Disclaimer: I own a lot of things, but Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't one of them.

"Loaded like pistols and taught how to die
We looked the enemy straight in the eye (and never surrender)
Through trenches dug in the back of my mind
I go over the top time after time
Me and the ones we left behind (faces I'll always remember)
Now there's no fight left within me, but the writing of this wrong

I've seen so much worth dying for, so little worth killing over."

~Too Long a Soldier, Pat Benatar

Chapter 23

Three months passed and yet Alistair's memories of living in Domino did nothing but sharpen. In contrast, the days spent at the Robinhood base bled together. He had finally developed calluses to protect his fingers, so his hours spent in the make-shift kitchen were no longer torturous, just boring.

The others still referred to him as 'Princess' and took every opportunity to ridicule him and point out that while they had the same heritage, they were not equals. Even though he was now just as dirty, sleep deprived, and miserable as everyone else he was still called 'pampered.

Some of the men had started to eye him in a way he didn't care for also, giving him the same hungry looks he'd gotten in the clubs. As Michael had pointed out, he was a much smaller and more willowy build than many of the other men, and arguably more feminine looking in part because of his inability to grow facial hair like the others could. These factors combined led him to believe he should in fact watch his back, starting with exchanging his tight muscle shirt for something loose-fitting.

The old man who was in charge of the inventory first told him to buzz off, saying that he wasn't running a fashion show, but Alistair had looked pleadingly at him and he'd relented, digging out a loose long-sleeved black shirt. Gratefully, Alistair pulled his tank top off, his taught muscles stretching. Two guys who happened to be walking past wolf-whistled at him and said: "looking good Princess."

Alistair quickly pulled the new shirt on, handing the other one to the old man who now looked sympathetic.

"Thank you," Alistair said.

"No problem," the man replied. "You take care of yourself now. Don't let those boys intimidate you; they're all bark and no bite for the most part. If they cause you any trouble you let me know. Neakail is my son; I'll have him set them straight if they bother you." Of that Alistair wasn't so certain, but he nonetheless thanked the old man again for his kindness and returned to the kitchen. Maude noticed that he'd gotten a new shirt but didn't comment. In truth she was glad that since Alistair had arrived the men had taken their eyes off her and was content to keep it that way even at his expense, so when she saw him slip outside one day, she casually mentioned it to Michael, who mentioned it to Samuel, who mentioned it to two of his friends. Taking on a pack mentality and having spent the morning drinking beer that they'd found in the bombed out grocery store they'd raided the day before, they followed Alistair outside.

Alistair was leaning against the wall of the compound daydreaming when he heard the door open behind him. Tensing, he turned to see the group piling out the door.

"What are you doing out here Princess?" Michael slurred. "Waiting for 'Prince Charming?'" They laughed. Alistair, remembering what Neakail's father had told him, chose not to stand down.

"I don't have to explain myself to you," he said hotly, crossing his arms. "And don't call me that."

"Getting a little feisty there, aren't ya?"

"Shut up." He glared at the four of them, trying to look and sound tougher than he actually felt.

"Ooh, not too friendly," Samuel taunted. "You should loosen up a little." He took a step forwards, and Alistair instinctively took a step back but instantly realized that that was a mistake. Like dogs, they seemed to sense his fear.

"I'll do whatever I damn well please."

"I don't know boys, what do you say we teach this little girl a lesson in manners?" Alistair knew where this was going and looked imploringly at the most reluctant-seeming of the group, but he turned away.

"You're pathetic," Alistair snapped at them. "Are you honestly so desperate that you'd have sex with a man?" It was the only defense he had left. The statement gave them pause. "Obviously this is a hard concept for you to grasp, but I'm not a woman." He unbuttoned his coat and pulled his shirt up despite the cold. "See, no tits." He let his shirt drop back into place. "Now go back inside, drink your beer, and leave me alone. Or better yet, I'll leave." He made to walk past them even though he was afraid.

"Don't turn your back on me unless I tell you to," Michael snarled, shoving Alistair against the wall so hard he knocked the wind out of him. Dazed, he tried to retaliate, but Michael grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced his face against the brick. "Let's see just how uptight you are, huh? If it helps you loosen up, you can pretend that I'm your precious rich boy from Domino!"

"Get off of me!" Alistair growled, trying to claw at the hand holding onto his hair. Michael let go, cursing, and Alistair made for the door, but someone tripped him and he fell to his knees in the snow, scraping his palms on the gravel. He tried to get to his feet, but one of the other two who hadn't displayed any kind of trepidation, forced him back down despite Alistair using all of his strength to prevent it. He kicked out, hoping to connect with something solid other than the wall, and succeeded. He'd apparently kicked Samuel in the thigh.

"You ripped a hole in my pants you bitch!"

"What's going on here?" Alistair had never thought that he'd be happy to hear Neakail's voice. Samuel let go of him and he quickly stood up, brushing snow off of his coat.

"Nothing," Michael said innocently. "We were just roughhousing a bit. Sorry, did you need us?" Neakail, having walked in on the scene when he had, knew exactly what had been happening and didn't believe Michael for one second.

"What do you think Kam would have to say about you taking advantage of someone weaker than you when that goes completely against our creed?"

"I'm not weak," Alistair snapped. Neakail's eyes flashed angrily.

"I just saved your ass Princess, literally, so I suggest you keep your mouth shut. Why don't you go back to the kitchen where you belong; you had no business being out here in the first place." Alistair glared at him all the way back inside. Stomping to his cot he angrily threw his coat off. He decided then and there that he'd had just about enough of being treated like a weakling. Just because they were physically stronger than him didn't mean that he wasn't strong too, or capable of being more useful than cooking.

He stormed out of the room and marched up to the first person he saw, asking where Kam was. The startled man said that Kam was in the strategy room going over a few maps. Without saying thank you, Alistair stalked to the chamber and opened the door with so much force that it banged against the wall. In the blink of an eye, Kam rose from his desk chair and pulled a pistol out of his belt loop, pointing it right between Alistair's eyes.

"I almost shot you," he said, annoyed, holstering the weapon. "What do you want?"

"Send me out," Alistair demanded. "Let me fly, let me fight, anything! Let me be useful! I came here to help people, not chop vegetables!" Kam first raised his bushy eyebrows, then lowered them until they seemed to form one line above his nose.

"You told me that you wanted to help the cause. You agreed to follow my orders. My orders were for you to help Maude, so do it."

"Why won't you let me do something more worthwhile?" Kam rolled his eyes.

"You've been spoiled by your time in Domino, haven't you? Have you really forgotten how important food is? Did you not tell me that as a child you often went hungry?"

"I…yes, I did," Alistair replied, chagrined. "But-."

"The point is that this isn't boot camp. We can't afford to have people working here that don't know what they're doing. You don't know the area, so what use are you to me as a pilot? You don't know how the lottery works so I can't send you to work with them, but apparently you can cut up food satisfactorily."

"I can shoot," Alistair said immediately. "I have training with a variety of guns. I could go and act as a sort of bodyguard in case there's trouble. I know that Neakail knows how to shoot, but I don't know about the others." Kam regarded the young man standing before him. He certainly seemed to have a lot of zeal whereas some of the men who'd been with Robinhood for a few years were starting to lose their passion. He was young and foolish it was true, but even if he got himself killed it wouldn't be a total waste since they had gotten a helicopter out of it, though they hadn't tested it yet.

"Fine. Tell Neakail that I want him to evaluate your shooting and if he thinks you're competent you can go on tomorrow's mission to evacuate some people to the north. Oh, and don't you ever barge in here again or I will shoot you." Feeling very much dismissed, Alistair left, triumph shining in his eyes, and went to find Neakail. They'd stop calling him 'Princess' and trying to take advantage of him once they saw what he could do with a gun.

As winter finally came to a raw, windy end, the final pieces of the Grand Championship Tournament and the official opening of Kaiba Land started falling into place, and even Seto, surly as he was these days, couldn't help but feel proud. He sat back in his monogrammed leather desk chair and regarded the data on his screen, data that corresponded to a new invention he was hoping to debut at the tournament's opening ceremony: a highly advanced, sleek jetpack. It had taken him the better part of the last four months to finish the design, and now it was finally ready to be brought to life. He paged Roland.

Not two minutes later there was a knock on his office door. That was fast, he thought. But it wasn't Roland that walked in the office after he bade them enter, but Mokuba.

"Hey bro," Mokuba said cautiously; it was hard to judge Seto's moods, especially of late.

"Mokuba, what are you doing here? I thought you were down at Kaiba Land."

"I was, but then I remembered that I was supposed to give this to you." He pulled a black flash drive out of the front pocket of his straight-legged jeans and set it on his brother's desk. Seto looked at it questioningly.

"I know it was a long time ago, but you asked for a newer picture of me so I got Trudy to take some and then I copied her memory card to this USB and completely forgot about it until this morning."

"Oh right." Seto picked the small device up and plugged it into his PC whereupon a cheerful 'ding' sounded through the speakers. "What's the status at Kaiba Land?" he asked since Mokuba hadn't left yet.

"Everything looks fine. As soon as we're supposed to get a nice day I thought I'd call up the director of the local orphanage uh…I can never remember the name, but yeah, to tell her that we're ready to set up a date for the kids to visit."

"Good." Mokuba continued to hover. "What is it?" Mokuba bit his lower lip before responding.

"Um…well…" He cleared his throat. "Hilary and I have gotten pretty serious and uh…" Seto looked on as his younger sibling started to fidget. "I mean…we've done some stuff and um…I dunno…I just thought that you should know that maybe soon…eventually…I don't know…we might. Yeah. I talked to Trudy but she uh…she thought I should talk to you."

"You talked to Trudy about this?" Seto asked, unable to cover his surprise. Mokuba nodded.

"I didn't know who else to talk to about it." Seto wished that there was something he could say by way of advice or guidance but he had nothing. Even if he and Alistair had gone all the way he wouldn't have any insights that would be helpful to Mokuba.

"Just don't get her pregnant," he said finally, pretending to straighten the already straightened stack of papers on his desk.

"Ok," Mokuba agreed, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

"But if you do, tell me and we'll figure something out."

"Ok." Neither one of them spoke for a full minute then Mokuba said that he was sure Seto must be busy and took his leave. Seto sighed and turned back to his computer, something he could actually understand, and clicked the icon of Mokuba's flash drive. Mokuba really was growing up it seemed. Seto certainly hadn't foreseen the day that his brother would want to talk to him about sex or he would have educated himself on the subject in order to provide some kind of support or whatever it was that Mokuba had wanted from him.

Mokuba obviously hadn't bothered to sort through the files on Trudy's camera before giving it to him because the first forty pictures were of random flowers in what he assumed was the garden, the next forty or so were of some gathering of Trudy's family or friends, then came a slew of some baby and it's mother, then finally, around fifteen of Mokuba making different faces into the camera, and then…He started.

"Alistair," he murmured out loud. The last set of photographs was of Alistair on the day of the graduation at the academy. He clicked on one to enlarge it. Alistair was wearing the official academy uniform including the hat which had flattened his hair, causing it to frame his face. He was offering the camera a small smile and his usually stormy gray eyes were calm, his expression relaxed. Seto found himself transfixed by the image, going so far as to reach out and lightly brush the screen with his fingertip. His immediate follow-up thought was to check the app on his phone. The orange blip was still there. He looked back up at the picture on the screen and for the next few minutes mourned the loss of something that could have been great if only he hadn't been so stubborn (and scared).

Even though he'd seen enough misery to last him a lifetime, Alistair couldn't help but be affected by each new tragedy that he was faced with. That day he'd had to tell a wife that her husband was dead and watch her fall apart. Still, he wouldn't trade being out in the field for going back to the kitchen. Today, he had been in charge of flying the helicopter since no one else in Robinhood knew how, to scope out the area and make sure there was no one around before they moved in. It had been a dangerous job given that a helicopter is nothing but a big target, but he'd accepted it without hesitation. Finally, he was getting a chance to really make a difference even if no one else in the entire organization would give him credit for it.

As he, Neakail, and several other Robinhood members were helping to load the survivors they'd just rescued from a makeshift tent community onto some of their trucks, Alistair heard the unmistakable rumble of approaching tanks. Even after all these years the sound brought him straight back to the day Mikey died and put him immediately on edge.

"People, let's move!" Neakail yelled, a note of urgency in his voice. If the tanks belonged to the rebel army there would be no trouble, but if they were government tanks it could turn into a fight that they couldn't possibly win. There were over a dozen people left that needed to board the trucks when the first two tanks pulled up. Both were marked with the governmental seal. It was at that moment that a little boy of no more than five realized he'd left something behind and broke free of his mother's grasp to run back.

"No!" his mother yelled. "Come back!" She started to follow him, but Neakail stopped her.

"They'll think you're carrying bombs," he hissed at her.

"That's my baby!" she wailed. "Let me go!" The little boy had reached what had been his and his mother's tent, not fifteen feet from the nearest tank. Predictably, a soldier from inside the tank opened the hatch and prepared to aim at the child with his rifle. The boy looked up, saw the gun pointing at him and immediately started to cry, frozen in terror.

It was as though someone had pressed mute. Alistair couldn't hear anything, so focused on the child was he. He knew he opened his mouth to yell…something…but he barely heard it over the sound of the blood and hot, unbridled rage pumping through his veins. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Neakail's lips form the word 'no', but Alistair had already drawn his pistol, aimed, and fired. The man's body jerked back and he slumped down. Head shot.

The tanks swung around to aim at the platoon of four trucks and the helicopter, two of them stolen military vehicles, and prepared to fire. Alistair took no notice. If this was his day to die, he was going to go down fighting. Even though it was pointless, he ran at the tanks shooting bullet after bullet at their dull green sides, a feral war-cry ripping from his lungs.

Suddenly everything seemed to happen at twice the normal speed of things. The closer he got to the tanks, the more powerful his anger seemed to become until he could see it pouring out of the stone on his necklace in the form of blinding turquoise light. He felt himself starting to lose consciousness even as he kept pulling the trigger and not too long after, the blue light faded to black.

Seto pulled himself out of the pool, still breathing hard from the speed at which he'd pushed himself to complete his laps. Despite the exertion he found himself shivering and resolved to have the thermostat checked. He had no idea what time it was, nor did he care; there was no way he was going to get any more sleep that night. His nightmares had gotten worse. The scenario was always the same: he and Alistair getting into a fight, Alistair leaving and getting himself into some dangerous situation, Seto fighting desperately to reach him in time, but coming up short only to see Alistair killed. These dreams were worse than those featuring Gozaburo because he could chalk those up to nothing more than leftover baggage from his years spent with his step-father, whereas Alistair really could potentially actually die.

He blamed himself. He could have convinced the other man not to go and hadn't even tried. At first he'd thought he was being respectful of Alistair's wishes, but then they'd fought and he'd regressed to his old defense tactic of pushing people away in order to protect himself. He'd been selfish and now Alistair could pay the ultimate price for it.

He dried himself off in the changing room, resting his hand briefly on the newest addition to his collection of scars, and put his pajamas back on, though he knew he'd soon be exchanging them for his work clothes despite having only gotten a few hours of sleep.

Back in his room and under the shower he tried to concentrate on what he had to do that day for work. He was supposed to test out the jetpack prototype which would be interesting and then look over the patent to make sure everything was in order which would be tedious. He thought he might have a meeting or two but he couldn't remember.

Once out of the shower he changed into his signature black with his white trench coat and gauntlets. The only thing missing was his necklace. He picked it up off it's small shelf in his closet and clicked it open. He'd replaced his old picture of Mokuba with one of the new ones. In it, Mokuba was smiling into the camera and flashing a peace sign. He'd been going to keep the old picture in the slot in the other half of the locket which he had never filled before, but instead he'd filled the space with the picture of Alistair that had captured his attention. Now he kept the two people he cared the most about around his neck, though Alistair had come to weigh heavily on him.

Next, he retrieved his cell phone to check the app. He waited for the familiar orange dot to appear but it didn't. Panic rising in his chest he rebooted the app. Nothing.

It's probably just a bug in the system, he reasoned. Or maybe the transmitter was damaged, or maybe…

He speed-dialed Roland without regards to the earliness of the hour; the digital display on his phone showing that it was a little after five in the morning.

"Roland," he said, his voice calm despite the pounding of his heart. "I need you to have someone ready my jet immediately.

"What?" Roland asked groggily. "Your jet?"

"Now Roland; it's an emergency."

"An emergency?" Roland sat up in bed, wide awake. "Is it Mokuba?"

"No." But he offered no further details. "I need my jet and I need to exchange some money and I need two customs forms, flight plan forms and all the jet's registration and insurance papers; you know the drill."

"Is this about Ali-?"

"Look, we're wasting time, just do it!" He hung up and quickly stuffed his phone and wallet into his pocket before returning to his closet to retrieve his passport and pilot certificate. He managed to have the foresight to pack two additional sets of clothes into a small suitcase that he kept in his closet for such flights as well as a toothbrush, toothpaste, and caffeine pills.

Dragging the suitcase behind him he went to his brother's room to explain what was going on.

"Mokuba," he said crisply, shaking his brother's sleeping form.

"Wasamatter?" Mokuba mumbled, cracking his eyes open. "Seto? What's-?"

"I'm leaving. I don't know when I'll be back, hopefully soon. I think Alistair's in trouble." Mokuba's eyes widened and he sat up.

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"I'm coming with you!" Mokuba made to stand, but Seto pushed him back down.

"No, you're not." Seto's tone left no room for debate. "If something happens to me I need you here. Roland has all the information on my life insurance policy so you won't have to worry about that, and Mokuba," he looked into his brother's confused face. "If I die, you don't have to keep the company going if you don't want to, just promise me you won't sell it to Pegasus or to any arms companies that might come crawling around, ok?"

"Seto you're scaring me. Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm flying into a war zone and I can't guarantee that I'll come back," he explained bluntly. Mokuba's eyes started to tear up. He hugged Seto tightly around his neck and pressed his face against his brother's shoulder.

"You can't die," he said shakily. "You can't. I need you! Don't leave me!"

"I'm not planning on it." Seto tried to sound reassuring, and hugged Mokuba back. "I'm just being realistic. There is a real possibility that something could happen to me. You watch the news, you know it's not safe there right now and flying there in a private jet is probably the stupidest thing I'll ever do, but I have to. And I'd do the same for you in a heartbeat. You know that."

"Bring him back."

"I'm going to try." He pried the raven–haired teen off of his neck. "When Trudy and the others ask where I am just say that I didn't tell you; I don't need anyone worrying about me. And remember what I told you about the insurance and about Kaiba Corp."

"I will. Seto: promise that you'll be careful."

"I promise."

Only when he was in the air an hour and a half later did Seto allow himself to relax in any kind of degree. He'd pulled up his app's data to see the exact latitude and longitude of the helicopter's last known location and set his course for it. He was doing the best he could to get there quickly so that he could right the wrong that he was responsible for; the rest was up to fate.

Kam was finishing a bowl of thin stew when he received word that a strange aircraft had been spotted by lookouts at the scene of the previous day's debacle at the tent community. He summoned Neakail to his office and instructed him to take five men with him to the site to find out what was going on.

Author's Note: First, to the obvious: the Orichalcos. 'But that was destroyed at the end of season 4!' you say. Yes, but in all fairness Alistair's necklace never shattered like Raphael's; he was still wearing it when Seto pulled him off the plane after he had lost his soul and since I (ever so slightly) altered the ending there's no indication that anything ever happened to it. Given how the Orichalcos works, it's my supposition that even with Dartz and the Leviathan gone it would still have enough power even as just a shard to pray on the 'darkness' still lingering in Alistair's heart.

Second, Seto. It always did take a crisis to get Seto to show he cares. Doesn't it just make you want to give him a good kick?

And as always, reviews are lovely, just take a minute and make this author's day, yeah?