. "We know the items all fit in the stone, but the stone isn't in Luxor."
"No, because the tomb keepers relocated it to an island northwest of Egypt."
Nmir straightened himself in his chair, giving his full attention to Harker now. "The tomb keepers?"
"A family that has passed down the secrets of the Millennium Items for generations. He gave us a name: Marik Ishtar."
"A name is all we need," Nmir nodded. "If he's still in Egypt, I'll have my men track him down. In the meantime, I need you to make arrangements to have some men pay Maximillian Pegasus a visit."
"I'm on it." Harker stood, removing his cell phone from his pocket and scrolling through his nefarious contacts.
Nmir sat back in his chair and smiled. Harker was finally pulling his weight, they had two fronts of attack to explore. Life was good.
Sabrina woke up about an hour before landing and freshened up in the bathroom in time for the final descent onto the tarmac. JFK was an unfamiliar airport to the three men, but Sabrina had navigated it before, directing them to the pick-up area. A typical hulking, body-guard looking man wearing a black suit and tie stood in front of a limousine holding a sign that said "Kaiba Boy". Seto rolled his eyes, sighing in disgust.
"The faster we get in the limo the faster the sign goes away," Mokuba said, pushing his brother forward toward the driver.
Each of the four travelers only had an overnight bag that the driver seized from them and stowed in the trunk while they arranged themselves in the back of the limo, Mokuba and Yugi strategically sitting to make Sabrina and Kaiba next to each other. Bottled water, various sodas and even a bottle of champagne were displayed on ice for the taking and a small plasma screen television under the window that separated the driver from the passengers was on a news station. The driver rolled the tinted divider down a few inches and spoke into the rear-view mirror.
"Mr. Pegasus would like me to escort you to dinner first in order to give you the evening free if you'd like to see the city. I will escort you to his estate and also back to your hotel."
"Thank you," Mokuba said, uncapping a bottled water for himself.
"My pleasure," the driver replied, "With today's traffic, we'll be there in about thirty minutes. Feel free to change the tv channels with the remote in the cup holder." he said before raising the partition, giving the quartet a small measure of privacy.
Using the express way, the limousine headed east, tall gray buildings ambling slowly by.
"I have a confession to make," Sabrina said aloud. The three boys turned their focus from the TV to their co-worker. "I've always wanted to meet Maximillian Pegasus," she confided. "He is basically everything I ever wanted to be growing up. A successful businessman, philanthropist but also a man who does what he loves. He's an artist, a world traveler, and even at his age he's still plays his own game competitively."
"Yeah, a real renaissance man." Mokuba sipped his water to cover up the frown of disgust forming at his lips.
"All of you have met him before, though, right?"
"Yes, but when you're business rivals, you know that the politeness and deference are only a veneer for the public eye," Kaiba replied, not wanting to get into how polarizing of a character Maximillian Pegasus actually was. "While some of our duels were public and with cards, the true competition happened behind closed doors."
"And what about you, Yugi? Pegasus essentially launched you to stardom." She directed the statement at the King of Games dubbed by Mr. Pegasus himself.
"While it's true that I wouldn't have entered the tournament had he not specifically invited me," Yugi began, "My victory gave me nothing more than a title, plus that was ten years ago. I'm passé now."
"Why didn't you go pro?" Sabrina asked him, "Card and e-sports are both popular in Asia, and you were the best at one time. Why not make a career out of it?"
"I actually was offered to join an international Duel Monsters league. South Korea and Japan both offered me reasonable sums but it required a lot of travel and I couldn't leave my grandpa alone for weeks at a time with his health." He looked genuinely sad that he had turned down the opportunity. "So instead I took over the shop. Keeps me close to the game and my grandpa at the same time."
Kaiba shook his head slightly. Typical selfless, hero Yugi.
The conversation turned to other things as the car turned further south, leading to a gated community with large plots of land. Pegasus could have afforded something much bigger, but what the house lacked in size and grounds it more than made up for in style. The miniature mansion was one of the colonial style houses made of stately brick but with stone-work around the windows. Large white columns supported the porch and the balcony on the second floor above. Hedges trimmed to perfect shapes reminiscent of Wonderland lined the drive up to the house where both a swimming pool and tennis court occupied the back yard. He was waiting at the top of the porch steps, flanked by two servants, ready to meet them.
Age had been kind to Mr. Pegasus as his face only showed the slightest of lines to indicate he was no longer a man in his prime, though his hair was no longer the shoulder-length mane due to it thinning; instead, he had it slicked back, the length of his hair barely touching his collar. He had, in recent years, elected to wear a patch to cover his eye, but due to his flamboyant nature, it suited him.
The driver parked and let them out, Kaiba first, followed by Sabrina, Yugi, and Mokuba as their host descended the steps.
"Kaiba-boy!" the American reached his arms out, scooping Kaiba into a hug too quickly for him to escape. "It's been far too long! We need to collaborate again."
"We're collaborating right now, that's good enough," Kaiba replied stiffly, praying it would be over soon. When he released, Pegasus passed over Sabrina, aiming for the next friend in the queue.
"And, Yugi-boy, you've grown!" He extended his arms, but this time was hugged in return. "How's the shop going? I can set you up with some exclusive cards to boost business, if you'd like."
"It's good to see you again," the youth said sincerely, "and I won't say no to anything that can draw in more customers. You're very kind."
Seto squinted his eyes shut in frustration and sheer disbelief. Knowing Yugi, he'd forgiven Pegasus for everything and they were probably pen-pals. How could any human being be that irritatingly sweet.
"And of course, little Mokuba, though not so little any more. Look at you! " Pegasus opened his arms a third time. Mokuba locked eyes with him and took a step back, glaring at him not to make another attempt. Pegasus awkwardly lowered his arms before folding them behind his back and turning to Sabrina.
"And who is this exotic beauty, you've brought with you," he said extending a hand and bowing.
"Sabrina Harrison. She is our graphic and visual designer for an upcoming product launch at KaibaCorp," Kaiba introduced as briefly as he could.
"And a huge fan of yours, sir," Sabrina added, putting her hand in his, "You're living the American dream."
"It is always a pleasure to meet a fan. If you'll please follow me," he led her by the hand, up the stairs with the three boys following behind, "Dinner is already hot and waiting for us."
"Good, I'm hungry," Yugi beamed.
"Let's get this overwith," muttered the younger Kaiba, almost inaudibly
Seto made no comment; he merely pursed his lips, wishing Pegasus would let go of her hand. For some reason, it made him uncomfortable.