Duel Four: In DiStReSs

I had fallen asleep or so I thought.

And let me tell you, lying on a gnarled, submerged tree root was not a very good idea. When I eventually did awaken, the sky had grown eerily dark and stars blinked happily into being. The moon was at it's quarter phase, illuminating the island in its ghastly light.

Reacting to how cold it suddenly seemed, I clutched at my sleeves and rubbed my hands along my arms in attempt to warm them up. It was still summer and I was rather surprised by how chilly it was, but I didn't dwell long over the thought. Fully awake and (from what my stomach was telling me) famished, I unzipped my backpack and fished out a turkey sandwich and a small lantern.

After turning on the battery-operated lantern then placing it next to me, I leaned against the trunk of the tree I had been occupying since earlier with my backpack between my legs and sandwich in my hands.

At first, the surrounding nature didn't disturb me since my thoughts were so absorbed with the earlier events that took place between Ran, Minoru, and I. Chewing at my food, I wondered what they were doing now – were they sitting around a fire (no doubt Tea, Tristan, or Yugi would have conjured) or having the time of their lives being around the famous Yugi Mutou? I didn't even consider they were missing me, Ran perhaps a little, but in the presence of greatness my well-being has probably been overlooked.

Finishing off my sandwich my stomach felt better and I sighed. Becoming bored with the stars I turned my attention to my lantern, before I hadn't noticed, but now I could see quite clearly the Hello Kitty logo on the base of it. Frowning, I picked the lantern up and analyzed the small picture of the white cat head.

I wonder who bought me this? Father and Mama were very careful about what they bought me and were notorious for warning relatives (alias Auntie Ai) to go along with their standards. Normally I was given something with a purpose, nothing solely meant for pure entertainment. In fact, I only knew the picture belonged to the Hello Kitty franchise because a few of my other girl classmates had it too on their school supplies (not to mention it has the copyright name along the edge.)

Puckering my lips in thought, I ran my right thumb over the logo, trying hard to recall where the lantern had come from.

Oh, right… I had gotten it from Auntie Ai a year ago on my seventh birthday, she had claimed there were no other lanterns that suited me and my parents thought they had hidden it from me well enough. But after catching a glimpse of it I was intrigued by the cute icon, I had pulled the lantern (still fully packaged) out from the garbage when Mama and Father weren't watching and stuck it in my messy wardrobe in my room.

I had just now come to find use of it and now, the anger from before at my newfound friends' betrayal came back full blast.

What had Father and Mama been trying so desperately to keep me away from? They weren't honestly expecting me to outgrow childhood, live out being a teenager, and become an adult without trying to discover some sort of answer to their ridiculous parenting manner were they? I gripped the lantern tightly without trying to break it. My shoulders almost began to shake, my brain fuming as it tried to get around what my "parents" were thinking all this time! Granted if I hadn't been so sensitive (as most children are) I wouldn't have noticed I was different than my classmates through my upbringing.

Yet when Duel Monsters started becoming popular, kids were beginning to notice there was most definitely something wrong with me.

"What kind of kid doesn't even know about bubble gum or Duel Monsters?" I shook my head, not wanting to go through flashbacks of humiliation. I remember going red and my eyes blurring, but I never cried, at least, not in front of people.

Father reprimanded and lectured me on not "displaying weakness to others" by crying, but that didn't stop me from doing so at night in my bed.

I blinked and without knowing it I had been crying, a tear plummeted down onto the lantern. I swiftly rubbed my face with my sleeve, eagerly wiping away all traces of sadness, but my fair skin remained blotchy and red (even though I couldn't see it I knew.)

Switching the lantern off, I felt I had turned my memory off. I glanced back up at the stars, trying to ease the sudden headache throbbing gently behind my eyebrows. In attempt to calm down, I started to inhale and exhale deeply, but the anger didn't ebb away completely. I doubted it ever would.

Then what I hadn't noticed before, I certainly began noticing now.

The forest around me cooed with night noises, ranging from distant owl hoots to crunches in the undergrowth, my imagination started getting a hold of me. Thoughts of Kemo and his fellow guards possibly having following me came to mind, that they were on their way to dragging me off the island. As if that wasn't scary enough, I even imagined they were dressed in horror costumes to make my time even worse!

Fiddling with my lantern, I wasn't sure if I should turn it back on or not. What if (even if it weren't Kemo) it was some duelist that wasn't as nice as Yugi and his gang and they found me through the light of the lantern! I bit my bottom lip, the blood in my head heading south. I gathered my backpack on my shoulders and prepared to bolt – just in case.

For the next hour or two, I sat in terrified vigilance. Waiting for something unfriendly and morbid to come lunging out of the bushes at me.

Then, I heard something. Not a cricket or an early bird, something heavier. I recalled all the duelists that were on the boat and from what I saw, I imagined the ugliest and scariest as the one rummaging through the forest somewhere around me. I cradled my pink lantern and my orange eyes scanned the bushes for any sign of a person, planning on running for the life of me if I did.

The minutes ticked by and I picked out the noises were being made by shoes, not sure about what kind of shoes, but shoes. Which meant a person, which meant it could very well be one of the ugliest and scariest of the duelists from the boat!

Close to relieving myself, my eyes settled on a dark figure under some trees, gradually coming closer. The moonlight glanced off the person's wrist, glinting off a silver gauntlet.

So the person was a duelist and not Kemo or one of his guards – unless some guards are participating – ack! They're coming closer! In my panic I squeaked and the figure stopped, the person had a lot of hair from what I could see, so naturally, I assumed this person was a girl. Yet she was taller than Tea (at least from my perspective) so I promoted the figure to being a woman.

This logic calmed me down slightly, but when the figure seemed to have noticed something in my direction (guess what) it started walking again and even spoke.

"Hey, who's there?" It was a feminine voice, not a strictly kind one, but she didn't seem cross.

"Um…I'm not a duelist or…a guard…or anything…" I trailed off lamely, the lady stepped out of the forest and into my small clearing, the moonlight giving her and I a better idea of what we looked like to one another. Her purple eyes stared at me in shock.

"Wait…what's a kid doing here?" I blinked, the terror fleeing my consciousness and my grip on my lantern loosened. She was pretty tall, especially in her high-heeled boots with a very (how did Mama put it?) scandalous fashion sense with her short skirt and low-cut shirt (was it some corset?) beneath her jacket. Her hair was blonde like mine, but fell past her elbows in elegant waves with a touch of sharpness. In my opinion, she was really pretty since, unlike Tea, she wore make-up and expressed a special type of beauty.

I stared up at her, a sense of a challenge burning inside me.

"What's it to you?" I asked, startled about my tone, I wasn't intending to be so…frank. The female duelist blinked, again in shock.

"Geez, calm down, this tournament had requirements and the age limit is fourteen. You certainly don't look fourteen, so naturally, I was curious." She replied with a Madonna-like attitude. She had a tough hue to her voice and I found what could've been what Ran was feeling when she gazed up at Tea.

"I'm Penny," I said, happy to give her my name. The woman gave a smile.

"Mai Valentine," was her reply, I eyed her attire a little more.

"Aren't you cold?" I asked, the woman bent down to my level.

"I've been walking around until now, so no, not really. But anyway, you didn't answer my question, this isn't exactly a playground, kid." She gave me a questioning (if not a demanding) expression that I felt slightly intimidated under.

"I was with a few friends…but we got separated." I only gave half the truth, a white lie won't be such a big deal I reasoned, besides, this Mai was a complete stranger, like before I wasn't about to spill my guts. Rule number two about strangers – tread cautiously.

"Hm, well, this island is a big place. I'm sure your friends are looking for you – hey! Wait a minute! Were you traveling with that moron with the blonde hair – Joey Wheeler, Yugi Mouto, and their cheesy gang?" Mai asked, a lump in my throat appeared. "I saw a couple of younger kids with them, they said they were their sister and brother, but they looked confused for some reason when they saw the two of them…"

She seemed to put two and two together without my answer and straightened up to her full height.

"…then again, it's not my problem." Stated Mai, her eyes not running over me again. "I've got bigger fish to fry, have fun finding that merry little gang of friends 'kay."

My heart suddenly cried out and I latched at one of her ankles covered by her purple boots. She stopped in mid-walk.

"What? Afraid of the dark?" she oozed with arrogance, though it faltered somewhat. I let go of her ankle quickly and stood up with my backpack and lantern ready to go.

"Sort of," was my reply and Mai gave me an intense look.

"I'm not much of a kid person, if you want to tag along, you have to do what I say – got it?" she seemed rather bossy, but that's fine with me.

"Right, but only if you can get me into the castle." I said as I pointed off in the distance where Pegasus' castle sat. Mai smirked.

"Oh please, we don't need to band together and bond through the Heart of the Cards to get there. Trust me," she winked at me, "I planned on getting that far from the beginning."

At the castle, Pegasus's Suite

Maximillion Pegasus was a prestigious man with high expectations, so what if he enjoyed cartoons featuring clever rabbits and basing the theme of his deck on a child's world? He was a dangerous, wealthy, well-dressed man and that's all his guards and staff really bothered thinking of him as.

It was late, but time wasn't a big deal at this point in the game. He didn't play any part until that Yugi-boy gained ten star chips and since he gave the Wheeler kid one of his own, so he could participate, Pegasus believed he'll be waiting an extra few hours or maybe even a day than he planned before facing off against Yugi and getting his hands on his Sennen item.

What was curious to him now was a report Croquet verbally gave him from Kemo. It was most peculiar, but Pegasus wasn't all together surprised. Somehow the guards let a few uninvited children under the age fourteen onto the ship, but those kids wouldn't upset the balance of his plans he was certain. Why they came wasn't a mystery to him, he was hosting a huge tournament and being here was almost like getting flowers from Seto Kaiba.

At the moment, Pegasus smirked, Kaiba-boy wouldn't be in such high spirits…

The kids didn't concern him, but Kemo had said they had claimed they were tagging along with Mutou's gang and going along with the lie that they were somehow related to a couple of them.

That was a lie to avoid being forced off the island no doubt, but tagging along with Yugi Mutou didn't seem like such a good idea, Pegasus almost felt a tinge of sympathy for the stowaways. Of course, it's not his fault there were underage children on his island in possibly perilous situations, their parents can't sue him. Even if they tried he had the top lawyers and attorneys from both countries of Japan and the United States.

With the help of his lamp light on the nightstand beside his bed, Pegasus crossed his feet before picking up a small stack of eight by eleven inch photos from the wooden surface. A glare bounced off of each of them from the lamp light bulb, but his one eye could see them perfectly.

The children consisted of an average-looking, all around Japanese boy and girl. Yet the one that held most of his attention was the blonde girl, her face was turned away from the spy cam, so he could not see her facial features. She didn't look native at all, in fact, she looked familiar in a strange sort of way he couldn't put his finger on. The feeling was practically tugging at his heartstrings, it was dreadful.

Running a hand through his hair he rested the back of his head against the cherry-colored wooden frame of his king-sized bed. Closing his single, visible eye brought unwanted memories to his mind, playing before him as a tragic reminder.

Memories of Cyndia were unwanted for the sole reason they were not real, the physical being of his beloved was in a cold grave in a beautiful courtyard she had adored in New York. Somewhere in his subconscious, he knew what he was attempting to do was selfish and practically impossible.

Bringing back the dead.

What a childish idea.

It was so like him.

Since their parents were business partners and extremely busy, Pegasus recalled multiple times they went for almost months without seeing each other. Ever since they were younger they held a certain fondness for one another, from childhood sweethearts they became affectionate lovers. He remembered one time…

He shook his head, Cyndia had been away from him for almost more than a year after that day she turned seventeen. He hated recalling the twelve months of her absence, he was eighteen at the time and the worst of it, he believed he would never have seen her again since they made that decision…that reckless, teenage-driven choice he regrets to this very day.

In fact, he was certain he was the reason she had gone and not because her father suddenly had a trip across the world.

The day she came back, Pegasus remembered it well. She was pale in comparison to his memory of her a year before and thinner, her golden hair lacking it's original healthy glow. He didn't know it then, but he had been witnessing the first signs of her growing life-threatening illness. As the young man he was, he was simply overjoyed to see her again and accepted her back into his arms without question.

Four years later, he lost her again, this time permanently. He had a plan to change that though, thanks to his Egyptian expedition and Shadi.

Pegasus held the photos limply in his left hand, he reopened his eye again to look at the blonde girl one more time before retiring for the night. His heart was crying again, it normally did, but now, it seemed (dare he think it) happier?

A relief he hadn't felt in a long time developed as he continued observing the photograph of the blonde girl, but he didn't understand why. It must have been the similarities between the blonde girl and the girl Cyndia had been when they first met he mentally reasoned.

Again, he didn't care much for these little trespassers and if they got in trouble, he wasn't going to be the one to save them. After all, they're not his kids.

Domino City, Penny's house

Mrs. Kimura couldn't believe it, of course she was concerned about the well-being of her only child, but the fact she was missing bothered her more so than the average mother whose child was kidnapped. She knew Penny was only eight, knew she was only in elementary school, but damnit! She was scary-smart for an eight-year-old and the events that have been occurring over the last week terrified her.

Her sister, Ai, had called yesterday claiming Penny wasn't back from school and hadn't called. Mrs. Kimura called the school, they said Penny had already left, her teacher stating she went with a couple of friends somewhere.

Not on the verge of panicking just yet, Mrs. Kimura tried a few more possible contacts before becoming frantic. She hadn't informed her husband of their daughter's growing curiosity or the reason she had been banned from the Internet, she didn't want him to know. Yet when the next day arrived without a word from Penny, Mr. Kimura went off the deep end and called people from his address book his wife didn't even know about. He never left his office while she was interrogated by the police and when she offered to put up fliers with Ai, he demanded they leave Penny's picture classified and only give a description to the cops.

Knowing the reason for his actions sent chills down Mrs. Kimura's spine, but the extant he was going through to keep his reason secret began to terrify his spouse.

Knowing what he might do to her and innocent people involved like Penny if she ever found out made her blood run cold.

To TheShadowsOfSignifigance: Thank you so much for you review, I hope you continue to review since I find your advice extremely helpful and comments are heavily appreciated.

Thank you to all your reviews!

A/N:

I love the female characters in YGO for some bizarre reason, I don't like GX and I certainly didn't like Alexis mostly because of her outfit, Tea and Mai's skirts were short, but unlike Alexis, they didn't seem as...looking for a word...skanky? It seems Alexis' chest and overall appearance is extremely exaggerated and I know Japanese artists are like that, but it seems they were really dogging for a lusty character in Alexis and I really didn't like that. Plus the plot, the animation, the duels were not as great as the original YGO. I haven't even tried to watch 5D, so I can't say anything about that.

I enjoy Tea, Mai, Rebecca, Cyndia, and Isis since they are strong in a sense, Cyndia we don't get much background on since she dies before the story begins. Rebecca is like Penny in a way, I think they would be great friends. Tea may be cheesy, but so is everybody else since they agree with her on it. Mai is just a pretty, no b.s. kind of woman in my pov and Isis, she's just this solid rock of information and she's in CHARGE of her own business. Unlike most animes and stories, these girls aren't just thrown in for pure comedy relief or to bash a guy's head in, they're not fangirls or terribly unreasonable. Sure Tea shouts at Joey and Tristan and gets aggravated with them, but who wouldn't? Rebecca comes out to be a smart-alec in the beginning, but she's a little girl who gains a crush on Yugi and matures with the coming Orichalcos season.

The characters are well-rounded and aren't a bunch of overly gorgeous, gentle, sweet-hearted women with hearts bouncing out of her heads whenever they come across a bishonen. You can meet these kind of girls in real life is what I'm saying, sure they aren't saving the world (a few are in indirect means a.k.a. Isis,) but I'm glad they're not facing off against people who want to take over the world via duel monster cards.

I mean, seriously, universal takeover with trading cards? YGO needs a new plot.