Where is Joey?
"Mokuba, hi it's me. I need to talk to your brother but he isn't picking up his phone." Yugi said hysterically. After staring at the place where Joey had been moments before and the claw mark the strangely substantial hologram had left behind he decided that his best bet to find Joey would be Kaiba. After all the hologram was the making of his duel disk and the strange light had been coming from said disk as well.
"Calm down Yugi. What is wrong?" Mokuba asked suddenly worried.
"Joey's gone." Yugi said.
"What do you mean, gone?" Mokuba asked, wondering if someone might have bothered to kidnap Joey instead of him for a change but failed to find a possible reason for such an action.
"He disappeared into thin air right in front of my eyes. There was some strange light coming from is old duel disk and the hologram that was made by it left a claw mark into the concrete. A claw mark, Mokuba. Since when can a hologram do THAT?" Yugi said nearly screaming. "Mokuba, I don't know what to do. What if he is hurt?"
"Calm down and tell me where you are I get someone to pick you up." Mokuba said "And don't worry, Seto never picks up when he's in an important meeting unless it is me and I'll call him and get him right on it."
"You think he'll really work on it? I mean he and Joey never got along." Yugi asked worried.
"I bet he'll be working over time to get him back, trust me on that one." Mokuba said, hoping that his assumptions were right. "And if not I'll make him work overtime. And now tell me where you are."
"Don't bother just tell me where to go." Yugi asked.
"The way you sound you're not going anywhere, I´ll get you picked up and now tell me." Mokuba said, trying to sound as commanding as his brother could.
"I'll wait at gramp´s game shop. I'm just at the back." Yugi said.
"Good. I'll see you later." Mokuba said ending the call. Normally Mokuba would have assumed that it was just a prank. But the way Yugi had sounded something strange was going on and with all the things he had seen happening around Yugi, Joey and his brother before he wasn't even that surprised and believed every word in an instant. And while Yugi ran to the front of the shop to wait for the car Mokuba was sending, Mokuba phoned Seto.
"I hope it's important." Seto said as soon as he had picked up.
"I think it is. Joey disappeared." Mokuba said.
"Thanks for the information, where will the party be?" Seto asked sarcastically.
"I'm not kidding, big brother. He disappeared right in front of Yugi into thin air. He said there was some malfunction with his duel disk and then he was gone oh and the monster he had out actually left some claw marks." Mokuba said repeating the information's he had gotten. "And now we have no idea if he is still alive."
Mokuba heard his brother take a deep breath before he asked "Where?"
"We don't know where he is." Mokuba said.
"I mean where did it happen of course." Seto asked sounding much rougher than he intended but the thought that Joey might be dead because of a malfunction with one of the duel disks he had produced was torturing him.
"Somewhere close to the game shop of Yugi's grandfather. Yugi is still there, I'm going to get a car there he'll tell you exactly where then." Mokuba said.
"Don't. I'll get there and have a look. I'll meet you at Kaiba Corp. right after." Seto said and ended the call without even saying goodbye.
Much faster than Yugi had expected he saw a fancy car stopping right in front of him and it wasn't just some driver in it, it was Seto Kaiba in the flesh who had arrived. He had the door of the car just about opened and already asked "What exactly happened and where?"
Yugi walked towards the lane where he and Joey where duelling while already giving him every detail he thought might be important and then some just to be sure. Once he was done he simply watched Seto take a look around the lane. Yugi even saw how Seto got a notebook out of his suitcase and a measuring tape to write down the exact size of the claw mark and the dent in the bin as well as distance between them both. "Where exactly did Joey stand?" Seto asked and Yugi simply pointed to the place just to see Seto measure the distance between the claw mark and the point where Joey had been as well as the angle to the bin. After that he asked "Are there any small kids living around? Preferably some that might still be playing in a sand box?"
"Hm, not that I know of why?" Yugi asked confused.
"There is some sand that doesn't look like the everyday city mud." Seto said and put some of it in a tube that he got out of his suitcase as well. He also picked up something that looked like a flower patel and placed it in another one after taking a look up the surrounding buildings.
"I guess that you used the disk that is still on your arm to duel him when it happened, correct?" Seto asked.
"Yes, do you think Joey is all right?" Yugi asked.
Seto walked over to Yugi and simply took his arm and detached the disk. "I'll need that and to answer your question, I have no idea what happened but I doubt that he got hurt by it. There is no evidence for that."
After that Seto walked towards his car. Yugi followed, asking "What are we doing now?"
"I have no idea what you're doing, but I'll go back to Kaiba Corp. and make damn sure that this useless mutt is getting back to annoy the hell out of me as soon as possible and if it's just to prove that my duel system had nothing to do with it." Seto said and got into his car to drive off, leaving Yugi standing where he was.
"Jerk." Yugi muttered upset that he hadn't taken him along but decided to walk there. Mokuba was sure to let him in on what was going on.
In the meantime Seto drove with much more speed than it was allowed through the city, running over a couple of red lights not caring that he nearly got into a traffic accident that he would have caused. Once he had reached the building he walked past his younger brother who was waiting in the lobby. "Make sure to keep everything else running, I'm in the laboratory and don't want to be interrupted for anything."
"Do you have any idea what happened?" Mokuba asked.
"Not yet, but I will find out where he is and get him back." Seto said and Mokuba saw in his face that it was better not to ask too much and just let him work on whatever it was he was going to work on to reach that goal.
And so Mokuba got his phone out, once more noticing that Seto had obviously left Yugi behind.
"Mokuba?" Yugi asked as soon as he had picked up on the other side. "Is Seto already there? Did he say something about Joey?"
"He's working on it but I guess we won't find out anything until he knows more. He's locking himself up in the laboratory. There's no point in you coming really. I guess I won't even find out anything."
"I'll come anyway, if you don't mind." Yugi answered. "I need to do something and if it's just sitting around there. I'm just so worried about him."
"Okay. I'll see you later then." Mokuba said before ending the call and starting to get Seto's regular work done while he was busy finding Joey. Once Yugi was there they talked a little and Mokuba tried to calm Yugi down, who was still a bit shocked by what he had seen happening.
The next few days where all in the same pattern. Mokuba would go to Kaiba Corp. alone to find his brother already working wordlessly. Seto would work all day. Living mostly from coffee and a sandwich here and there, while he was still working. In the evenings Mokuba got home on his own while Seto would still work through the night. The longer that pattern went on, the more often Seto would fall asleep behind his laptop until something woke him again. Mokuba was starting to worry about his health and wanted to at least try to talk Seto into sleeping at home at least every second night but the way Seto reacted every time someone was just walking too loudly around him (which is why none of the girls were wearing high heels these days) he choose to rather stay clear of him. But it was hopeless. He continued to search for the missing duellist like his own life depended on it and nothing seemed to be able to stop him. Mokuba had no idea if he even had a theory about what had happened but he did know that Seto was building something and making tests all the time. But no one knew what that something was.
After about three weeks later, Mokuba dared to go into the room he was currently testing something again and saw a duel disk with similar dents and broken parts as Joey's had before.
"Hey big brother." Mokuba asked trying to sound cheerful.
"What do you want? I'm busy." Seto asked.
"I just wanted to ask if you have any idea what happened yet." Mokuba asked.
"I'm not absolutely sure but I do have a theory. Unfortunately said theory is rather unlikely and if it's actually somehow possible, I'm not sure how to ever get him back yet." Seto said sounding disappointed himself.
"What theory is it?" Mokuba asked.
"I think he somehow got thrown back in time as well as to another place." Seto said.
"Back in time? Is that even possible? I mean really back in time? I know from Yugi about that memory world thing but that wasn't real, was it?" Mokuba asked.
"It was rather a thing in our minds or different demention that was created by a memory somehow, and please don't ask me how. I'm just afraid that I don't know if he is back for real or if something similar happened to him." Seto clarified, not stopping to prepare for the experiment he was preparing. Mokuba watched him for a moment, wondering what exactly he was doing.
"What makes you think that he is in a different time?" Mokuba asked.
"I found a flower patel close to the place where Joey had been seen last." Seto explained "It was of a flower that is very uncommon especially in our climate. It is growing in some places in Egypt, or rather it was. Traces of it have been found on artefacts and in pyramids but no one has ever seen the real thing."
"You mean that flower patel thing came from a different time?" Mokuba asked astonished.
"Yes and the sand is the exact kind that is found in the desserts around the pyramids." Seto added. "Unfortunately I don't have any expert on Egypt working for me, which means that my informations on that topic are limited to what I can gather from the internet and that means some might be incorrect."
"Why don't you ask Mr. Muto?" Mokuba suggested. "I mean he is sure to help, he likes Joey and he is an archaeologist who has been to Egypt so often and he knows old pyramids, he surely will be able to tell you more about this plant and so on and I'm sure that what he'll tell you is correct."
Mokuba hadn't even finished the sentence when Seto got his phone out to call someone. Once that someone had picked up he simply said "Get the old Mr. Muto here and if he dares to say no, drag him here." After that he simply ended the call and Mokuba decided to leave and to ask Yugi's gamps a little more nicely and warn him about Seto's intentions to drag him if necessary, even though it won't be once he knows why he was summoned.
A few minuts later Solomon Muto and Seto Kaiba were discussing things in Seto's office at the top floor of the building and in the upcoming week a new pattern started. Solomon would stop by every day after he closed his shop to discuss things and it soon became apparent that it indeed was helpful since he knew about findings that Seto hadn't known. It wasn't only the things Seto had found that spoke for a time travel but something else too. Something that also made it clear that it wasn't like the last time. Some sort of medallion had been found in a pyramid of a pharaoh. So far experts believed that a grave robber must have left it behind and were wondering what he had taken out at the time, since there were still a lot of valuable artefacts. But the medallion, which was sealed, couldn't have been from the same time as the pyramid even though it looked like it from the outside. But inside were two things that weren't likely. One was a blond hair which could have been explained by being from someone who had travelled there but the other thing was impossible to be from that time since it was a piece of fabric that wasn't known to anyone at the time. It was a piece of jeans perfectly preserved in the sealed medallion.
A DNA test had been made from that hair to see if he was a realative of any of the already found mummies which rather often had such a test done on them as well, but it didn't match anything nor did the persons to work on it find out anything else at the time. But now Solomon tried to use his connections to get the results, while Yugi tried to find something to compare it to from Joey, while Seto would get the DNA test done and see if it indeed was Joey's hair inside of the medallion proving him to be in a different time. Unfortunately they still wouldn't know what time exactly since Solomon had no idea who that pyramid belonged to or when that person might have lived. All he knew was that two male not related mummies had been found inside.
During the day Solomon was in his shop while Seto was still working on a way to get Joey back, sure that if there had been a way for Joey to get there, there must be a way to get him back and if it was the duel disk that had gotten him there, his disk had to be the solution to that problem. And he already had found out a bit more on that topic and was confidant that by the time they had all the necessary informations, he would have a way to get Joey.
After just another week it was done. Yugi had gotten a hair out of Joey's hairbrush at home and it was confirmed. It was Joey's hair that was found in that pyramid but that still didn't give them the information they needed but Seto had a plan for that. There was a time frame where the pyramid had been build in, meaning that Joey was there around that time. And Seto had managed to build a device that might get him there. The only problem was that he didn't know when and where exactly to get to and it would be hard to test it without sending it there and he would never get it back unless someone else sended it back. And so he decided to send it to the start of the time where Joey could be in and hope that he'll find it and send it back to an orting device that he would have in his office to see when it gets back. It was a long shot since the area was big but if he wouldn't hear anything he would try it again and again and eventually try it himself anyway. He needed to get the blond duellist back at all costs.
Authors Note:
I'll be on a trip for the weekend and might not update, I try to update on the trip or latest Monday after work.
And thanks to BrowneyedShamer, James Birdsong, Nagareboshi-Lover and mandapandabug for the reviews and thanks to everyone else who is still reading this story.