Chapter Four
The flash he'd been expecting, and dreading, deposited him in what appeared to be a small clearing in a forest of trees. The moon gleamed overhead. Kaiba looked down – sure enough his Duel Disk, complete with what had to be his deck of cards, was strapped to his arm. This was it. This was his RPG adventure, the one the Big Five had distorted into the trap that snared him after he returned from Duelist Kingdom.
"Mokuba..."
"I fixed it, Big Brother." Mokuba's happy voice rang all around him. "I stripped out every bit of the code that wasn't yours and restored it. There are some bits I had to write myself, the code you wrote was too damaged, but it's a good adventure. I promise!" Kaiba heard a few clicks. Mokuba had a few things to learn about manning the command console during a VR adventure. Assuming he didn't have too bad an experience playing this blasted and be-damned adventure again, Kaiba thought he'd teach Mokuba some of the subtleties of running a VR program. "Oh! There you are!" There was a pause as Kaiba couldn't hear part of the conversation. "No, I insist. It's the least you can do." Another pause. "I know what you did and I'm not too happy about it." Kaiba had to smile at the steel in Mokuba's voice. "If you do this for me, I'll consider letting you off the hook for it." A final pause, and then a note of satisfaction in Mokuba's voice. "I thought you'd see things my way."
A cluster of sparkles deposited a rather bemused Dark Magician next to Kaiba. "I think the Kaiba I need to watch out for the most might be Mokuba and not you," Dark Magician said.
"You better believe it," Kaiba growled. "Though I'm not exactly sure what you could have done to get on his bad side. He seemed quite taken with you before."
Dark Magician managed a sheepish smile. "He scanned the VR logs. He knows you were the parrot I was using for my magic tricks before. He's not at all happy with me for that."
Kaiba stilled in shock. "He – knows?" And here he was trapped in Mokuba's version of his VR adventure game. There was no telling what Mokuba would do – now that he knew. If he thought – for even a moment – that Kaiba hadn't trusted him... "Mokuba! I'm sorry! It's not that I didn't trust you, it's that Jeremy needed closer observation!"
Mokuba's laugh suddenly rolled all around them like ominous thunder. "Well, now, we will just have to see what to do about that!"
Kaiba wheeled on the Duel Monster. "This is all your fault, Magician! If you hadn't hijacked the children from my Halloween event into the Shadow Realm, none of this would ever have happened! How did you manage to connect my VR simulator to the Shadow Realm in the first place?"
"My fault?" Dark Magician looked affronted. "We were minding our own business, doing what we could for our children whenever their imaginations brought them near enough, when your simulator crashed into the Shadow Realm and made the connection. This is all your fault, Seto Kaiba!"
"Wait. What?"
Dark Magician heaved a sigh. "Yami and Yugi use their own brand of magic, and somehow Joey captures random chance. In you, it expresses as technological brilliance." Dark Magician leaned over and tapped Kaiba on the chest at Kaiba's continued blank expression. "The Heart of the Cards?"
Kaiba's immediate knee-jerk reaction was to scoff.
"Believe it, or not, but the connection between your VR simulator and the Shadow Realm is entirely your doing, Seto. With the chance to interact directly, if somewhat obliquely, with our children suddenly appearing in front of us, we just wanted to help out. That's all." Having said his piece, Dark Magician turned his back, and crossed his arms. He called up into the air. "I'm finished here, Mokuba. I've told your brother what I wanted to say. I'm ready to leave, now."
"I'm not ready for you to leave yet, Magician." Mokuba's voice had deepened and assumed an oddly strained quality. A Duel Disk sparkled into being on Dark Magician's left arm. "Help Seto solve my adventure, and I'll think about forgiving you for what you did to him." This last bit was uttered in a clipped, low, and somewhat thickened tone.
"Uh-oh. He is really mad!" Kaiba whispered is a horrified voice.
For the first time that Kaiba had ever seen, a hesitant, less-than-confident look crossed the Dark Magician's face. "What does that mean?"
"Unless you can spirit us to the Shadow Realm from here, we've got to play Mokuba's adventure to get out. Play – and win."
Dark Magician closed his eyes. After a long moment, he opened them again. "I'm unable to leave," he reported.
"I was afraid of that."
"It's quite impressive, really. To cut me, me, off from the Shadow Realm?" The Duel Monster shook his head in wonder.
"Yes, yes. Admire my brother's evil genius another time. If we don't start moving on our own, he's going to start attacking..."
Ominous insect noises rose all around them. Kaiba listened carefully, and started sprinting for the one direction he didn't hear the sounds coming from. "Follow me! Keep up, if you can!"
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Author's note –
Next chapter teaser – What sort of treat does one give a dragon anyway? (And heaven help anyone who wants to play a trick on one instead!)