Rewrite of "Get Yarr Game On".
Only the first half. The second part is giving me trouble, but I figured anybody who'd stuck with me after all this time deserved something.
Unknown Location
Unknown Time
Waking up had always been hard for Yuki— sleeping was just so, well, restful, and while being awake had its advantages, transitioning between the two states was a pain. It took forever to get his sluggish mind and body to start up in the mornings, leaving him feeling muddled and slow. He'd tried, once he'd entered secondary school, to get up on time so he could make it to classes, but had eventually given up and decided to just embrace his tardiness. Being on time just wasn't worth the effort.
Despite all his past experience, however, Yuki didn't think he'd ever had this hard of a time returning to consciousness. His body felt so heavy, like his muscles had turned to lead piping, while his head felt like it might float away at any moment from how it was spinning.
Fighting through the dizziness, the Osiris tried to ground himself, managing to move a single finger just enough to feel solid, metal plating beneath him. He frowned (or he thought he did; even the muscles in his face were stiff) at the sensation. Something was off. He cast his mind back, trying to remember what he'd been doing before this strange awakening. He'd been eating breakfast; no, he'd finished breakfast, and then he'd gone for a walk because…
Because he and Syrus had gotten into a fight.
...
"Ghhhah! You did WHAT!? Without ASKING ME FIRST!?"
"I'm sorry. I guess in all the excitement, I… didn't think about that."
"Excitement!? That's your excuse? You just conveniently forgot that I room with you because you got excited!?"
"Of course not, Syrus. I didn't forget that you room with me, I just—"
"No? Then how come you asked Chazz to move in with us without consulting me first!?"
"Because he needed a place to stay. Sure, his parents are paying for renovations on the Osiris Red dorm so he can have his own room, but they won't be done for a few weeks. I just thought he might want to bunk with us until then."
"Yuki, you cannot go around making decisions like that without any consideration for— oh, never mind! I'm wasting my breath! If you want to room with Chazz so much, maybe you should just move in with him! After everything you've put me through, I might need a new roommate anyway!"
...
And with that, Syrus had stormed off— well, as much as anyone his size could, anyway.
It had honestly baffled Yuki how irritable Syrus had been lately. On the bright side, he wasn't as anxious anymore, but this new, constant snappishness wasn't exactly an improvement. Ok, Yuki had to admit that when he'd forgotten Syrus's birthday last Tuesday the other boy's grumpiness had been justified, but lately almost everything he did seemed to set Syrus off. Yuki had tried to ignore it, but Syrus saying he didn't want to be roommates anymore, well… that wasn't something that could be just brushed off. The two of them had planned to be roommates at Duel Academy ever since they'd been old enough to hold their own cards. What could have happened to change Syrus's opinion on the matter so drastically?
It had bothered Yuki so much that he'd skipped his morning class and gone for a walk on the beach to try and sort it out. He remembered coming to the conclusion that Zane had probably said or done something over Winter Break that Syrus was having trouble processing, and had determined to go and confront the Anubis, but that didn't explain his current situation. Confronting Zane was hardly likely to lead to an impromptu nap.
He was feeling considerably less foggy now and began to shift around, opening his eyes to a squint. Almost immediately he froze– and not because of the unfamiliar, grey shapes surrounding him. He didn't know how he hadn't felt it before, the sensation of cold metal clamped around his wrists. That couldn't be right. He was probably just… still half-asleep. Yeah, that was it.
Yuki shook himself, blinking rapidly and trying to wake up already, to get away from what was turning out to be a nightmare. It didn't work. Feeling a rush of alarm, the teenager yanked on his arms, trying to get a look at his wrists, but they were trapped behind his back. Fully panicking now, he thrashed wildly for a minute, unable to orient himself, before finally managing to role over and get his knees under him.
The effort left him sweating, and his heart pounded in his ears as his eyes darted around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a room made entirely of metal, empty except for what looked like pipes and panels built into the wall. Yuki couldn't begin to guess where he might be— a cellar, perhaps? But in which building? Was he still even at the Academy? How long had he been out? What about—?
"Avian? 'Trix? Bubbleman? You guys still around?" Silence. "Clayman? Sparkman? Necroshade?" His voice cracked. "Winged Kuriboh?" Nothing. Yuki felt his lungs constricting, making it harder and harder to breathe, and he blinked and his eyes were wet, and where were his duel spirits, they would never leave him, not willingly, what had—
Calm down. Breathe. The best thing you can do in an emergency situation is remain calm, Mr. Roland's voice recited in his head. He'd never actually thought sitting in on Alexis and Atticus's survival lessons— back in the days when he'd still had playdates with Alexis, before she got cooties— would turn out to be useful, but remembering Roland's instructions was amazingly helpful now.
Some might have called Mr. Kaiba paranoid for teaching six-year-olds how to handle a crisis, but it wasn't as if he didn't have good reason to be. And he wasn't the only one— having been famous since their teens, Yuki's parents and their friends were well aware of the dangers that came with celebrity, wealth, and influence. Every one of them had had to deal with their share of threatening and/or stalker-like behavior; some had even had to face kidnapping or being taken hostage. Once they became parents, naturally they worried about people trying to use their children against them.
It was a fear that Yuki had lived under all his life, but it had always been more like a… general wariness than anything else. Sure, he'd had to take more precautions than most kids did growing up, but the threat hadn't ever actually seemed real to him, not like school and dueling and every other part of his life had been.
Until now. The teenager swallowed hard, suddenly very aware of how vulnerable he was with his hands pinned behind his back. Rely on your senses, the Mr. Roland in his memory reminded him. What can you see? Hear? Smell? Feel? Taste?
A second look around his prison didn't reveal anything new, and he couldn't smell or taste anything unusual either. As for hearing and feeling… Yuki concentrated. Now that he had stopped to notice, he wondered how he'd missed it before: the floor and the walls were steadily vibrating, filling the air with a low humming sound. The Osiris maneuvered around so that he could press his hand flat, first to the wall, then to the floor. The vibrations were strong enough that they made his arm tingle, but definitely more so coming from the floor.
Alright. So I'm above something that's vibrating. Probably some kind of machine… What kind of machines were used around Duel Academy? There were generators to provide power; maybe he was in a room near one of them?
Fiddling with his hands a bit more, Yuki was able to determine that his restraints were a pair of handcuffs, a few metal links providing his only range of movement. Unfortunately, he'd missed Mr. Roland's class on how to get out of those.
Chazz's Room, Osiris Dorm
January 29, 2028
10:31 AM
"GAHH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! The Chazz shouldn't live like a rat in the gutter! I used to be an Anubis Blue— jacuzzi tub, turndown service— a week of renovations and this place still isn't livable!" Chazz clutched at his crossed knees with a death grip, breathing hard after his rant. His counselor said that transitioning between dorms was going to incur a kind of grief and that he shouldn't be surprised if he experienced a bit of denial or anger or depression— and indeed, Chazz was no longer surprised by his emotions.
That didn't make them any easier to live with, though.
"Hey boss, you sound stressed. Oh, yeah, just look at all this pressure building up!"
How convenient— an easy target for his ire. "You! If you wanna be helpful, then get lost!" Yellow burst into streams of fake tears. "And, if you wanna see pressure—" Chazz lunged for the annoying Duel Spirit, intending to crush the little gremlin between his hands no matter how futile he knew it would be. All he accomplished was managing to get stuck in the tiny space between his dresser and his bed after falling off the latter.
"Boss, do you hear that?"
"What?" Chazz asked irritably, grimacing as he twisted his elbow at an awkward angle. Yellow had finally stopped bouncing around the room and had his freakish eye stalks pointed toward the door.
"It sounds like someone is calling for help."
"Yeah, I hear it, too," Green said, popping into existence. "They sound pretty upset."
"They're not the only ones," Chazz growled, twisting himself around painfully so he could get his feet under him.
"Not just upset, they sound scared! Boss, we should go help them out!"
"No."
"But they could be in real trouble, boss," Green backed up his brother.
"No."
"What's all that racket? Someone help them already so they'll stop yelling!"
"Oh great, the tedious trio is complete," Chazz complained as he sat back down on his bed, rubbing his elbow and glaring at the three Ojama brothers. "Stop messing around. I can't hear anything."
"Maybe that's because you're not listening," Yellow suggested, earning himself another swat.
"Aw, come on, boss. We know you're not as cold-hearted as you like to pretend. You would've gotten rid of us otherwise. Let's go help them out!"
"Yeah," Black agreed.
"Ugh. Alright, fine. We'll go and check it out. Better than staying around this dump anyway," he muttered.
The Ojamas led him down to the long, thin strip of beach beneath the Osiris cliff, via the steep stairs hewn into the cliff face. It was ridiculously hazardous, and someone should tell Mr. Kaiba so, Chazz thought. Not him, of course, but someone.
The former Anubis had been prepared to merely take a walk on the beach, not actually believing the gremlins' claims of a distress call, but when he finally set foot on the sand, he heard it. A man's voice, hoarse with desperation, shouting out a constant stream of words,
"…hear me!? They're floating out to sea! I can't reach them! Somebody help!"
Chazz took off at a run, kicking up sand left and right (that was going to be hell to get out of his shoes later, he grimaced) following the voice. Rounding a heap of rocks, he almost tripped over his own feet in surprise when he saw the dark, spectral, familiar shape hovering on the beach. It was Elemental HERO Necroshade, one of Yuki's monsters. They had been formally introduced over winter break.
"General! The tide's coming in! They're being taken out to sea!"
Ignoring the odd form of address, Chazz glanced over at the waves and felt his stomach drop. Cards. The water was full of cards. Without a second thought, Chazz plunged into the surf, gathering them as fast as he could.
It would have been a horrifying sight for any semi-serious duelist, but Chazz was a spirit-talker. He knew exactly how dire the consequences could be for the spirits of damaged cards.
…
"Man, no wonder they like you so much," Belowski whistled appreciatively after Chazz mentioned having almost all the cards he'd found in the weakling well either re-laminated, re-inked, or both.
"It wasn't like it was hard or anything," Chazz muttered back, unused to getting genuine praise from his peers.
"Are you kidding dude? It's still a huge deal. Their cards are like, their individual portals or something. Without 'em they can't travel back and forth between the worlds."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, man. It's all because of the millemediterranite."
Chazz knew about millemediterranite, of course— Professor Dean had drilled them on it until they could spell it backward in their sleep. A rare metal found only in the Mediterranean Sea, it was an essential element in both Duel Monsters cards and Duel Disks. Every single card was made up of two layers of card stock with a thin layer of millemediterranite in between. The metal piece had a unique set of grooves etched into it that allowed the Duel Disk to identify and then project the card's information, or (in some cases) reject the card as forbidden. The metal's properties were what had allowed KaibaCorp to make their holograms so life-like.
Not only that, but as its name suggested, millemediterranite was believed to be what the Millennium Items had been made of. (Well, partly at least, Yuki cut in. His father had always thought that the items were mostly pure magic, and that the millemediterranite was merely an insulation coating of sorts, so that people could wield them without melting their own faces off).
That was all information only relevant humans, though, Belowski explained. To Duel Spirits, the cards were their keys to traveling back and forth from their home worlds into the human one. If it was damaged, they could be trapped on the wrong side of the portal: hence why all the spirits in the weakling well had been so desperate to come with Chazz, and so pleased when he'd fixed up their cards. Some of them hadn't been home in years.
…
Chazz had never thought about where the Ojama brothers had come from until that conversation. Apparently, they lived in a kind of swamp full of rich mineral deposits, which was how the three EARTH monsters had gotten their different colors. Who knew? They'd said they'd invite him to come visit, but they weren't sure how he would get there, which was fine by Chazz. Swamps were so not his thing.
Common Room, Osiris Dorm
January 29, 2028
10:44 AM
"Is anyone missing?" Chazz asked, carefully laying out the last card after he'd finished thoroughly examining and cleaning it, to the best of his ability. He'd found Yuki's deck box a little ways up the beach, cards spilling out of it like it'd been carelessly dropped and cracked open. Some cards had remained in the box and were fine, but a majority had at least a little sand on them, and one or two were absolutely soaked, salt possibly already sinking into the cardstock's grain.
Necroshade, the only monster who had simultaneously escaped the water and had the power to maintain his presence long enough to call for help, hovered over Chazz's shoulder, studying the eighty or so cards before him. "No," he said finally, shoulders dropping in relief. "You have our heartfelt gratitude, T- Chazz. It not for you—"
"Yeah, why the heck were you guys just left out there, anyway?" Chazz demanded. "Yuki may be a clueless idiot, but not like that! He wouldn't have just— I mean, not if he…" Chazz trailed off, a horrible sinking feeling in his gut.
Necroshade met his eyes grimly. "I fear our master is in grave danger, young guardian."
Unknown Location
Unknown Time
Yuki was trying to figure out how to dislocate his thumb (he had no idea if it would help, but it was the only thing he'd come up with so far), when he heard heavy footsteps approaching. His attention snapped to the metal panel he'd determined to be the door, his heart rate spiking.
The panel slid aside to reveal two figures, looking not at all like Yuki had expected them to. Instead of generic suits or balaclavas, they were dressed in clothes for seafaring— one was wearing an actual sailor's uniform.
As unusual as that was, though, Yuki was quickly hyper-focused on the other man, much more rotund and heavy-set than his companion, with bushy sideburns, striped shirt, and sailor's cap. From the way he sauntered into the room, grinning from ear to ear, the Osiris had no doubt this was the man in charge.
While the other man began setting up a folding chair he'd been carrying, his boss stepped into Yuki's personal space, leaning in far too close. "Well, hello there, young scallywag. How be ye faring so far?" He gave a deep-bellied laugh at the dumbfounded look on the teenager's face. "What I mean to say is, how are you feeling?
"Fine, thanks. Who are you?"
"Many things to many people." The man winked. "But to you, I am the Admiral."
"Aren't you a little old to be playing dress-up?" The question was out of Yuki's mouth before he had a chance to properly think about it.
The Admiral just barked out a laugh. "Aren't you a little cocky for someone in your position?" By now the second man had finished setting up the chair and quietly left as the Admiral settled into it. "You have no idea where you are, or what I want with you. A little caution might be advisable, hmm? But then, you celebrity types are very adept at putting on brave faces."
"Celebrity?" Yuki forced himself to laugh, despite the anxiety churning in his gut. "I mean, I know my televised duel with Chazz was one-of-a-kind, but I'd hardly call myself a celebrity after one TV appearance."
"Nor would I, but it wasn't just one television appearance, was it? The media was always very anxious for a glimpse of you, back in the days when you'd just arrived. The tabloids were full of ridiculous headlines, like 'How does the New Prince of Games Rank on the Cute Scale' and 'Yuki Muto: Which Parent does the New Arrival Take After More?' People are always so pathetically eager for a look into the lives of the rich and famous, don't you think?"
Yuki's stomach sank as his slim hope that the man didn't know who he really was dissolved into nothing. This— this was exactly what his parents, and Aunt Mai and Uncle Joey and Mr. and Mrs. Kaiba, had always been afraid of.
"What do you want with me?"
"Oh, nothing from you, specifically, my boy. From your parents, on the other hand, I was thinking maybe…15,000,000 yen would be an appropriate price for your safe return."
"15 million yen!?" Yuki gaped.
"Ah, perhaps you're right, and that is a bit too much. Tell you what, I'll lower it down to an even ten million, as a personal favor to you, boy." The Admiral grinned, showing off his yellowing teeth. "You've shown you've got spirit at least, and that's a trait I can admire even in a rich, spoiled brat."
Common Room, Osiris Dorm
January 29, 2028
10:47 AM
Panic, Chazz knew, would not help matters any. Still, he struggled to hold it at bay as he paced frantically back and forth. "A submarine!? What kind of lunatic goes around kidnapping people in a submarine?"
Because Yuki had been— kidnapped, that was. By a lunatic in a submarine, if his Duel Spirits were to be believed. Don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.
"How are we even supposed to go after him? We'd need a boat, with radar or something, and they're probably who-knows-where by now—" Stop. Take a deep breath. Think. "We need help," Chazz murmured, resigned. "But who can we ask?" If he told someone what had happened, they'd want to know how he knew, and, well, he couldn't exactly tell them the truth. And Chazz had always been a terrible liar.
We need someone who knows about spirits. Not only that, but someone with the resources to mount a search… Chazz almost smacked himself, the answer was so obvious. He knew someone who fit that description exactly, thanks to Belowski.
…
"Yeah, I've heard of it coming on people suddenly like that," Belowski assured him. "It happened that way to some of my friends back at Mr. Kaiba's research labs."
"Research labs?"
"Yeah, ya'know, where he does research on duel spirits and spirit-talkers, like us."
"Mr. Kaiba does research on Duel Spirits!?"