Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.
"I'm Dr. Jordan Taylor, pleased to meet you Mr. Kaiba."
Dumbstruck, that's all that could describe his expression. Broad azure eyes stared at her in horrified awe, begging the universe that it wasn't true. It was rather gratifying to see such a powerful CEO barely able to contain his shock.
Jordan continued to sit behind her desk, casually stroking the top of Angel, the ball python's head.
"This is a joke," he finally said, "There's no way a brat like you is the Dr. Taylor I have a meeting with!"
Jordan stood. Angel's tongue hissed, tasting the air for the mice she knew were in the tank to the right. She squeezed her wrist with anticipation, not enough to hurt but enough to leave a red mark.
Was it just her, or did Kaiba flinch? He seemed to be eyeing her cautiously enough.
A smirk turned up the corners of her pretty mouth.
"Not a snake fan, Mr. Kaiba?"
His face froze and rewound, turning back into that icy glacier cold glare and he squared his shoulders bravely.
"What does it matter?" he returned venomously.
"Oh it matters a great deal," she replied. She raised the scaly creature up so that she was eye level with it. "She's a rescue from Cuba. She, like many others were being used to traffic drugs into Miami. Almost died of an overdose. If you haven't already noticed several of our floors are dedicated to special cases. There's a team of expert animal surgeons that have been hand picked by my father."
She sighed sadly, handing her back over to Jacob before leaning over the large tank and picked up a mouse, setting it in a cardboard container.
"Make sure that when those stitches heal she gets my gift."
The young man nodded, carefully taking the snake and bowing slightly. "Yes, ma'am."
The door closed quietly behind him.
"So Mr. Kaiba," Jordan said, "Would you please explain why you're here? I am a busy person and I have better things to do."
Seto glared. Could that tone get any haughtier? Even if she wore a long white lab coat and had exchanged her small school uniform for a nice pair of black pants and a navy blue sweater she still looked like a snotty teenage girl. Her panda earrings still hung from her ear but he noticed that she'd removed the studs in order to gain a much more professional appearance. Not that what she was wearing mattered.
"You, have no right to be thinking that you're more important than me" he snarled back, "You're nothing more than a charity case, you need money this little animal rescue to survive and I'm the one with the money so I'll be calling all the shots. Now sit down and sign this."
He slapped the contract on the desk in front of her.
She glared at him in defiance. Picking up the reasonably thick packet of paper she quickly flicked through, frowning at some parts more than others.
Finally she set it down and reached for a pen, but stopped before she signed it.
"You worded this rather delicately didn't you? Leaving yourself plenty of loop holes."
Amused azure eyes glared at her with a self-satisfied smirk like a hawk circling a defenseless baby chick stuck between a rock and a gorge.
It was either jump or be eaten.
Obviously she saw the ultimatum to, and was none too pleased.
"What is this investment to you?" Jordan voiced suddenly.
The baby chick had decided neither; it wanted to talk to the hawk.
Now that caught him off guard but he be damned if he showed it.
"Business is business" he brushed off. "This is no different."
"I meant personally," she interrupted.
"Personally?" he couldn't catch himself before he said that, which irked him more than the fact that she'd interrupted.
He shrugged, "WLS does research on how to minimize peoples impact on the environment, I know you're partnered with Green Peace and the World Wildlife Fund to help protect varies species and ecosystems. To me, personally though," Suddenly his eyes narrowed and his voice turned cold. "You're just a bunch of tree huggers that I plan to use you to gain back some reputation for Kaiba Corp. Nothing more."
He saw her jaw set and fists clench by her sides. All of a sudden in one fell swoop the contract was in the trashcan.
The baby chick was fighting back.
"Don't you have even one fiber of compassion in that stone heart of yours?!" she roared, "How dare you come in here, demanding my life's work on a silver platter and then have the gall to tell me that all I've ever worked for has no use except to further your deceitfulness in society!"
Her hand swung but stopped short of coming in contact with his face. His fingers caught and closed sharply around her wrist like a vice, a dry sneer upon his face.
"You'd go so far as to hit me? The man who holds your financial future with WLS?"
Her eyes grew wide.
"That's right," he replied to her shocked and angry expression. "I know what's happening. Governments are charging more and more to put up wildlife preserves because of the demands for raw goods like forests and water and fossil fuels, and you can't keep up with the demands, can you?"
He felt her body flex, trying to pull away. He smirked.
"Now you will sit down and sign that contract or do I really have to get angry?"
To emphasize his point he yanked her hard so that her body came crashing into his. She stumbled, not expecting the sudden move and he caught her other hand. She glared at him, giving a firm tug to which he resisted.
"Unhand me, Mr. Kaiba, I don't like shedding blood but if needs be I will happily oblige," she hissed scathingly.
Suddenly something he least expected happened. A large ham like hand grabbed a fistful of his expensive Armani suit collar and hauled him up until he was almost off the floor. Flailing about, Seto quickly stopped, realizing who he'd just provoked.
"Well I reckon someone's in for a lot 'hurtn!" Colby's booming voice growled over his shoulder.
Seto looked back in horror.
"Don'ts you be worry'n Miss Taylor, I'll give him a good wallopin'"
Seto jerked his head back towards the red head. "You kick me out and you'll never get so much as a penny from me or any other possible donator in Japan!"
For a moment she studied him and for a split second he honestly thought she was going to let him get dragged away.
"Let him go, Colby." Every word sounded like it had been strangled and severed from the very bottom reaches of her soul.
Grudgingly the large brute of a personal bodyguard/personal assistant released him.
Seto straightened out his jacket, smirking a jeer at the Australian ogre, but taking an extra step away, just to be safe.
Jordan sighed as she sat in her chair, deflating her pride and reaching into the waste paper basket to retrieve the contract she oh so dreaded. Gingerly she cradled a pen between her fingers and paused one last time before pressing the tip to the parchment, it's black, inerasable ink onto the paper-
"Dr. Taylor, your father is on line 1," echoed her secretary's voice through the intercom, "It's about Zahra."
Jordan's head shot up, as did Colby's, brown eyes wide as dinner plates. Her hand shot to the phone and she pressed it to her ear; Seto could actually see her holding her breath.
After about a minute and several "Mhms" and nods she said a short goodbye and looks up with fierce fire lighting within her russet orbs.
Colby took a half a step forward. "Miss Taylor . . .?"
Jordan grinned, "They found her."
All of a sudden she was out the door, Colby right behind, issuing out orders and leaving the abandoned contract forgotten. But Seto Kaiba did not give up. His long strides quickly matched hers but the closer he followed her the more chaotic the once quiet office building slash clinic became.
"I want the Helicopter in the air in 45 minutes! Contact Squad T1, I want them suited up and ready to go in ten tops! Someone get me a phone!"
The brunette CEO found himself being almost trampled as people scurried about answering all her orders without question and more still bringing her a heavy looking earthy green vest like the ones armies used, with the chest and sides, even the back covered with pockets and other things, and a headset like contraption.
Jordan punched several numbers into the small keypad by her belt and waited for the satellites to connect her with a very special person. Turning sharply she didn't expect to come nose to nose with Kaiba Corp.'s head honcho.
"Why are you still here?" she asked, slightly impressed that he could keep up with her jog.
"I'm not leaving until you sign this!" he snarled back, waving the paper fruitlessly.
They turned down another hallway and up several flights of stairs until they came to the roof.
Seto's mouth fell open when he saw what was up there. A team of about six people including Colby, all cloaked in armor and the latest in camouflage technology were working in a chain to move heavy titanium boxes into one strange looking piece of aerodynamics. It looked like a hybrid between a helicopter and a plane. He'd heard of these but hade never seen one up close and personal. Right now the blades were pointed up, like a helicopter but once in the air he knew they would fold down and become like airplane propellers. Large orange stripes zigzagged up and down the metal and painted on teeth grinned against the front. On the side the letters WLS was painted.
"Eric Donolov," Jordan called. One of the men with a red armband snapped to attention, coming up and saluting her before giving her a sturdy grin.
"Ma'am," he answered. His dark blue eyes looked to Seto. "And . . .?"
Seto opened his mouth but was cut off before he could even start much to his displeasure.
"He's just business." Jordan waved off, "I want a status report."
"Everything's packed in, we have supplies for two months and basic medical equipment," he answered to her like a private talking to a veteran general. "Tracking systems are tested and ready to go as are the navigations and all other likewise equipment."
Jordan nodded. "Then I want everyone in and strapped down. I hope you've signed your wills and said goodbye to your dog because we're moving out!" She started walking away.
Seto glared, catching her wrist. "Where do you think you're going?" His voice rose to a roar as the propellers started to whirl, splaying his once neat chocolate locks and sending his tie flapping over his shoulder.
"As you can see, Mr. Kaiba" he voice just as loud. "I'm very busy with something much more important than some silly contract. I'll deal with you when I get back!"
"How long will you be gone?" he questioned, still not letting go.
"I'm sure you heard Eric's assessment, two months at least. I can't say how long exactly, two months, maybe three- OW!"
His hand clenched angrily, no doubt leaving a bruise on her creamy freckled skin. That wasn't good enough! He needed this signed and he needed it signed now!
"I'm coming with you!" he barked.
Her eyes broadened, then snapped to slits as she narrowed them. "No you're not!"
"Then if you leave don't expect to come back to a city and charity that wants you!"
She paused at the threat. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Oh I'd dare and I'll do you one better by promising you that I will buy this pathetic waste of money and turn it into your worst nightmare" he answered.
She ground her teeth for a long minute. Her breath came out in a huff. "Fine. Eric!"
The young man turned. "Yes ma'am?"
"Get Mr. Kaiba suited up with the extras and get him on bored. For the time being he's one of us."
Gods did she want to push him off the roof. She could see the surprise in Eric's eyes as he hesitated helping up another member.
"Ma'am . . ?"
"Just do it!" she snapped.
Seto smirked. He always got his way, one way or another.
Eric hissed something into the mic attached to his helmet and Seto saw several other faces fight to get a look out the small porthole windows of the aircraft. What he didn't expect was to be roughly shoved around as Eric strapped him into a vest. They were surprisingly heavy!
"Alright Rookie, get in!"
Seto snorted at the term, climbing into the helicopter.
The space was cramped and bare with nothing but the naked metal bolts and such to decorate it. A couple of painted maps colored the fuselage but that was it. Nothing more other than the people all strapped in against the sides. Seto sat down and buckled in, right next to Jordan. Sure, it was the only seat left, but the satisfaction he got from watching her squirm was priceless.
"So Rookie, this your first time in a plane?" Asked the one directly across from him. He was another young man, with hard hazel eyes and a single curly lock of jet-black hair dancing over his left eye.
Seto held his gaze in defiance. The question was a jeer. "I've built plenty of aircrafts, and hand built my own personal jet," he returned coldly.
Instead of being in awe, like most people he told this to, the member snickered, as did the entire team of Squad T1.
"Kale," Jordan chastised, trying to keep up that leadership demeanor even if she was struggling to hide her own smirk.
"Sorry ma'am," he apologized. Seto crossed his arms; he sounded anything but sorry.
The helicopter rumbled and shook terribly as it ascended into the skies of Domino.
Still his Armani business suit and nice leather dress shoes, Seto elbowed the so-called Dr. Taylor and asked rather casually.
"Where are we going?"
She replied, "The Himalayas."
He went white as a sheet.
What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Seto Kaiba awoke to the rough shaking of his shoulder. Sitting up, he held back a groan. Sitting like that, with his head leaning down and chin resting against his collarbone had left his stiff and sore not to mention the sharp, bright light invading his vision was burning his eyes. Another thing was that the second he looked up he realized a pair of slender hands were still resting on his shoulders. For a split second he thought that everything that had happened before had been just a dream, more like nightmare, and he was being awoken by one of his maids.
"G'morning sweet thang" said a female voice.
Seto looked up. A beautiful sight met his eyes. He'd seen plenty of supermodel class daughters at business parties but this one took the cake. She had shoulder length strawberry blond hair that he knew if it hadn't have been tied back into a French braid that would have framed her face and two stunning blue eyes perfectly. She was petite to, not like that noisy, anger inducing red head.
"Oi, Kaiba!"
Speak of the devil.
"What?" he snarled scathingly.
Jordan eyed him, silently seething, running her tongue along her teeth as if to wipe away and swallow the sneer rising in her throat. She jerked her head back, motioning him to join the rest of Squad T1 who were huddled around several papers, a laptop and a map splayed on the floor. Another thing Seto noticed was that everyone's backpack was slightly bulkier than before and strap like harnesses snaked around their thighs and chests. He raised an eyebrow.
"We're deciding on your pair," Jordan said, gesturing once again that he'd better move closer.
Why did it feel like he was walking into a trap?
The brunette CEO scooted closer, gracefully of course but not quite close enough that the circle the team had created was broken slightly by him.
"A pair, for what?"
His question got him half a dozen wide, cat like grins. Little mental red flags when up in his mind but he couldn't figure out why.
Suddenly the cockpit door slid open and the co-pilot said something in an unrecognizable language. It looked as though the rest of them didn't know what the man and Jordan were chattering away about either, waiting eagerly for the translation.
After a few minutes of chit chat back and forth, the co-pilot returned to the cockpit and Jordan turned around, hands on her hips. Or at least where Seto figure to be her hips, it was hard to tell under the bulk of the gear.
"So boss" Kale asked a playful grin on his handsome, tanned features, "Do we have the go ahead?"
Jordan once again consulted her maps and checked something that looked like a large watch on her wrist and then gave a thumbs up.
"We're at 6000 feet, the wind speed looks good according to the pilot and we're over the base camp. We're good to roll."
The team cheered.
"What am I being paired for?" Seto barked again, more than a little annoyed that he'd been ignored.
"For the jump," Eric replied calmly.
All of a sudden everything clicked. Those bulky backpacks weren't for storing things, they were parachutes.
"We're going to jump down?" Seto asked, paling considerably. It took everything he had not to show the shock or quiver in his voice.
"Yes," Jordan answered shortly.
There was a holler from the cockpit and she nodded, grabbing a helmet.
"Colby you take Kaiba. Eric you check Robin, Kale, check Nathan and I'll be checking with Phoenix."
The aircraft clinked and clanked with hustle bustle as everyone got with their collective partners and examined each other's buckles, zips and knots.
"Um, boss" Kale pardoned, tapping the red head's shoulder.
Jordan looked to the side where the powerful CEO was gazing unseeingly out the window, his clean complexion turning a delicate shade of olive green. She felt almost sorry for him.
"It's your fault you know," she said in a hushed voice, saving him from the embarrassment of having the whole team laugh at him, though in her opinion he didn't deserve her kindness.
"Screw off," he hissed back gruffly.
Point proven.
"Well if you hadn't been such an egotistical block head you wouldn't be here right now," she continued. In a softer, albeit begrudgingly tone, she whispered, "Don't worry, Colby's done this a million times, there's nothing to be scared about."
"I'm not scared!" Seto snapped.
"Well that's good," boomed Colby. The giant bulk of a man once again proved his strength by picking up Seto by the collar of his vest like a lion did its cub, and set him down on his feet. Seto grabbed a handle along the ceiling. His mind was coming to terms but his body refused to let him throw himself out the side of a plane thousands of feet about the ground. It just wasn't right!
Jordan noted his knuckles turn white and his sapphire eyes return to staring out the window at the forests below. With a sigh she called Robin who was finishing her evaluation of Eric's rig.
"Think you could give him a little something to calm him down?" she asked.
Squad T1's medical doctor giggled behind her hand as she dug through her bag of medical supplies. She pulled out a needle and a small vile of a clear liquid.
"On three . . ."
Outside the warmly colored jungles below dotted only with a handful of wispy clouds dotting the horizon and above it all the Himalayan Mountains towered over everything. The suns golden orange rays had just peaked over the snowy white summits. It was stunning. Unfortunately the beauty that Mother Nature had spent millions of years building didn't take his mind off his current problem at hand. Seto didn't know what to do, throw up or pass out. He managed a small mental smirk. If he did the first he'd make sure to hit that bothersome red head.
What was he supposed to do? With a horrible sinking feeling he thought of Mokuba and how worried his little brother must be. Kaiba Corp was probably in shambles, geared in apocalyptic mode because their boss had gone missing. Oh what a headache that was going to be to clean up.
"Hey rookie."
Seto turned around. "Wha-OOF!"
Out of nowhere he found himself being body checked into the side, Kale and Eric pinning his arms at his sides while Jordan used her body, flushed with his, to pin down the bulk of his body.
"Don't worry sweetheart, you won't feel a thing I promise," Robin smiled sweetly as she stepped closer with a rubber-gloved hand and a needle she was spurting into the air, making sure of the right dosage and to get all the air out. Seto's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and the steady color of green he had been turning sharply paled to a starch white.
"What the hell do you think you're- YEOW!"
A sharp sting in his thigh and slowly the world began to get blurry; the pressure of the bodies released him but Seto found he couldn't really hold himself up.
"What did you do . . . to me?" Seto cursed himself. His words smeared and slurred greatly thanks to whatever drug was now in his system.
"Just a little something to get those nasty jitters out of ya."
Finally Colby came through and picked him up. Seto's cloudy mind registered the sounds and feeling of having his harness put on and tightened then attached to the Aussie ogre as he so delightfully referred to the bodyguard.
Up ahead the side door was opened filling the space with howling winds and the deafening whistling of the helicopter/plane blades.
A helmet was crammed on his head and Seto had just enough sense left to pull down the goggles just like everyone else.
"I wanna go first!" Kale grinned over the loudness.
"Fine" Jordan roared back, "But steer clear of the trees this time! We don't need a repeat of last time!"
Kale stuck out his tongue and with a "Yahooooo!" he leapt out.
That sickening, stomach twisting, gut wrenching feeling came back as Seto watched Kale's body, now a small speck fall towards Earth.
"Show off!" Eric yelled, jumping next.
Robin followed then Nathan, and a man who Seto assumed was Phoenix, smirked back, hand on the doorframe.
"Don't worry, buddy, if your chute doesn't open we'll just look for a you shaped hole in the ground."
Jordan smacked him upside the head, pointing outside. "Oh just jump!"
Phoenix flashed her a grin, disappearing like all the others into the wild blue yonder.
Jordan turned to the final pair. "Relax, just do what Colby's body does and don't flail around, you'll be fine! See you on the ground!"
At the point Seto was all but hyperventilating.
Fine?! Fine?!?! How was it FINE to be jumping out of something that every fiber of your common sense was telling you not to?!
"Alright pretty boy it's just us left."
Seto tried desperately to dig his heels into the metal flooring, knees locking as he shook his head, trying to clear himself of the drug-induced haze.
"This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This is just a really bad dream . . ."
Wind blustered around his face as he stood on the precipice.
"Here we go!"
Oh hell noooooooooooooooooo!!!'
As far as remembering, Seto felt a tad ripped off. It was the only time he had and ever would jump from this high and all he could catch was pieces, flashes of his experience.
He had the drugs and that God awful red head to thank for that no doubt.
He did however remember quite well the feeling of all his nerves jumping to the back of his body and the wind being cruelly cold. Beneath the thunderous howling of the wind all he could hear was his constant hyperactive heartbeat thumping ten times its normal speed.
Ten seconds.
The position he had fallen into felt almost comfortable.
With his body hurtling towards Earth at over 150 miles per hour the air had gently pushed against his chest like an invisible mattress. Colby had taken possession of his wrist and was holding them out to the sides and through the headset mentioning something about arching his back.
Twenty seconds.
What a spectacular view. The thought had run across his mind in and out several times like a fuzzy news bulletin. He could see to the horizon in every direction, right to where the world started to curve. If only those historical philosophers could see what he was seeing, they never would have said it was flat. The blue sky and so few clouds, and the famous mountain ridge. Absolutely incredible.
Thirty seconds.
Jordan's annoying voice crackled in his ears. The "ten-second warning"? No, not something he was familiar with. Oh that meant the time until the chutes would open? Ah, Kale's already deployed his. Seto's eyes followed the deep blue rectangle as it glided smoothly over the tops of the trees . . . right over a heard of elephants?!
Forty seconds.
Before Seto could even look twice at the gargantuan creatures Colby let go of his wrists and pulled a long cord that had a hacky-sack connected to the end. With a loud rustling the parachute shot upwards into the sky. The force of the chute opening cause them both to jerk back, making the inexperience CEO's limbs to snap forward like a rag doll's.
Several treetops skimmed the bottom of his feet. Seto pulled up his soles, not wanting to get caught and mangled in the jungle canopy. He wondered if they were even going to make it to the small clearing up ahead.
"Easy, boy, you'll set us off balance," Colby's gruff voice barked.
Seto swallowed. Lower and lower they drifted, Colby manipulating the parachute expertly, but to Seto it wasn't close enough.
"Ah, here they come!" Eric said, holding his hand above his eyes to block out the light.
Jordan looked up from undoing her harness. "Wow, he doesn't look too good."
Kale made to laugh out a joke but squinting at the final two to land all he could say was, "He looks downright green!"
As the pair touched down with a gentle thud, Jordan took several steps towards the two, Robin hot on her heels. Colby disconnected them and the brunette took a shaky step away, sapphire eyes unfocused and his pristine hair sweaty and messed as Robin pulled off the helmet.
Seto looked up, turned away. . .
. . .and promptly threw up.
Okay, this was all requested by some of my readers on a different site that I post everything up here. That's excuse #1 why nothing's particularly clean grammar or spelling wise. Exuse #2 I don't have a beta, no matter how much I wish I did at the moment. Double sorry about that D: Anyways you (and you know who you are) can stop flooding my e-mail with angry notes lol Nah jk, those are still fun to read.
To any new readers I'm glad to have you aboard and I hope you liked it. If you want to review please be my guest :D
