Chapter 31 - A Helping Hologram

"Joey!" Yami called out in alarm, quickly getting to his feet. "Are you alright?" Joey gave them a thumbs up, as the gang ran over to him. The seal had been broken and the duel ended, neither duelists losing their souls. Raphael had made his way down to the ground level somehow during all of this. He stood up after saying some harsh words to Valon and announced that he would make up for the other's foolishness. Although they were the enemy, Rose couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for Valon. He obviously cared about what happened to Mai and didn't want her to lose, which is why he broke the seal. But Mai and Raphael just got angry at him for trying to help.

"The power around my neck puts your puzzle to shame," Raphael said with a smirk, holding up his orichalcose stone. It illuminated the area, causing everyone to shield their eyes. When the light disappeared however, so did they. The gang looked around in confusion, the only thing they had left behind was Mai's bike.

"Hey, we're not locked in anymore," Tristan said, pointing towards the doors that were now opening.

"But where did those creeps go?" Tea asked. The gang were wondering the same question, when they were visited by another unexpected guest. Rose heard footsteps behind her, and saw Seto Kaiba and his brother Mokuba walking into the building.

"Kaiba?" Yami said, turning around. He obviously had not expected to see the CEO here, considering all the chaos going on that his company was being blamed for.

"What brings you here?" Duke asked them, having return from his endeavour.

"Certainly not the dweeb convention," Kaiba said in his usual cold tone. Rose rolled her eyes, and Seto raised an eyebrow at her. She just poked her tongue out at him. Joey looked at Rose sideways, obviously there was something they had missed. He didn't think that Kaiba and Rose had ever said more than a small sentence to each other.

Seto sent Rose a half hearted glare, and she just smirked at him. "Do you always have such enlightening words?" she asked, crossing her arms. Either Rose was one for bold statements, Joey thought, or her and Seto had conversed more than he thought. He narrowed his eyes; Kaiba wasn't very high in his books, as if that wasn't obvious enough.

Seto decided to ignore Rose's comment, "Any sign of Pegasus?" he asked, turning to the others.

"I'm afraid we're too late," Yami said, gesturing to the empty reception area behind him. "This entire building is empty."

"Mai Valentine got to him before we did," Tristan explained, obviously quite aggravated by the fact.

Rose grabbed Seto's attention again, "She took his soul with the Oricalcose," she said.

Seto raised his eyebrows, it seemed as if he had heard of it before. When Yami questioned him about it, Mokuba mentioned how Seto had just come from duelling against somebody who played it. He then explained how his opponent Allister pretended to be Pegasus and made them fly out to duellist kingdom just to duel him.

"And then he ran away," Kaiba finished the story, "So we came here to get some answers. Whoever captured Pegasus is trying to take over my company," he snarled.

"Hold on," Yami said, pulling out a card from his pocket, "This card Pegasus sent us may be a clue. It seems to contain the image of a key." Duke then piped up, saying that there was a door upstairs that wouldn't unlock even after he cracked the security system, so they all set off to find it.

After exploring the building they soon found the room on the top level, and Yami unlocked it with the key card. The door opened, revealing a room full of duel monsters statues, mainly toon monsters. They gang looked around the room curiously, and Joey commented on how creepy it was that pegasus had a locked room full of these statues. Tristan put it down to some kind of Duel Monsters fetish.

Rose face-palmed, "He invented the game, you idiots."

Seto grunted, obviously not amused by their antics, and walked further into the room. "So what's so important about this place? It's just a bunch of statues," he said, crossing his arms.

As if answering his question, a figure then appeared before them. The gang stepped back with a gasp, surprised by the appearance. It was a very familiar person who was now standing in front of them.

"Pegasus," Yami said in surprise.

"Not quite," Kaiba corrected, "It's a hologram." He held his usual smug smirk on his face, obviously liking the fact that he knew more about holographic technology than everyone else in the room. Being the top of the food chain certainly had its quirks.

Then the Pegasus hologram started to speak, "Yugi boy! At least I hope it's you that found this room. By the way if you couldn't tell I did all the interior decorating myself, pretty impressive hm?" Kaiba just rolled his eyes, obviously not in favour of the decor. "If you're hearing this, then that can only mean the gentlemen that were after my soul were finally about to capture me. So please listen closely." He explained that a mysterious man tried to buy out his company-just like with Seto's-and that this man possessed an ancient power stronger than any he had ever seen. "His name is Dartz." He then continued to explain that Dartz planned to use Duel Monsters to destroy all of civilisation. "He must be stopped, and the key to taking him down is somewhere in this room."

Pegasus then explained how he discovered that the monsters existed long before the pyramids of Egypt in the city of Atlantis, and that Dartz plans to resurrect the most terrifying creature that ever roamed the earth, named the great Laviathon. To do this, he needed to drain the souls of man and beast to build up it's power. Pegasus then said he had created an exclusive card just for Yugi, that was hidden in the room.

"Think strategically now, where can one find an extra card?" he hinted.

They all looked around the room, trying to find the answer to Pegasus' puzzle. As Rose looked at all of the statues, one of them caught her eye.

"Pot of Greed!" she said, pointing over at it. Tristan was standing closest to the statue, so he picked up the pot and pulled out a card, flipping it over in his hands as Rose walked over to have a look at it.

"Real special card," Tristan huffed, "This thing is completely blank!" He went to toss it aside, but Rose stopped him, taking the card off of him. Kaiba spared no time in announcing that the card was worthless, though Yami voiced that he thought otherwise.

Rose walked past Kaiba as she walked back to the gang. "Always so single minded, aren't you Seto?" she teased, before she handed the card to Yami, who after examining it, placed it with his deck.

Kaiba obviously was not in the mood for such antics, and he voiced very clearly that he did not want anything to do with this 'magic business'. Of course he didn't believe about the Orichalcose capturing souls, for he had not experienced it first hand like the others had. He left with a huff and the gang then tried to figure out what to do next.

"Well at least we know who it is we're after," Duke pointed out.

"Yes," Yami agreed, "However that's all we have: a name."

"How are we supposed to find this Dartz guy or his motorcycle goons?" Tristan asked, leaning against the wall.

"Yeah, it's not like we can look him up in the phone book," Joey said, crossing his arms.

Yami then got an idea, "Wait a minute, Professor Hawkins lives around here," he said. "Maybe he has some new information for us."

"Good call," Tea said, "he did say he was going back home to continue his research." They decided it would be a good idea to go visit the professor, so they headed back downstairs to the front entrance where Joey had duelled Mai earlier.

"Okay, we know where we're going now, but what about how?" Trsitan asked, walking towards the front doors.

"No worries, we'll just take my car," Duke said, swinging the keys around his finger with a grin.

"Are you sure we'll all fit?" Tea asked. There were only 5 seats in the car, and even if they shoved Rex and Weevil in the boot like Joey suggested-much to their dismay-they were still one person too many.

"No sweat guys, I'll just take this," Rose piped up, picking up a sleek purple motorbike.

"Where'd you find that?" Joey asked, having not quite connected the dots.

"Those creeps left Mai's bike here when they split," Rose explained, "And it's not unlike mine, I'll just follow you guys," she suggested.

Everyone nodded, content with the arrangement, and they walked out the front doors of Industrial Illusions, now on the next leg of their new adventure.

hello everyone! As you probably know, things start to get very interesting pretty soon, and I'm afraid i wont be able to update much in the next week or so as i will be moving house (and I've barely done any packing -.-) and i've also just found out that i may not have internet for a week or so after i move, so even if i get time to write, if i want to publish it, i may have to steal the wifi at my uni or something, I'll figure it out, but yeah just a heads up for you all.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you think :)

PharaohsThrone :)