A/N: It's sad, really, that my own grandfather's from Brooklyn but I still have a hard time writing Joey's accent.
I should have updated this AGES ago, but I couldn't get past a mental block, plus classes started up again and things got busy. When I post the next chapter, I will have made much more progress in the story, I swear!
So much plot... so little time...
Sorry this is so short...
Joey took down an obnoxious bug duelist—hadn't he been named the regional champion just this summer?—after an arduous duel. He was in the process of looking for his next opponent when Seto ran into him—quite literally.
"Hey! What's the rush?" the blond asked light-heartedly.
"Someone broke into your house and took Mokuba."
"What?!"
"Come on!" Seto grabbed Joey's hand an continued to run in the direction of his house. "We can't afford to waste any time!"
"How do you know what happened?"
"Anzu called me. I told her to call the police."
"Do you think Kaiba—?"
"Yes." Seto didn't even need to hear the whole question. "But I'm still hoping he's not involved." He released Joey's hand as he skidded on the pavement to make a sharp turn.
"Halt!"
The two teens stumbled to an abrupt stop as their path was blocked by two robed, masked figures, one of them holding up his hand, arm extended, palm facing them.
"Get outta my way, or I'll clobber ya!" Joey threatened immediately. "I don' got time for this!"
"We know where your brother is, Seto." The man dropped his arm and smirked as Seto grit his teeth. "We'll tell you where he is if you can beat us in a duel."
"That's ridiculous!" Seto snapped in aggravation. "Tell me now, damn it!"
Steady, Seth murmured in a cautious tone. Be careful; we don't know what they're willing to do if we don't cooperate.
You think they work for Noah. It was a statement, almost an accusation.
You do too, Seth pointed out.
Yes, but your agreement practically confirms it.
"We don't have to tell you anything," the other anonymous figured retorted in a disgustingly snarky tone.
"We could turn you over to the police," Seto threatened, Seth's calm presence washing over him like a cool draft of air. Seto was too angry on his own to think clearly, but Seth helped him maintain mental clarity. "I'm sure your boss wouldn't like that."
"You'd be losing your only lead to your little brother if you did that, though."
"If we beat you and you don't tell me where he is, I'm turning you in." Seto extended his left arm forward, activating his duel disk. "I accept your challenge." He glanced at Joey and saw him doing the same.
"We're in this together, whether you like it or not."
"Thanks."
"Then let's shuffle our decks and let the duel begin!" one of their opponents declared as they, too, activated their duel disks.
"Mind telling us your names so we at least know who we're fighting?" Seto asked as he removed his deck from the port and shuffled it.
"I am Lumis," the taller one said.
"I am Umbra," the shorter one followed promptly.
"And this will be your last duel of the tournament!"
"In your dreams," Seto retorted. "Let's duel!"
The duel was surprisingly brief, not even lasting long enough for a single player to get a second turn. The coin flip determined the order of turns: Joey, Lumis, Seto, Umbra. Joey put a monster in defense mode, then Lumis attacked Seto's life-points directly, sneaking in a direct hit before the brunette had a chance to defend.
Seto drew his card and smirked. "I summon Lord of Dragons, in attack mode." He placed the card on the scanner and placed two cards in the magic zone. "And I equip it with two Flutes Of Summoning Dragon, allowing me to summon any four dragon-type monsters from my deck or hand!"
"What?!" Lumis exclaimed, his partner equally perplexed and terrified.
"And I choose to summon my three Blue-Eyes White Dragons"—the voice recognition software in the duel disk understood him perfectly and ejected those specific cards from his deck—"and Luster Dragon #2!" He seized the four cards and spread them across the card readers, the dragons appearing one at a time with a burst of dazzling light.
"That's impossible!" Umbra shouted.
"Then watch me do the impossible." Seto smirked, actually enjoying this. "Two Blue-Eyes, attack Umbra's life-points directly with white lightning attack! Luster Dragon #2, destroy Lumis' Masked Sorcerer! Blue-Eyes, finish him off!"
When the dazzling light generated by the holograms finally dissipated, it was clear to all of them that the duel was over. Seto started collecting the cards he used and putting them back into his deck, along with the cards in his hand.
"But, how, what—" Umbra stammered.
"Now, didn't you promise to tell me something if we won?" Seto crossed his arms as Joey reset his duel disk as well, equally dumbfounded by their duel.
"H-Here are your locator cards, and our rarest cards."
Six cards were shoved in his direction, but Joey grabbed them instead. Seto grabbed Umbra by the front of his shirt, eyes narrowed in a glare that threatened violence.
"Where's Mokuba?"
"He's at the harbor!" Umbris burst out. "At the loading docks!"
That was all he needed to hear. Seto dropped him and took off, Joey hard on his heels. He'd pocketed the cards they'd won, intent on sharing them with Seto as soon as he had a chance.
"You stacked your deck, didn't you?" Joey asked once they were far enough from the two thugs.
"They made two mistakes," Seto panted. "First, they aided and abetted my brother's abduction. Second, they let me shuffle my own deck."
"So you cheated."
"You said it, not me."
Joey honestly couldn't blame him.
Mokuba was trying to find a way out of the warehouse he'd been locked into. There was a single window at the top of the back wall, and so far he'd been stacking cardboard boxes in an attempt to build a set of stairs that would facilitate his escape. Just as he was tumbling off of a short tower of boxes, he heard the sound of the door's deadbolt being unlocked. Mokuba landed on the ground with an "oomph!" some of the empty boxes landing on top of him.
"Get in there. Go on!"
Mokuba pushed aside the boxes in time to see the man shove Amane forward into the room, riling the twelve-year-old's temper.
"Hey, you can't treat her like that!" he shouted, jumping to his feet, surprising Amane with his presence and the guard with his outburst. "She can't help it that she can't hear you! She's deaf!"
The guard scowled at his prisoners and wordlessly closed the door, locking it once more. Amane ran over to Mokuba and hugged him, looking frightened.
"We're going to be okay, Amane," Mokuba assured when she'd released him. "I've figured out a way to escape, but I'm going to need your help."
"Whatever you need, I'm here for you," she signed to him with a hopeful smile.
"Wait, hold up!"
"We can't wait, Joey," Seto snapped back, but the blond grabbed a hold of his coat and pulled him to a stop. The two teens stood panting for a few moments before the brunette asked, "What is it, Joey?"
"Do you hear that?"
They listened together, and identified the sound of a voice calling without words. The voice of a little girl. No sooner had they identified the sound than Amane had stumbled into Joey's sight, behind Seto.
"Amane?" Joey observed in surprise, the little girl already scampering over to them with a frightened expression.
"What are you doing here? Where's Ryou?" Seto asked before realizing that he wouldn't be able to understand any answer she gave them. She tried signing to them anyways, but her brother's friends just looked confused.
"Come on, you'll stay with us until we find your brother," Joey assured her.
"Here." Seto extended a hand to Amane as he crouched down and let her climb onto his back. He stood up again, holding Amane securely before they took off at a run once more. They only turned a few more corners before they found what they were looking for.
On one section of the docks, there stood Ryou with his duel disk, face hidden by his hair as it was tugged by the wind coming off the water. The docks themselves formed the border of an odd square with an anchor suspended above the center of the square of choppy water by the arm of a large mechanized crane used for unloading freighters. And from that anchor hung two chains, one to the side of the docks opposite Ryou and to the other side...
"Thank goodness you're here," Mai said from where she was leaning against her parked car, a fretful-looking Marik standing near her. "I was just about to call you, Joey. You'll never believe what—"
"Amane!" Ryou lifted his face when his friends appeared with his little sister safely in their care. "You're alright!"
Amane started to squirm, and Seto quickly set her down, he and Joey approaching Marik and Mai as she ran towards her brother.
"Stop right there!" The voice came from a robed figure standing on the far corner of the dock. He'd been obscured by now in the shadow of the shipping containers that walled off this portion of the docks on either side. "Don't come any closer, or your little friend's going to suffer for it!" He pulled a smaller figure out from behind him.
"Mokuba!" Seto was relieved that he now knew where his brother was, but furious that he was now being held hostage at gunpoint with his wrists bound together and a blindfold covering his eyes to keep him from trying to run away.
"Seto!" Mokuba experienced only relief, knowing that Seto would save him. His brother had found him, so everything was going to be okay now.
DayLightDove: Thank you so much! I really appreciate your support! Don't worry, Ryou will have suffered more than his share of pain and distress by the end of it all (but I'm not giving away any spoilers~).
He was originally intended to be the deuteragonist of this series, but that plan was somewhat derailed by Angstshipping (Marik absorbing all of Ryou's time) and one-sided Puppyshipping (poor Joey~). Ryou was meant to the Joey to Seto's Yugi in this series, and I'm going to develop their relationship more to make that more apparent.
Yes, the Battle City arc was the only anime arc that seemed to really care much about Ryou at all, but he gets a lot more love in the manga, if that makes you feel better. (He gets even less love in the TCG than he does in the anime, though, which makes me angry. -_-) Thank you so much for your support of my stories, and I'm so glad that you enjoy them!