A Past and Future Pharaoh
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Original Beta: White Swan
A/N: OMG this was probably some of the worst characterization I wrote and short, so glad any of you new readers will never see 'this' chapter of mistakes.
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One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, bah.
Noa had dispatched a virtual herd of copies of Yugi through out this recreated Domino. From Yugi pre-puzzle, Yugi with the puzzle, Yugi when possessed by the Pharaoh, to the way Yugi looked now. Yet the flaw was evident in how all of them acted like the Other Yugi during his time in the Battle City.
Giving the various appearances, Noa seemed to only really know of Yugi from what he saw recorded during televised duels. So regardless if 'Yugi' had the Puzzle or not, he acted like the Other Yugi. This was so shoddy, so poorly done it made Kaiba inwardly groan that Yugi could be taken in by Noa's complete and obvious incompetence.
So he found a part of his mind shifting to the means that Noa could even 'do' this. The only thing that fit in Kaiba's mind was hypnosis, that Yugi was no longer able to tell the difference between a virtual reality world and the real world. Could Noa use Yugi if he couldn't get to Kaiba? Subliminally rewrite Yugi's own personality with his own if he failed in this insane plot of his?
As he thought about it, he turned his gaze upward towards his Blue Eyes White Dragon who was currently floating up on the wind currents above the block. Walking in the shade of his proud Dragon he recalled how his dragon acted when it was on the ground. Willfully devouring the sheep Yugis that they came upon with indifference. Indeed her actions helped encourage the 'sheep' mentality he had towards all these fake Yugi's.
From the timer to the random appearances of all these fake Yugis, Kaiba's patience was wearing thin quite rapidly. Kaiba wasn't sure what he was looking for anymore given the nature of the Virtual Reality system. He 'wanted' to believe that Yugi here looked the same way he did in the real world. However, appearances were subjective here in this world. For example if Yugi felt that his true form was unnatural, or that Noa was adjusting what Yugi saw to accommodate the teenager. There was no rule saying that what Kaiba saw was the same as what Yugi saw.
In a way the 'only' person who could see the absolute truth was Noa as he was just as much made of data as the world around them. As Kaiba strode through the warehouse district he could see a Yugi looking down at him from an upper window. Though he only saw the face for a moment as the Yugi turned away. But at least 'this' was one of those Yugis that reflected the way Yugi looked right now, as opposed to the milling sheeple of child Yugi's.
While floating above all this foolishness the Blue Eyes White Dragon watched as Its Human walked into a large human made cave. For a moment it considered just busting into the cave on its own, so it could continue looking after the soft squishy human. Yet there was a rumble of sound from the distance, that kept it airborne. After all, it had seen multiple Spirits about this concrete forest. As well as a multitude copies of Its Human's hunting brother.
But the other Spirits had been quiet the whole time the moment they saw her they slipped away. So the sound of rumbling confused the dragon, since there were no cries of battle. There was no natural reason for the sound, like the land shaking, nor humans to cause such a sound. If not for Its Human going into the human made cave she would have gone to investigate.
Instead she stayed high above looking about the city making sure no one got an idea to displease Its Human more than he already was.
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The interior of the warehouse was cavernous with a rig above his head that looked to hold up smaller boats for repair. The air held a strong tang of salt and the soft clipped sounds of boots walking on the metal walk ways above Kaiba's head. He forced his eyes to ignore the reactive sting of stepping out of a sunlight into a building. Reminding himself that he stood, not in the real world, but in a simulated environment. The back of his mind going over all the remaining places that Yugi could have been.
He had run into the Copies at the Game shop, the mansion, the high school, even the dance studio. Often times he came across Yugis that only sought to duel him, undoubtedly Noa expected Kaiba's pride to make him waste the time. That he would forget the purpose of his presence in the VR world and just have a duel with the mewling kitten.
"You're not very good at playing games, which is ironic given that you run a gaming company."
That was the other thing, all these conversations with 'Yugi' that Noa instigated. There was this haunting quality to the voices, though not in what Noa had the copies say, just in how they sounded. They carried a twinge of emotion of disappointment, a type of disappointment that was vastly different from Gozoboro's. Sad, defeated, let down even, as though Kaiba had failed to do something important for Yugi.
And while 'Kaiba' could think of no such sin upon his soul that the computer generated emulated sounds of Yugi's voice should bother him. There was another part of him that it 'did' bother. Noa had no access to Ancient Egypt like Yugi did, all the computer data in the world could never equal life experience. Yet somehow Yugi's voice, fake though it was, bothered Kaiba.
More over when he saw the hologram of Yugi walking down the metal stairs from above. Most, near all, the other versions of Yugi always carried the same proud confidence of the Other Yugi. But they also all looked as young as Yugi did last year, but there 'were' Yugis that looked as he did now. Yet the way he carried himself, the way he stood, was varied between the Other Yugi and outright confrontational.
It was something the other copies occasionally expressed, when Kaiba turned down their challenges for a duel. Indeed the first time he walked past one of the copies it literally summoned a copy of the Dark Magician and tried to use dark magic attack on him. That had been annoying, seeing the Magician with its empty eyes staring at him and knowing this wasn't Mahaado.
Watching that one copy try to call Osiris had been rather entertaining as well as enlightening. For the Gods themselves seemed to be aware of the situation and punished the copy by shredding its data in front of Kaiba. After that all the other Yugis used Dark Magician or Celtic Guardian, with several other monsters after that.
Even from this distance, Kaiba could see that this copy looked to be aiming for an actual physical confrontation. He didn't wear a duel disk, and his expression was one of almost dead eyed seriousness. Something that Kaiba didn't like seeing on the brat, even if it was a sign that he was actually paying attention for once.
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She swooped and rose upon the currents of the strange air she found herself in when she noticed the sound of battle. Shifting her weight as she glided through the air, her eyes were brought to the ground as she saw those tiny humans scurrying along. Which created a conundrum for her, as she recognized the human female as pack member with the Pharaoh. But she 'also' recognized the white haired human as a hated enemy who brought about the destruction of her old hunting ground.
The human female looked up at her and as Blue Eyes kept her eyes on this tiny human, she realized the human was trying to follow her. Despite the fact that more Not Duel Spirits were taking up room on the paths before the two humans. She extended her wings to take up more air and ascended higher into the air. Circling around so they were beneath her, while the Not Spirits began to back off at her presence.
She could feel the essence of the Pharaoh, and knew her Human had found him. Now she just had to collect this little human female and maybe then they could leave this strange 'not world' that she found herself in. What world did the bright orb just turn white and smaller? The sky bright to darkness? If not for her own light she would probably crash into something if she kept flying.
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The hologram cried out in pain. It kept trying to squirm free but Kaiba's hold was too strong, until Kaiba himself released the hologram before reaching down to grab it by its hair. He yanked the program to its feet as he stumbled about in near darkness for something suitable to slam it into before he pounded it into bytes. Like the other holograms, it made very realistic sounds, which only infuriated the CEO further as it tugged at his heart, now more then ever, to be so violent.
His mind saying that even assaulting a hologram of Yugi was cruel and unusual; worst still, it made him out to be the type of person Noa wanted to portray him as. He reached down and began digging his nails into the hologram's throat as they moved, and with the left holo's left arm out of commission there was nothing it could do to get free.
But pressing his nails into someone's throat, even a hologram's, hurt over time and Kaiba flung his digitally created victim across the ground and away from him. The sound of gagging and choking gave him a target to lock in on, the faint silhouette of the hologram in his sights as he stalked his prey. But as he reached down to grab the Hologram again, said Hologram tackled him into the ground thrashing until he found Kaiba's throat and began trying to strangle the CEO. Then again, the Hologram was maintaining that its left arm was the weak appendage. So at least Noa wasn't trying to cheat the CEO of his win, but even so it only justified Kaiba's rage at Noa. 'I wonder how much pain this thing can endure?' he wondered as he rolled towards the Hologram's weakened left side while yanking his throat free from the Hologram's grasp. With both the Hologram's wrists in his hands, he forced the being around so they were both facing the same direction. He freed the Hologram's left hand as he worked both his arms under the being's own arms. With his hands planted on the Hologram's neck he yanked the arms of his victim upward towards the back, which earned him a scream of pain, the first actual verbal sound to come from the Hologram since the beginning of the fight and once Kaiba got the leverage required, he brought the pain to a new level. He slid his arms up fast enough to grab the Holograms wrists one more time before crossing them, until the sudden slight sound of a pop occurred.
The Hologram broke down into a sob of pain that was interrupted by a sudden rendering of steel and the pulverization of concrete over Kaiba's head. Stunned by the sudden attack he released the Hologram before rolling away as dust fell from the roof along with large jagged pieces of steel. But as a wall found itself destroyed, a glow filled the room as false moonlight reflected off the shinning scales of a singular Blue Eyes White Dragon. Kaiba blinked at the dust, wondering why his cherished monster would go against his wishes and land. He had ordered it to stay aloft to ensure no other monsters came to distract him, but there it was, wings fanning the air its proud head swiveled downward to look at him, while in the distance he could faintly hear over the settling of the destruction his dragon caused, a girl's voice calling out about the Dragon.
In the opening, in the soft glow of a Silent Magician Level 8, Anzu stepped into the building and peered inside at what his Blue Eyes had done, while behind her Bakura appeared more cautious of the destruction. It took a bit of time before her eyes adjusted to weak light before she came close enough to the CEO. But when she did so, her eyes fell on the Hologram and she predictably enough panicked. She rushed over, tripping over everything while calling out Yugi's name, until Kaiba got between them.
"Kaiba! Yugi's hurt!" was her automatic response as she tried to get to the hologram.
But he stayed in her way with a firm "That's not Yugi. That's just another one of Noa's holograms. Now, how did the two of you show up here?"
"Mokuba had Isono come and find us, you didn't wake up and he got worried," Anzu explained, her eyes staying on the broken Yugi on the ground.
"What happened Kaiba? We ran into Noa twice, claiming that he was the true heir of Kaiba Corp," Bakura inquired as he joined the pair.
"This is my battle, why should I discuss anything with you?" Kaiba sneered.
"Cut the act Kaiba, you came because you were worried about Yugi, just like us," Anzu snapped back as she looked over the damage Kaiba did. "You have absolutely no pity do you?"
"Kaiba? What's going on here?" Bakura repeated, his eyes darting around the room as though he would find Yugi standing there. It was one of the warehouses in the ocean front district, a location he knew only in the modern terms due to having visited Malik. It was one of those large ones designed to hold freight for a company. Normally now in the off seasons the warehouses would be nearly empty, the items they stored not yet arrived. He and Anzu had followed the vision of the Blue Eyes circling something in the air while fighting a rather large assortment of monsters. No monster was willing to face the Necrofear now that Noa knew what would happen if a strong monster destroyed it. So with only the Silent Magician to be protected they had run along the road after the dragon while every so often a new coin would float down from the sky. The Magician would take its hat off and let the coin fall into it, until it began glowing, which he and Anzu had deciphered, as it's ready status to be leveled up.
Perhaps it was because the Blue Eyes sensed a monster stronger then itself, that it chose to come down and investigate the matter as the pair approached. Once they reached the docks, Bakura had come to realize that the monsters didn't follow them. Even though they were willing to chase the pair down roads with single minded abandon, they refused to enter the docks. Which raised the hackles on Bakura, an experienced Dungeon Master, since the only time he let off on a horde of monsters in his game was when something worse was waiting for them.
For a moment it seemed like Kaiba wasn't going to answer, but a soft encouraging rumble from his Blue Eyes caused him to back down and reply to Bakura's question. "I woke up in a virtual version of my own mansion, with a hologram of myself to deal with. When I got to my office, that's when I met Noa, and this game of his started. He gave me an hour to find Yugi, and a life bar meter to look at so I know how Yugi's doing." He turned his eyes towards the closest meter, which shone, in a window on an upper floor of a building across the street.
Both noticed the CEO's sudden swift look of concern and turned their attention to the same vicinity, though Bakura's swift eyes caught it faster. "That meter looks like it's almost gone. Are we to assume Yugi's close to or actually dead?"
"What?!" Anzu's eyes widened as she looked between the guys. Behind her the slow dragging sound of something moving caused her and the others to turn. Finding the beaten Hologram was slowly, painfully, getting to its feet, while clutching its now dislocated arm tightly to its body.
Eyes that were barely visible in the shadows hinted of rage as the Hologram lunged for Kaiba. Did it want to continue the fight in such a wrecked condition? Apparently so, as Kaiba sidestepped it, grabbed the dislocated arm and twisted it a full 180 dropping the Hologram to its knees with a shriek of pain. Anzu turned her head away, burying it into the black and red trimmed robes of Yugi's Silent Magician Level 8, with her hands over her ears. It sounded so much like Yugi that it broke her heart. But it was the roar… displeased roar? Of Kaibas' own Blue Eyes that stopped Kaiba from further damaging the Hologram. It dipped its great head down and seemed to try to separate Kaiba from the sobbing Hologram at his feet.
"How…c…co..could you… Bl…Blue Eyes? How could you… betray Kai… ba…" The Hologram was trying to talk to his dragon, in a way that alarmed Kaiba. His cherished Blue Eyes didn't want him to harm this Hologram; the life meter that had been nearly full when he had first entered this building was nearly empty… No…
Kaiba dropped to his knees; he didn't need to see into those violet eyes, he finally realized the reason why his dragon had disobeyed him. He was about to kill the one person he came to find! Suddenly it all fit, the reason why he had faced so many holograms, why so many of them intentionally angered him, it was all for this. All to bring him to the point where each hologram was just another stepping stone, until he finally stepped on the one person that his goal was to find. Noa was actually a rather clever piece of digital trash… "Yugi?…"
The Hologram, no 'Yugi', looked up at Kaiba in confusion. "Kaiba…?" Yugi's pained voice inquired his body shaking from pain and anguish.
"Damn Noa..."
