Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the plot twists and turns that are a product of my seriously messed and depraved mind. Thanks to all those who've reviewed in the past and I hope you'll continue to leave your opinions so I know what you think. Thanks again and have a great day.

Another Puzzle Piece

Isis had asked for a meeting with Kaiba who, hoping for some answers, readily made room in his morning schedule. Since she'd stated it had something to do with his own dreams he was understandably on edge, getting to his feet when his secretary knocked on his door. Ordering them in Kaiba waited until the door was closed behind Isis before he asked the reason for her visit and what it had to do with his visions.

"Perhaps nothing or everything." Was Isis's cryptic answer as she walked over and took a seat in front of him. She looked worn and slightly frazzled, not at all herself in fact since she usually projected the image of elegant calm always. "I've been having strange dreams this week, similar to the ones you've been experiencing I believe. At first I tried to explain them away but eventually I had to face the fact that I was only kidding myself. They weren't.. pleasant images, Seto."

"What happened in them?" Kaiba asked, taking his seat again. So centered was he on the idea that he wasn't alone in this that he didn't even notice the fact that she'd actually used his first name, another rarity.

"There have been three, the first two only once but the last one has repeated twice, the second time going further into this memory for lack of a better word." Isis said with a weak smile as she folded her hands in her lap. "In the first I'm in a large room and I'm being ordered by this man, this evil, evil man to send four people to the Shadow World. He's dying you see but he's hanging on, he's forcing himself to because he won't depart from this world until he sees them dead. The four people..there's two men and two women. They've all been severely beaten and I think possibly tortured. One, one looks like Yami and he's the evil man's half brother. He, the good one tells me to send them, if I don't do as I'm ordered many will suffer and they'll be killed anyway. He's my, my prince I think and I don't want to do what he asks but I know he's right. But I don't send them to the Shadow World, I just make the evil one think that I have. Instead I incase the four in a spell, a spell so that they'll be reborn again. Reborn to once again serve the true pharaoh and his family in their time of need. To prevent history from repeating itself."

"Do you mean Rameses is here, in this world?" Kaiba demanded, no question in his mind that this evil person was Rameses, who else could it be? Latoya and Joshua were two of the four Isis spoke of, with two more left to go.

"Rameses..that sounds right. That's his name then." Isis said quietly, finally having a name to put to that hated face. "And I don't know if it's him exactly but something will come that will seek to destroy the pharaoh's family again. I know not what."

"Damn...I think two of the four you speak of have already returned, perhaps they can tell me something, I'll get in touch with them later today. What happened in the other two?"

"In the second I'm in a cell of some sort. The evil one, Rameses is dead and now one of his younger brother's is in charge but things aren't going well. He's not as strong as Rameses and others are already plotting to kill him and take over. He wants my help but I won't help him, I won't be a part of this bloody massacre he thinks will insure his succession. He..he orders me brought to his chambers, to teach me a lesson, to show me my place. I'm chained up so I can't fight, so I cant' get away. He had a whip, he was going to beat me with it and then rape me, he went into quite vivid description of how he was going to break me." Isis said darkly, her eyes shining with anger and fear, remembering how it had felt, facing that sort of fate. "He never got a chance to do either though. A man..a man called Aries came into the room and threw a sword through the other man's head. He came over and got me free, got me out of the palace and I..I think I loved this man. This Aries. We got away and rode off to convene with a small caravan containing members of the royal family who were fleeing for their lives. Tristan and Joey were there, they were hired protection to go along with the royal guards still loyal to the family. We were going to cross the desert to the Queen's tribe, to seek refugee there I think."

"Was Ri, one of the princesses among the fleeing family?" Seto asked, leaning forward, staring at her intently. "She would have been a teenager then."

"I don't believe so then. There were two princesses in the party but they were young, children."

"If she was alive she would have been with them...unless...is it possible that one of the two women you spoke of was her? One of the ones you encased in a card?" Kaiba suggested, the idea springing to his mind. "For that matter did you see anyone looking like me there?"

"No, somehow I know that neither of the women is this Ri, Kaiba. I didn't see you either but when I think of you now I feel something new, something I've never felt before. A sort of kinship that makes me think that we were close perhaps. I don't think we were a couple but I think we knew each other, I think that's why I knew instinctively that I could trust you with that God card." Isis said as she reached across his desk to take his hand. "Have you seen me in your dreams?"

"No but...but I do think I had a sister of sorts." Kaiba said slowly, the idea turning around in his head as he stared into Isis's eyes. He'd always felt a strange affinity with her, an ease like he'd known her for a very long time. "She wasn't my sister through blood but I thought of her as such. She was the keeper of your Millennium piece and she did have feelings for the pharaoh's personal bodyguard, Aries. Feelings he didn't return but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have gone back to save her. Whenever I've tried to picture her face I've always drawn a blank, like something or someone didn't want me to see her face. Maybe they just didn't want me to see yours until we had more pieces of the puzzle."

"Well in my final dream he returned those feelings." Isis said with a faint smile, her first genuine one since she'd walked through his door. "I was carrying his child the last time I saw him in my dreams."

"Oh." Kaiba said, not knowing what else to say. Somehow that didn't sit well with him at all which did go a ways to reinforcing the idea that she was indeed his sister.

"I think he died or will die if the dream continues tonight. We were being chased, hunted down and he led a party to head them off while the women and children got away with some of the younger soldiers. I had only time to tell him of our son before I had to go, I had to for the sake of the child." Isis's said softly, her hand automatically coming up to lay across her belly. "As much as I wanted to fight I knew in my heart I had to leave, that my line had to continue so that this future could be."

"I was dead, that's the only logical explanation for me not playing a part in this. Ri as well. Rameses was gunning for the both of us long before any of this would have happened. You said one of the four was a prince, my money would be on Sirus, he would have been too powerful for Rameses to have allowed him to live long once he took power. Yami would have already sacrificed himself to the puzzle and the old pharaoh would be dead, what Rameses had done would have finished him off if he was even alive when Rameses seized power." Kaiba said thoughtfully, speaking out loud as he forgot Isis was in the room for a moment. "Aries was alive apparently but he had little power in the courts, too many of them blamed him for Yami not leaving a heir. The Queen would have tried to rule but Rameses must have made her abdicate somehow or the people just didn't have the brains to realize she was the only natural choice Sirus would have been the next logical choice even though he wouldn't have wanted to rule. That would have been another reason to get him out of the way."

"What do you mean, Aries was blamed for Yami not leaving behind a heir?" Isis asked as he continued to ramble. Maybe a question would remind him she was still there, she thought with a faint smirk.

"Hmm?" Seto said absently, turning his mind to trying to remember why he'd said that. "I think it was because the courts were convince he was Yami's lover. The reason why Yami didn't even have one wife much less the expected several his rank would dictate under normal circumstances."

It was Isis's turn to do an 'oh' since she didn't know what else to say. Well wasn't that an unexpected little twist in this whole mess. "And was it true? Was he Yami's lover?" After all there was nothing to say that the man she'd apparently loved wasn't bisexual. The idea that she and Yami had shared a lover in the past though was something that left her with quite a bit to think about.

"I don't know, actually." Seto said truthfully, biting back a smirk out of respect for her. She looked just a little blown away at the idea and he couldn't say he blamed her. He knew all too well what lovely little curve balls past lives could deliver. And how weird did that sound, Seto thought with a slight grimace before turning his attention back to her question. "You'd have to ask Yami about that. If they were they hid it very well and as far as I know, which isn't much, I don't recall any concrete proof ever surfacing."

"I think...I won't. It doesn't really matter now." Isis pointed out, trying to recover her calm composure. One thing was for certain, she was not going to Yami and asking him if he'd once had a male lover. That was just an area of his life she had no intention of ever looking into. Ever.

"Wouldn't it if there's a chance Aries comes back? You, myself and possibly Rika are all reincarnated from the past with no help from you. You also mentioned seeing men that looked like Wheeler and Tristian, I can't see any reason you'd go out of your way to bring those idiots back either. It almost seems like some cosmic forces wants the main players in that time period to live out their lives in this time period as well." Seto suggested, not sure whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing if Aries were to join the list of reincarnates. From what he could remember it was possible that the only reason Aries had turned to Isis was because Yami was out of the picture. If the rumors were true and Aries did come back then this could get really sticky really quick.

"You have a point." Isis agreed, her eyes going slightly wide at the implications of his words hit home. Could this man, this handsome soldier from her dreams be a flesh and blood man somewhere, perhaps even looking for her? Or looking for Yami, she thought dryly, thinking it was probably a good thing she didn't have all of her memories, especially if he did show up looking for Yami. Fighting the pharaoh for his bodyguard, plus Tea and you had one hell of a mess.

"I think we need to talk to the others and get an idea what's going on. We need to find out if Wheeler and Tristan have had any flash backs and then we need to find a way to speak with Latoya and Joshua to see what light they can shine on all this." Kaiba decided, getting up from his desk to walk around it, offering her his hand to help her to her feet. "I think we should head to the Game store."

"Sounds like a good place to start." Isis agreed and together they headed out to where Marik was waiting in the lobby for her. Only telling him where they were headed the three were soon piled into Marik's car on their way to drop in on Yami and whoever else was in the store.

"Bakura?" Joey said with a questioning look having spotted a familiar looking person coming towards them with a smile on his cheerful face. "Hey, man! I thought you weren't going to be back this way until fall!"

"Well my plans changed." Bakura said with an ironic smile as he returned Joey's back slap, returning the hellos of everyone, surprised to see that Pegasus, Isis, Marik and Kaiba were there as well. It looked like all the old gang had been called in for a pow wow though Mai wasn't there since she was still in Europe as he recalled. "So what's up? Why is everyone meeting up?"

"Where's the Ring, Bakura?" Isis interrupted before anyone could answer Bakura's question. They'd just gotten there themselves and she was getting a strange vibe from Bakura, one she didn't recognize as being from the Ring.

"The ring? Uhm well..you see...that's really funny story actually. Well at least everyone else would likely find it funny. For myself I'm still trying to recover from the shock of it all." Bakura said wearily before turning his attention to Yami. "Actually the person that has it is a...former friend of yours, Yami."

Staring at Bakura for a moment an idea hit Yami that had a slow, decidedly evil smile sliding across his features. It would be one of the weirdest twists of fate conceivable but who was to say that the Gods didn't have one hell of a sense of humor? "You have Freya..don't you? She took the Millennium Ring from you."

"She really likes it for some reason and she won't give it back." Bakura said helplessly, shrugging in defeat while everyone who knew who Freya was gapped at him. "And she keeps the other guy, the other Bakura under control. I think he has a crush on her or something. It's actually sorta twisted in his mind since he can't decide if he wants to kill her or...well you get the idea." Bakura finished, blushing faintly.

"Who's Freya?" Kaiba demanded to know, taking the others reactions as a bad sign. The last thing they needed was some crazy running around with one of the items. They'd been through that enough in the past and he had a lot of other things to worry about at the moment.

"She was a member of the palace way back in Ancient Egypt with the other two. Latoya said she was the one who dealt this Rameses's man his killing blow." Pegasus answered, since everyone else seemed to be too busy trying not to explain that the woman had been Yami's mistress to answer Kaiba. "You said that you needed to talk to Latoya and Joshua but you didn't say why, Kaiba. Would that reason have anything to do with this Freya coming back as well?"

"No but I'll want to talk to her too."

"I remember her. She spit in his face. He wanted her to suffer most of all." Isis said almost to herself though the others quieted so that they could hear her speak. "He hated the others but he had a special hatred for her, not just for stabbing him but because she'd refused his attentions. His brother's prized toy and she wouldn't even let him near her."

"Are you having memories of the past, Isis?" Yami asked, turning his attention to her and pushing the images of poor Bakura being saddled with Freya from his mind for the moment. "Are you talking about Freya and Rameses?"

"Yes. I've been having vague dreams, like Seto has."

"You've been having visions as well?" Yami demanded, rounding on Kaiba with a decidedly angry look on his face. "That's what those questions of yours were about, weren't they? That's why you asked me about my family during that time, because you wanted to compare them with your own possible memories. Why the hell didn't you tell me about this?"

"I am now." Kaiba said dryly, not fazed in the least. "And my dreams are none of your business. Now there may be a chance those dreams are memories, Isis's collaborating that idea. The reason we came here to talk to the rest of you as well as the other two were to find out if we were the only ones."

"That girl...Rika..she has something to do with all this..doesn't she?" Yami said slowly, watching Kaiba carefully. "Exactly who is she to all of us Kaiba. Who is she to the two of us in particular because I think you know."