AmePiper: OMG! Dude, I am such a fail. I just looked online and told me that I haven't updated this story in a month! That's so bad… gosh. Oh well, moving on… Thanks for your wonderful review lovely! I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint you one bit! Enjoy!

MythCreatorWriter: I like using interesting words from time to time. Yeah, I know, I'm very bad about being critical to myself, but I really can't help it. Thanks for your review though! I'm glad you approve of the emotion, twists, and turns I've decided to take with my story. I know it's taken forever to really get together and write, but hey, here it is and here I am, finishing it! Anyhow, thanks again for the review and enjoy the chapter!

Kukki Boo: Kukki! Kukki! Hi! I feel like I haven't written you a review reply in forever, how are you? And a very good job for your review, I loved it! Yeah, first person is a bit annoying at times, and how I've got it set up in my story (with two first person things going on) it kind of makes me feel like I'm writing two stories at once and is slightly annoying to do. But I've gotten to the 7th chapter, and I feel like I'm doing well. Thanks again for the review! Enjoy!

Rena Redhead: I watch you while you sleep. Just kidding! I just felt like starting off this review reply on a really creepy note. Gotcha! Hahaha. Its okay that you've been a little late with reviewing, I've been pretty much fail at reading and reviewing your stuff too. Your stuff is just so much more intense than mine, and you really can't just pick it up and read it, you gotta be in the right place at the right time and have the right mood, ya know? Or maybe I'm just crazy… yeah, let's go with that. I do feel complimented knowing you re-read my work, thanks! You really thought Mokuba's little episode was creepy? I thought it was actually pretty boring (possibly because I feel like I've written a bazillion scenes like that, but that might just be me) And guys don't communicate… ever. That's why it's so much fun to distort their feelings! Don't you agree? I'm surprised you felt Nesbitt had his own voice, cause really, I feel like all my bad guys sound the same in my stories (and after re-watching an episode or two with him in it, I found out he refers to himself as a robot and talks to everyone else like they're failure human beings… who'da known?) Anyhow, I better end this now before rambling any further. Thanks again for the fantastic reviews and enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 7: Taking the Challenge

-M-

I never once thought in a million years I would be in this position. It's kind of funny actually, I had always felt that fear would always pass, but shame… it would remain with a person forever. I usually never get ashamed, but now I felt fear and shame mixed together and it gave me an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

The duel disk on my arm felt heavy, and my legs had gone numb long ago. My eyes glanced over at my brother, whom had his game face on. Whenever my brother was in a duel, it was like; he became this completely different person. He would disconnect from all other things and only focus on the game at hand. His mind was in the playing field and no where else.

In a way, I admired my brother, for being able to focus so intently on one thing. It was really astonishing how he could live so much in the moment just by playing a simple card game. My brother had always been great at games. Any game he ever played, he would instantly master within minutes. Maybe it was part of his gamer side, or maybe it was just part of his child prodigy background.

Whatever it had to do with, all I knew was that I didn't have that. In fact, the only game I ever really became good at was Capsule Monsters. Many would think that would give me the ability to master Duel Monsters the same way… but that wasn't true… at all.

"What's the matter, young Kaiba? Getting cold feet already? We haven't even started the game yet," Nesbitt snickered. I gulped; I really wasn't ready to do this. I couldn't believe I made no attempt to get out of this sooner. This was gong to be bad.

"You okay, Mokuba?" My brother asked, glancing over at me. He looked ready to fight; in fact, he looked ready to fight a war. I couldn't let my brother know that I didn't feel the same way. I just had to get through this one duel without letting my brother down, or letting him know my true secret. That secret being… I wasn't good at Duel Monsters.

"Yeah, of course," I replied back, trying to sound confident. I had a feeling Nesbitt could see right through me, and right through my act. But I would just have to 'Fake it till I made it' as the saying would go, and do what I could to win this duel.

"First we'll start with choosing our own deck." Before I knew it, cards appeared floating in front of my face in rows and moving up. "You can pick whatever cards you want by touching the ones that float by. Remember to choose quickly and wisely, time is off the essence." With that in mind, I picked all the good cards I could. I wasn't sure if I had chosen wisely, but I didn't have the time to be able to figure it out either. Out of the corner of my eye, I was looking at Seto. He seemed so calm… so confident. It made me feel terrible, since I really felt like I had no idea what I was doing.

"Next, we will choose a monster from our decks to be our deck master. It is quite obvious that I have already chosen mine to be Robotic Knight." My mind went completely blank; a deck master? I turned my head to see what my brother was doing, but he seemed to have already caught on to what it might have been and was searching his deck quickly and efficiently.

"I choose Vampire Lord to be my deck master," Seto stated. The monster he had chosen appeared floating beside him, looking more vicious than ever. I hurriedly scanned my deck for anything worth while, hoping not to draw attention to myself. After a couple seconds of being unable to find anything, I picked out the first monster card and held it in the air.

"I choose-!" I looked up at my card, not even sure what I had picked, "Big Shield Gardna." The extremely buff monster appeared crouching beside me in mid-air. My eyes were fixated on it, bewildered that I had such a giant monster there to defend me. In a way, it made me feel a bit safer, even if I was in awe of its massiveness.

"Mokuba, are we ready to play?" Nesbitt asked, breaking me from my chance. I turned back towards him and tried to look tough.

"Of course, let's duel." Nesbitt held up his finger and shook it in my direction as if I were a little kid.

"Oh no, not yet. First I must explain the rules and the consequences."

"Explain all you want Nesbitt, it won't change the fact that we're going to thrash you in this duel." I looked once more at my brother. Seto came up with the most intimidating lines during a duel; it was like he was a character in an epic story. He didn't look the least bit scared either.

"The first order of business is no discussing strategies. You can work together, but you may not talk amongst one another or show each other your hand." I bit my lip. I didn't know how I was going to be able to duel now; Seto was the one who was the master at dueling, not I.

"Fine." I couldn't believe how absolutely sure Seto seemed. For the first time since we had chosen our decks, he had looked towards me. There wasn't a doubt in his mind; he truly believed we would be able to do this together even without advice or discussion. It made me even more afraid knowing I might let him down.

"Secondly, if you lose… I get to take your bodies."

"Are you done already?"

"Has our little Kaiba been keeping up?" Nesbitt brought the attention back over to me and I gulped.

"I know what we're doing, you don't have to baby me," I replied back. I was trying to go for my brother's feel for insults, but wasn't sure if it came out that way.

"Just follow my lead, Mokuba, and everything will be fine," My brother assured me. I wished I could believe him, but there was no turning back now.

"Let us begin. You'll each have 4000 life points, while I'll have 8000. How bout we have the little Kaiba start us off?" I nodded silently and drew my five cards, drawing an extra card as my draw. I stared at the cards, feeling completely lost. None of these cards seemed to look like they could work together, no combos to start the first move with. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was just going to have to deal with it and keep going.

"I place one card face down and set a monster in face down defense position. Then I'll end my turn." I felt so professional saying that. I turned to look at my brother again, to see if he approved of my move or not, but he was all business. Suddenly, his mind was all about the game and nothing else. I felt a little discouraged; on the battle field I was no longer seen as Seto's brother, but also his ally in battle. These relationships were different, and apparently made Seto more serious than I had seen him act with me before.

Not that I could blame him. After all, there was so much more on the line than with his past duels. It wasn't about winning his title back, now it was about saving ourselves and getting out of the virtual world.

-S-

In the world of dueling, it's hard to be able to concentrate on anything else outside of the game. If one was distracted, they wouldn't be able to duel efficiently. I, myself, had always trained myself to do that exact thing and made sure I wasn't ever distracted by anything besides the game.

Yes, Mokuba dueling on the playing field was a different situation, but I wasn't worried about him. If he had taken after me in anyway, he was sure to be able to master the game in seconds. After all, he had witnessed all my duels, which probably meant he had picked up a couple strategies or two along the way. We were going to beat Nesbitt in no time.

"My move!" I drew my first card and continued with my turn. "I'll set two cards face down and summon Vorse Raider to the field!" I put down the two cards and placed Vorse Raider on my duel disk. A holographic image of the monster appeared in front of me, and I looked to Nesbitt to see his reaction. He had none, but that was okay. I had plans of my own.

"Oh, I'm SOOOO scared!" Nesbitt said sarcastically.

"Just shut up and take your turn. I'm done."

"Fine by me!" Nesbitt said, drawing his card. He grinned and looked up. "First I'll play Nobleman of Cross-Out and remove Mokuba's face down monster off the field!" Mokuba's monster disappeared from the field, leaving Mokuba wide open. Even so, Nesbitt had nothing to attack with, so Mokuba's life points should be safe in the mean time. "And then I'll summon Giga Tech Wolf to the field!"

His monster didn't bother me, nor did it frighten me. My Vorse Raider was still more powerful than his Giga Tech Wolf; he must've had something else planned in that evil head of his. I mentally prepared myself for whatever move he was going to play next.

"Then I'll activate Nobleman of Cross-Out! Removing Mokuba's set monster from play without activating its effect." Mokuba's monster disappeared off the field in a flash, and suddenly his only line of defense was gone. I eyed the face down magic or trap card he also had on the field, thinking Mokuba most likely had a back up plan to protect himself using that.

"Scared?" Nesbitt asked, and then proceeded to laugh, holding up another card in the air, "The worst is yet to come, for I shall activate another magic card, Clockwork Night. This continuous magic card treats all of your monsters as machine-type monsters and lowers their attack by 500, while all of MY machine type monsters gain 500!" I gripped my fists. He was good, but I would do better.

"Alright then, I'm willing to lose the life points," I stated. This meant that my Vorse Raider only had 1400 attack points while his Giga Tech Wolf had 1700, but attacking me would only inflict 300 damage to my life points, which would be easy to come back from. Nesbitt was grinning, in this way that told me that I didn't have him figured out.

"Now why would I attack you when I could attack the life points of the defenseless one of the field?" Nesbitt turned to Mokuba, as did I. Mokuba looked from me to Nesbitt, and his face darkened. "Alright Giga Tech Wolf, attack Mokuba's life points directly!" I had a card I could use to protect Mokuba, but my eyes just kept looking at the face down card Mokuba had set on the field. I was almost sure he had something to defend himself with, any moment now he would be activating it.

But as Giga Tech Wolf began running across the field over to his side of the field, Mokuba made no attempt to stop him. It didn't even look like he was ready to activate a card. In fact… as I looked closer, I could see his face was frozen solid, like his heart had suddenly stopped and his body had gone cold. That was when I realized Mokuba had no way to protect himself, but it was too late.

Giga Tech Wolf lunged itself at Mokuba, it's mouth wide open just before it's jaw clamped onto Mokuba's shoulder. Mokuba's eyes went blank for a moment, and there was a flash of light. Mokuba was blown off his feet and onto the ground. I winced as I realized this had only been the first turn and already his life points were down to 2300. I watched him intently; Mokuba had never dueled with this kind of holographic technology, and I could only fear the worst.

"I hope I didn't hit you too hard, little one. Have you realized who you're dealing with now?" I gritted my teeth at Nesbitt's comment but kept my eyes on Mokuba. He slowly sat up and shakily got to his feet. Mokuba straightened himself out and tried to get back into the game, but I had a feeling that wasn't what was going on.

"Mokuba, are you okay?" I asked, eyeing him. Mokuba turned my way and forced himself to nod his head.

"Yeah, I'm fine. That was just… a little new, was all. I'm okay." I could see right through his eyes, although in this position, I wished that I couldn't. Maybe the holographic technology was just freaking him out a bit, I was still confident that Mokuba had his own strategy going on in his head. After all, he was my brother. I imagined he had his own tricks up his sleeves.

I turned back to Nesbitt.

"It's going to take a lot more than a couple cheap moves to bring us down, Nesbitt."

"Aw, isn't that cute? The Kaiba Brothers are over confident. That's so adorable!" Nesbitt held out his index finger and pointed it towards us; he had one last move to use on us before he ended his turn. I held my hand behind my set cards, ready to activate one of them if necessary. I wouldn't let Mokuba take another hit like that again, if I could help it.

"I'm going to activate my deck master's special ability, which allows me to discard three cards and inflict 500 direct damage to both of your life points!" I bit my lip when I realized I had nothing on the field to protect me from an effect like that; our life points were sitting ducks. Two beams of light shot out from the Robotic Knight's eyes and hit us both straight in the stomach. I cringed a little from the blow, but my attention went straight back to Mokuba once more.

Mokuba was hunched over, his bangs concealed his face, and his body was shaking in a way that worried me.

"Mokuba… are you alright? You going to be okay?" Mokuba held up his hand to me and waved it, trying to make it seem like I was overacting. He slowly removed his hands from his stomach and looked over at me while he was still hunched over.

"I'm okay… really… I just need to-" Mokuba flinched a bit, and then relaxed himself, "I just need to get use to this, that's all." I turned back to Nesbitt and narrowed my eyes. This was going to be harder than I thought, and now I was worried. Mokuba's life points had already gone down to 1800. If Mokuba didn't start playing his cards right, we were both going to lose.

At this point, failure could not be an option.

A/N: I know what you're thinking… 'WHERE IN THE HELL DID YOU GO?!' Well, I thought that too. But let's face it… I hate writing duels. And I think every writer who writes YGO would probably be able to say the same… it pretty much sucks. So that's the reason why it took my so FRIGGIN long to write and finish this chapter, and which will probably be my excuse for taking a while to write the next chapter too. But hopefully you guys haven't lost complete and total hope for me, and still somehow have nice things to say about this chapter. Hahahaha, thanks for reading!

P.S: OMG, IT'S BEEN A MONTH SINCE I'VE UPDATED THIS?! I've failed you all;.;