Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Me
A/N: Not much to change.
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Sun poured through the window into the living room of the usually bright and cheery apartment. Yet currently the apartment was in a mild state of disarray with a series of papers scattered on the couch, the table, and counter top. Carly sat in front of her laptop with her hands hanging limp at her side and her glasses were perched dangerously close to the tip of her nose. What she couldn't see was Hikari pushing with all her might to keep the glasses from falling off of Carly's face completely. It was a losing battle for the poor Faerie though.
While all but one other of the other Fairies were rushing about trying to find the glasses repair set that Carly normally kept in her purse. The Fairies could protect the glass but the frames? Well, to put it mildly, they needed to find that little clear tube. Granted there was a level of futility to their effort to find the kit, since Carly couldn't see them, it wasn't as though they could point out where it was if she broke her glasses. But Carly hadn't moved the page she was looking at for over an hour and the only thing they could figure was that when she moved? She was going to accidentally break something with her glasses on the top of the list given how far low it had slid.
There was a sudden knock on the door causing the Fairies to start and turn towards it in hope, save Carly. En flew off to check outside the door, hoping it was Aki who could see them, or that little girl that Aki mentioned. Jack, while nice, couldn't see them and there was a certain degree of 'clumsy oafishness' about him that made his presence not all that desirable when one wanted to keep things in order.
But she was nearly knocked out of the air as she flew right into Hu who had opted to go through the wall into the apartment. "I found her!" Hu announced before she floated back outside with En in tow. Aki stood there in the hallway in her regular street clothes instead of her student uniform, which explained why they were here so soon. In all honesty the Fairies had feared that Aki would be in 'school' and unable to get there until evening. That she was 'here' though meant that today was a special fortunate day for them!
"Aki! Thank goodness you're here! You gotta get Carly to move, she hasn't moved an inch in what feels like forever!" En pleaded in her eternally energized manner while Aki looked at her with mild alarm.
Not that she could say anything out right what with the possibility of someone hearing the girl, essentially, talk to herself. Instead Aki began to knock a little more urgently on the door in an effort to get the reporter up and about. But at least Witch of the Black Rose opted to get out of the deck and check things out on her own. Fairies were sometimes ditzy in their effort hence why this group worked so well with Carly.
So Witch entered the apartment and found Carly sitting frozen and zoned in on something on her laptop. Hikari, with Swee now serving as back up, was staunchly focused on keeping the glasses on Carly's face and Witch sighed before she floated through the wall and back to Aki's side. "Can you lend me enough power so I can manifest inside? Carly's at her computer and looks to be in shock, and apparently her glasses are about to fall off her face... So I'll grab her glasses and then let you in?"
Aki blinked and gave her witch a half smile before complying and watched as her Spirit floated through the wall again.
Witch floated off feeling the force of the air as she moved along towards Carly and snatched up the glasses with one small hand. "There we go, that and now to let Aki in," she told the two Fairies who floated back to give her space. The appreciation of having a person who could see them showing once again as the Witches' presence made Carly actually turn her head and slowly register that the world was still moving.
But the Witch put the glasses on the table before she deftly flew off and began undoing the locks to the door. Then lightly knocked with her tiny fist, calling out to Aki that it was safe to open up now. She backed up as Aki opened the door and gave a visual sweep of the area to find Carly. She slipped off her shoes and put on the proper slippers while Carly gave this geeky, drunken type half smile.
"Hi Aki... I... I..."
And Carly burst into tears sending all the Fairies into a tizzy and Aki to rush forward in concern calling the poor reporters name out in alarm. Carly covered her face with her hands as a terrible amount of shaking took over her body. "What happened?"
Witch of the Black Rose panicked as she looked about only to see Chee and Ann rush off, "this way! The tissue box is here Witch!" the pair of Fairies called out flying as fast as they could to the tissue box so Witch could grab it and bring it over.
Carly sat there shaking while the Witch brought over the box and allowed her to grab as many tissues as she needed. Aki knelt in front of Carly completely floored by this sudden change in personality and began looking at the laptop screen in some hope she could find out what happened. Maybe Carly got a terrible bit of news?
"Carly, what happened?" Aki urged Carly to speak in concern, given that she hadn't seen Carly in the past month. The program on the screen looked to be an email provider and there was a vivid blinking dot on the screen that highlighted the words 'New Messages'. "Did you get an upsetting email?"
Carly froze for all of a second and then the crying got harder before she blurted out, "I didn't steal them Aki! You believe me right? That I bought them fair and square!" She worked the tissue in her hands into shreds as her eyes expressed the anxiety and panic she felt. What her glasses normally hid was exposed as her emotionally distraught expression was clearly visible as was an unhealthy lack of sleep.
The Rose Duelist was taken aback by the force of Carly's panicked nature and her gaze went to the Fairies in a vain hope for an explanation. Not that she held much hope for any, Hu hadn't been able to explain a great deal to her. The group of Fairies had never been able to communicate with Carly until Aki entered their lives. Thus they had never really bothered with a great deal regarding what Carly did with herself.
But now it was gnawing on their wings as Carly was clearly upset and they didn't know where or how to help. It had been Hu's faint hope that she could find Aki and bring her over as soon as possible she being the only person who could actually see and hear them. So now that Hu had brought the Psychic to them all they could do is huddle behind Aki like a fairy cheerleading section.
"They're not fake figurines, I was told to take pictures of them and send them to a particular email address," Carly explained in a broken voice. She spent as much time sobbing between words as she did speaking. Her hands clenched and relaxed as she sat in her chair with Aki only a blur before her as she tried to find a way to get the words out. "I thought it was Mr. Yugi's and didn't mind that I never got a reply... Until yesterday... they're not fake! I swear Aki!"
"'Yesterday'? You've been sitting here since 'yesterday'?!" Aki asked in horror as she knelt there and finally took in Carly's state. The tired eyes, the frazzled hair that hadn't seen a brush yet, Aki turned to look at the Fairies for confirmation and got a group of five fairy head nods. "You go to bed!" She insisted as she stood up and began tugging at Carly.
But the reporter shook her head in protest, "how can I sleep when someone is so angry at me! I did as I was told!"
Aki looked back at the screen then over at the couch and sighed, "how about a compromise? You don't have to go to bed, but at least go rest on the couch."
Carly blinked owlishly at Aki before slowly, stiffly, getting up and shamble her way over to the couch. Aki followed her the whole way while Witch quickly began collecting all the papers on couch so Aki wouldn't be distracted from Carly. As she worked the Black Rose Garden began slowly stretching from the shadows and searching out the apartment. Its thorns began to point out directions so that Witch could then go fly off for a blanket for Carly to rest under.
"You can talk about it when you're good and ready," Aki instructed as she helped Carly lay down with the branches of the Garden began pushing along a pillow out so it could rest flat on the couch rather than propped up against the couch. While Witch came floating low to the ground with the weight of the blanket weighing her down. But at least they got Carly covered up freeing up the Witch and allowing Aki to keep her focus on Carly.
"Whoever is getting those emails yelled at me... He said that my figurines are fake and that it can't be 'The' King of Games because Mouto Yugi has been dead for years..."
Aki grew still in shock and disbelief, having seen the tiny imprinted serial numbers herself as Carly began to curl up on the couch. "I sent him copies of the bill of lading and invoices, I took pictures of the cards that were sent... He said that the business I was supposedly getting them from had been out of business for 15 years. The point of origin of the figurines didn't match any postal service location, even the cards..." Carly choked on the words and huddled up on herself even more, "I worked so hard on them..."
"Are you sure you should?"
"I got this, I've watched Aki do this back at her home, its easy."
"But...?"
"Look you just move this and we can start reading these emails, let me click this."
Aki blinked and really didn't want to turn around and see what her Witch and the Fairies were up to, but she wasn't dumb. Her deck wasn't a bunch of dumb plants and she had seen them sneaking about learning about the outside world during the past month. So when she turned she wasn't surprised when she saw her Witch sitting at the laptop pushing a connected mouse with both hands as the Fairies hovered around her, fixated on the screen.
"Witch?! Stop that! You can't go into other people's email accounts like that! Its private!" Aki scolded while the Fairies scattered up into the air like startled butterflies, with light from the sun and Hikari bouncing off their respective wands and apparel.
"Oh come on, we should find out! Carly's a friend and this sounds way, too, mysterious, even for a human world," Witch countered as she knelt there before reading off the screen.
"To Ms. Nagisa. Your letters and insistence has caused a great deal of outrage from my Father, and as such this is the part where I would be informing you that you may expect a lawsuit being in order."
Carly whimpered and if she could have shrank herself smaller than she already had she would have. Meanwhile Aki, more alarmed than ever, stood up from her seat and made her way to the computer to stop this unnecessary torture.
"However; I have managed to obtain confirmation about the source of your irrationally huge influx of money to cover the costs of said fake figurines. He's a close friend of my father and confessed to have been purchasing your photos upon request by an unnamed third party."
Aki froze where she stood before turning to check on Carly, who staring in complete wide eyed shock towards the deep wine colored spot that signaled hope with her words. That this appeared to be news to her telling Aki that Carly never got any farther than the first line.
"As such I will be speaking to my Father and see if there is a way to settle the situation in a more amicable manner than what it started out as. Signed, Vice President of Kaiba Corporation, Kaiba, Ryu."
The Witch blinked in surprise and sat back before looking around at the other interested Fairies, "wow what was going on?"
"Terrible!"
"Lord Kaiba himself sent the first message, accusing Carly of making fake figurines!"
"He threatened to have her fired!"
"He was going to have her thrown out the city!"
"He called her a deceitful, lying, glory seeking hacker!"
"Wait, a 'hacker'?" Aki asked confused as the Fairies recited bits of what they recalled from when Carly read the first email out loud. Aki stood there feeling directionless as she stared first at the spirits at the laptop, then to the woman behind her.
Carly roused herself up enough to clutch the pillow to her chest and put her feet back on the ground. Her words were still hiccuped between sniffles and a struggle to regain control of herself but she finally answered, "he said that the email account I was sending the pictures to was private. Very private, and old. He ignored the first few photos because he thought I was just some poseur who typed a letter wrong as I sent emails out. But the last set with Dark Magician was the straw that broke the camel's back... The account was set up for a very private group of people and the fact that I had access meant I was a top level hacker. He accused me of trying to hack into the KaibaCorp computer system recently regarding information about the Earthbound Gods and.. He remote accessed my laptop, downloaded all my content and then locked me to that screen. I can't even turn it off," Carly explained wiping her eyes with a shaking hand.
"Lord Kaiba 'himself'?!" Aki repeated the name in floored awe and disbelief. As great as Kaiba's gracious generosity 'was', his ferociously protective nature towards his family and close friends was both legendary and fearsome. Remembering back to how Carly said that 'Yugi was dead', made even 'her' nervous. The set included the Blue Eyes White Dragon and the Model of Yugi, Kaiba 'would' be outraged to see such meaningful items tossed about seemingly carelessly. How could he know the level of dedication she went into painting each piece? He probably felt so violated...
"I took pictures of the paperwork, of everything," Carly continued her voice low and rough from her hours of silence, crying and stress. "I feel so violated. I don't know who this person pretending to be Yugi 'is'. But if this was a joke its not funny!"
Aki went and made a small snack for Carly given how long the woman had gone without food or drink, she figured something simple and light. While the occasional glance showed the spirits were going through more emails...
"Greetings Ms. Nagisa, it has come to my attention that there has been a bit of an issue between yourself and the one you were sending the pictures to. Don't worry, I contacted him and he's settled down now, I know he can be a bit aggressive. There are reasons for that, but don't worry I got him under control, or as 'under control' as one can get with that guy. Signed, Ishtar, Malik."
"So I guess that's the guy who was sending Carly all the money?" Chee asked.
"Sounds like it. That name doesn't sound local at all," Ann noted thoughtfully.
Aki found some vegetables that she could make into instant snacks while heating water for some tea and began washing and plating the vegetables, as the Witch kept reading more emails. But two were work related rumors of possible stories and one was an email from Misty. Not bad, save that Misty's email included an inquiry as to why Carly's email had suddenly been listed as non existent for about five hours.
It was the kind of comment that really re-enforced the amount of trouble those figurines had apparently caused Carly. A quiet type of horror that maybe Kaiba had begun wiping the woman out of history itself in a growing fury. While Aki walked back to Carly and sat down by the womans' side, thinking back to how Asuka usually handled upset people. She put a small tray on Carly's lap that held the sliced vegetables and tea. Then guided Carly's hands because her vision was insanely bad apparently, given how she put the plate to her nose just to see what was what.
Witch went and flew off retrieving the glasses so Carly could see what was going on while Aki made a decision to email this person through Carly's laptop. Moving over to the laptop she sat down and realized there was no way to get 'out' of Carly's email account. It was frozen to her name and resigned to it Aki typed out an email of her own.
"Excuse me, I'm a friend of Carly's and I am curious about how this could even happen. I've personally seen the bills and the paperwork as well as the marks on the figurines. This sounds like a very elite group of people are involved but how can you assume that it was Carly? I can't imagine that she would send any message indicating extortion of any sort?"
Aki never even got to the part where she could edit her thoughts when notepad suddenly opened up on the screen.
"You're Senator Izayoi's daughter, Aki, aren't you?"
Aki froze in complete shock as more words began to write itself onto the page.
"I'm busy resetting Nagisa's settings and accounts at the moment. Yes, I hacked her computer, yes she has a webcam, yes I can see you, and yes I can see that you can summon Duel Spirits too. Which means that it must have been Fudo who tried to hack me. Stay out of my personal business."
She couldn't form a coherent thought as two images were posted to the message, one of her sitting at the computer at that very moment and one of Witch of the Black Rose, apparently reading the email from before.