So, Trebuchet is officially back in business! (Based on two poll votes.)

I apologize profusely for the change in my tone, writing style, etc. from the previous eight chapters. Not writing a story for five months definitely leaves a dent in that department.

In other news, I decided that the story was too focused on Kaiba (in terms of the narration), and important plot points weren't being done, so for this chapter, I shook things up a bit. I don't know how many chapters they'll end up being at this point, but I think 13 - 15 would be a nice number. ("Unlucky" thirteen, especially!) So I'll shut up now. I hope things aren't too obvious or too well-hidden.

Disclaimer: Yugioh does not belong to me. The only thing here that does is a) My knowledge of French and b) The character of Noelle Hermand.

Chapter 9

Wednesday, December 29th, 2004 11:37 PM PST

San Francisco, CA

Max Crawford stood in front of his well-polished bathroom mirror, peering into it closely as if he were trying to find a way to enter some parallel universe it might be hiding. He was still dressed up in his business clothes – he had just gotten back from the office, even though quite technically his required hours had ended, well, hours ago. He was at the point of desperation.

Despite the time of day he felt more awake than ever – his eyes were blazing with a sort of maniac fear or passion, his hair, once neatly combed over to cover over his missing eye, was now distinctly unfabulous, with split ends galore and large, knotted lumps near the temples. Pegasus was breathing harshly, almost wheezing. This couldn't be happening.

For months, he had thought that his plan might actually reach some sort of fruition – that he had thought things through well enough the first time, and that things wouldn't boil down to what he was now staring in the face. Metaphorically; he didn't mean himself.

Or did he? It was his fault after all. His fault that he couldn't control his caprices, his own fault that he felt a higher attachment to Industrial Illusions after he had stepped down as CEO and voluntarily accepted the job as its chief auditor – now, he was paying that price. He thought he could accept someone else controlling his company, as long as he was in control.

He had been very, very wrong.

Pegasus turned, then, and bit his lower lip with a mixture of despair and outrage. The recent earthquake that had killed thousands, and displaced thousands – possibly millions – more in Asia shouldn't have shook him up nearly as badly as it just had. And it wasn't for any humanitarian reason. Pegasus almost chastised himself for believing that all of his troubles were egocentric, and not related to the human suffering taking place on the other side of the planet. But its repercussions on his company were what bothered him. Quite frankly, Industrial Illusions didn't have enough money to give a sufficient financial aid package to the west to look like a savior. To look like it still had any power now that it was in cahoots with Disney. And it was all his own fault.

Pegasus played through the situation in his head, one more time, as determined but shuffling steps led him into his bedchamber, across the rug dyed a midnight blue by the somber moonlight, and into his private bureau, a room filled to the brim with all sorts of childish things that helped him to concentrate. But he didn't focus on that. He was looking straight ahead, right above the desk, at the pin-up calendar.

He soon realized that, of course, the calendar was for this year – he was stunned at how tired he must have been somewhere deep inside – and began to rummage through the drawers, looking for the calendar from two years ago, now almost three.

It all started when he stepped down. Though technically Industrial Illusions was no longer his problem, Pegasus now mused, he had been able to give up feeling responsible for it, like a parent unable to stop loving their child after they had grown up and left the nest. He couldn't stand to simply retire, and leave his life's work up to Seto Kaiba to destroy. So he became the chief of its audit board, so he could still keep a nice eye on its financial wealth, if only to soothe his own qualms than for its own good. That was his first mistake.

His hands found the map from 2002, and his fingers flew, rushing to that July. Near the bottom of the page, his coffee-colored eyes fell upon the date that ruined his company, if only because it had ruined him first.

He had panicked. He couldn't trust any external auditors; so he had bribed them. With his own damn pocket money, yes, he had told them essentially to go to hell because, naturally, the old CEO knew precisely what he was doing and didn't need their help. He needed to bribe them and it was illegal, now. Two years later, Max Pegasus was in financial shambles. With an almost primal cry, he snatched some sharp object off of his desk, he didn't know what, and plunged it through the calendar, through that precise date, so that the instrument lay fast, halfway ground into his workstation. Damn that day! Damn it! Damn it! And he had thought Disney would help him? What the hell had he been thinking? Pegasus didn't know, but he knew how – he had been thinking like a raving lunatic, a starving man, like one of the tsunami victims. Was it his own fault? Was it Hermand's? Was it Kaiba's? How could he ever pretend like the company could outperform Kaiba's if everything got blown out of the water?

He was fearing for his life any day now. Not an assassination – no, that would probably put his soul at peace more than anything. He was afraid of the police, coming, now that she was about to testify at some private court in Japan, and he knew bloody well he couldn't do a damn thing to stop her. Why had he bribed her? Why couldn't he just stick to Industrial Illusions' external auditors? Or just its board? Or why anyone at all?

Suddenly, his eyes brightened, glistening in the darkness. His body became unusually still as he snapped, the stress overwhelmed him, and his conniving idea began to be pulled and stretched and fleshed out, the third and final brainchild of a deranged man.

~ X X X ~

Saturday, January 1st, 2005, 12:03 AM

Tokyo, Japan

She couldn't get out of her little western habits, despite all attempts she had to assimilate herself into the Japanese culture. But she felt now that multiculturalism must have its perks. Noelle Hermand fell to her knees, in a corner of her small apartment in Toyko, and began to ask, quietly but earnestly, for her wishes for the new year.

She would wish for many things, she knew; she did every year. - perhaps good business luck; happiness, like anyone else; this year a prayer for the tsunami victims, definitely. But as she kneeled there in her pajamas, work really felt like the last thing on her mind; her only thoughts were how the lights of the Christmas tree (a fake) were bathing her skin in a multitude of colors, as varied as her appearances to her friends, her colleagues, her family, her business partners.

The first thing she wished for she wished for every year. It was an intensely private dream, one that delved back into the heart of her past, and one that she had never shared to anyone – one that caused her to completely change career paths, become estranged from her loving family, and the one that caused her to be here today.

She began to whisper in her native tongue, her religious background from her French childhood flooding back to her, one of the few times it ever did...

"Je vous en prie, mon Dieu, fait que je trouve-"

Well, that was fast.

It had hit her – the realization, that is – faster than she could have thought possible when she began her prayer. But apparently, God thought it would be funny this time to flat-out tell her the umpteenth time she wished for it. And Jesus, did it make so. much. sense! Noelle stood, eyes wide and rimmed with tears, her auburn hair a shock that contrasted to the pallor that had instantly come across her face. Thunderstruck, she fled from the living room and dashed into her bedroom, shutting the door unusually loudly.

This certainly made more than a few things complicated. Everything seemed completely alight with the fervor she was experiencing; she felt herself shiver in what could have been fear or excitement or even cold (the heating system wasn't the best for a flat that cost this much.) It was like the puzzle of her life had just been solved for her; all of her previous suspicions, that she had taken note of but never bothered to place together, now seemed like such obvious red flags that she was almost nearly as surprised that she hadn't noticed it earlier. But amongst all the other thoughts she had, the ones that cascaded to her and made her feel as if blacking out would be a much more lovely alternative than surviving this sensation, one very odd one came to her. So absurd, in fact, it made her laugh.

Pourquoi est-ce que je penserais de faire quelque chose comme ça maintenant? Why would I think of doing something like that now?

Smiling stupidly, a new power overtaking her, she picked up her little notebook she had had since her college days – that an old boyfriend had given her – off of her nightstand, the one where she recorded dreams, aspirations, her thoughts, her plans – especially her business plans. It was like her diary.

She titled it 2005! with sloppy, giddy writing, far too large for someone who thought they knew her to accurately identify who wrote it. She underlined it thickly and quickly, giving the impression of a preschooler. Below this, she simply put two words in English:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

And shut it again.

All the other resolutions could wait. She was alive again, and luckily, she had an idea about what she could do at work once she returned in a few days, whose side she would take.

What she didn't know is just how much that choice would twist her life, just as she was on the cusp of rediscovering what it meant to live.

~ X X X ~

Monday, January 3rd, 2005, 4:07 AM

San Francisco, CA

Mokuba Kaiba was fast asleep in his dorm at Cal Berkeley. A fast, troubled sleep.

Recently, he had written a second letter to Seto, but he couldn't gather himself up to send it. Mostly, he had thought while awake, it was because it almost completely contradicted what he had been telling his brother ever since his operation. Was it a teenager's fault that he liked independence? No. He wasn't giving up on Seto; in fact, Seto had never even told him that he would be taking over the company once he resigned due to old age or stress or finally finding true love. He was just ruling it out. That was all.

Now he was having nightmares about it – Seto's reaction. How he had betrayed him. Gone back to Noah, to Gozaburo, destroyed everything Seto had ever worked for. Mokuba tried to explain that it was his own life to lead, and not Seto's, and that he still appreciated everything; but Mokuba was never very good at lucid dreaming, and thus his nightmare continued on while he had to suffer all of the possible consequences.

While he initially yelled in surprise at the noise of what could have been a large rock hitting his window, waking him up, Mokuba quickly covered this up by telling himself he should be happy that whoever it was stopped his nightmare. Probably he had been screaming or something and they wanted him to shut up. Comforting.

"Might as well start more reading in that book…" Mokuba muttered drowsily, looking around for his roommate, which he remembered was… not… there… he couldn't remember why… American college was so odd sometimes.

As Mokuba reached his computer screen, he absently picked up the book that was sprawled across it. The novel – Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray – was turned only to page thirty, and the entire book was due read soon, all one-hundred ninety-three pages of it.

Mokuba had barely focused his eyes on the English words, struggling to switch languages at this despicable hour, when suddenly, the large bang came again, like a gunshot, startling him severely. The book dropped below his desk, and Mokuba turned wide-eyed towards the door to his room, which he saw had been warped slightly by something large.

Or someone.

Before Mokuba could react the sound came again, and with an explosion of splinters the door itself caved in, and a huge man was standing in front of it, the butt of an enormous rifle in his grasp as if it were a battering ram. And then he flipped it around, aiming straight at Mokuba.

Suddenly, neither Wilde nor the letter to his brother seemed like very important problems anymore.

~ X X X ~

Monday, January 3rd, 2005 7:15 AM

Las Vegas, NV

A private jet taxied in for landing, its flaming lights contrasting starkly with the light desert morning that was only beginning to unravel into more puissant colors.

The pilot didn't have to be in Las Vegas; indeed, neither did the passenger. Well, not to the layman's eye. But if you asked the passenger, then the reason they were there had to do with an absolute, albeit illegal, necessity on his part. The fact the plane had nothing to do with the passenger's job or company was a necessity as well.

They were only stopping for fuel; Nevada wasn't far enough away. Despite all the great tax breaks, and Pegasus knew it (as Industrial Illusions was a Nevada Company), there was one place within reach that was better.

Less than an hour later, they were en route to their final destination – Pegasus' hand-picked asylum of safety. Pegasus earnestly hoped, with what little sanity remained, he hoped his plan could work without anything going awry; where he could put himself back together, and never be incarcerated for his actions. As he knew, all monsters are eventually destroyed. Take the Leviathan, for instance.

Pegasus gazed introspectively, then.

Even a peaceful monster.

Despite how long this chapter is it doesn't seem that long to me. o.O God forbid I realize just how long any future chappy might become...

Anyway, as usual, I have a few things to go over here. I'll split it by section.

1) Pegasus is apparently very angry at some certain date in late July 2002. Knowing his current profession, what is he so mad about? Can you piece together his entire motivation and the reason why he went insane? (Yes, it's canon for this fic now. Ha. Not that Kaiba would notice...HINT)

2) This is an easy one. What does Noelle (err, Mrs. Hermand) realize? Why does she suddenly feel like she can live again? This is a really critical realization, so hopefully it isn't too obvious. By the way, I'm not translating the one French sentence for you. Google translate exists. :D

3) So what's happening to Mokuba? I think this is important for his character development; hopefully I did it okay, but I shouldn't focus all my writing energy on doing something so important to the plot when I haven't written squat in five months. . Oh well. As for the novel I mentioned (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde), it's one of the books I'm currently reading, and I couldn't think of anything else, so... xD

4) Pegasus makes his getaway! From what? I have done research on business types and it makes complete sense to me that Peggy would choose a Nevada corporation (seeing as it's also canon that's where he's originally from.) Where is there a better deal, though? That's where he's heading. Oh, as for"Even a peaceful monster", that comes from one of the poems Marilyn Monroe wrote to herself that was recently published, I think most prominently to the public in Vanity Fair (Nov. 2010). I would think Pegasus would look up to Marilyn, don't you?