Duellists across the world would literally kill for the opportunity to stand in the same room as Seto Kaiba. Maybe they spoke of the lauded 'King of Games' in hushed whispers but it was Seto Kaiba they saw as the indomitable figure. It was Seto Kaiba who could silence a crowd with a harsh word or raise their spirits as easily as he did a hand.

Yet this damned Fudo maintained a stoic look of polite interest as he stood bound before the heavy desk in little more than workout gear. Less, considering his lack of shoes. "So," He began. "You've convinced the imbecile that you're from the future. Good job, I hear working DeLoreans are hard to get ahold of."

"DeLoreans?" Sounded like a particle name. Yusei had studied all the time travel papers he could get his hands on but had never come across the word.

If Fudo was bluffing, it was a good one. "How did you get here?" Kaiba dove straight to the heart of the matter. "Why are you here, and what were you doing in my server room?"

"That's a long story," Yusei hedged. "All of it."

"Give me the CliffsNotes." Kaiba ordered.

CliffsNotes? Yusei gambled that it meant the short version. "A radical organisation is trying to kill the King of Games at different points in the timeline. I arrived here before they could get to Yugi and I needed access to your server data to track them down."

Remarkably succinct, if complete lunacy.

"He's not crazy," Wheeler's vote of confidence carried less weight than a coupon for a free smile. "And it's not the first time that he's done it."

Fudo shifted slightly. Clearly having Wheeler along (no matter how great the urge to simply leave him indefinitely contained in the holding cells) had been the right move. "I don't recall an invite to his funeral." Kaiba prompted drolly.

"Last time they tried, they killed Pegasus instead," Yusei explained shortly. "Yugi helped me prevent it from happening."

"Uh-huh." Gozaburo would be rolling in his grave at the casual sound but Kaiba needed the pair to know how little he thought of them. "Well, story time's over," He gestured to Isono. "Wheeler should be getting back to the zoo and you should be getting back to whatever loony bin you escaped from."

"Yugi said I could trust you," Yusei scowled. "Which means I need you to trust me. And the only way I can do that is by telling you exactly how I broke into your building." Kaiba settled back into his chair and steepled his fingers as Isono stood by. His ego was considerable and not immune to being stoked but the way Fudo was talking sucked all the fun out of it.

"Continue." He ordered.

Yusei resisted the impulse to roll his eyes as he explained the intrusion. Overload the external shutters with a high-powered electrical surge. Fingerprint photocopy and electrolytes to bypass the biometrics. Fire proximity suit to evade heat detection. A fitted sheet to insulate him from the ultrasonic sensors. Shatter attack to gain administrative access to the network hub. And only a single cable eluding his attention had brought the endeavour to an unexpected halt.

"Interesting," Kaiba frowned. No security system was without flaws but it was unusual that anyone could string them all together without enough insider access to be able to bypass them already. "You must be one of the best thieves in the future."

Yusei scowled at the sarcasm. Not the tone but the words. "Joey." He spat. He must have said something in the holding cells.

"Wheeler." Kaiba agreed. The deluded rants had been endless but whatever story Fudo had suckered him had been boastfully unravelled without prompting.

The Japanese Champion had never heard Kaiba say his name in a happy tone and he hoped he never did again.

"I grew up in a bad neighbourhood," Yusei stretched the truth to the extreme. "I'm an engineer by trade." Which was definitely breaking the truth but telling Kaiba he was a particle synthesist would be more damaging to history than letting Yliaster stab a knife in his spine.

"No wonder you get along so well with the ape - I always said he was a monkey's uncle."

"I'm adopted." Yusei glared.

Kaiba glared right back. Fudo had crossed a line. "You've shown me no evidence of anything beyond a mediocre robbery attempt." He took the fire suit and hurled it across the room. "I'll turn you over to the police and you'll never so much as touch a Duel Disk again."

"I can prove it!" Yusei smashed his cuffed palms onto the table and struggled to resist Isono dragging him away. "And I'll even screw over the monkey in the process!"

Kaiba raised a hand with that puppy-killing smile. "Perhaps I was being a bit hasty," Isono reluctantly let Yusei straighten to freedom. "You've got one chance."

"Check his records," Yusei jerked his head towards Joey. "You'll see an unusual entry a few days ago - a full Duel with unknown errors generated."

Kaiba weighed the odds. It was possible that this lunatic was trying to inject harmful code into his systems through manipulated card data. It had happened before. And he had taken steps to mitigate the risk. Before today, he would have even said eliminate it but for the intruder standing resolutely before him.

"Hang on," Wheeler had timing skills to match his Duelling ability. "Am I the monkey?"

And that cinched it - the walking 'dumb blonde' stereotype couldn't pull off a convincing bluff unless his life depended on it (Kaiba was feeling in a magnanimous mood as he prepared the metaphorical bus for departure).

The chairman's office had all the network access that Yusei could have asked for but was guarded by such heavy security that he shouldn't have gotten this close to begin with. Instead of hours of planning and painstaking intrusion, Kaiba was able to pull up Joey's records with a handful of keystrokes and a click of the mouse.

Kaiba glared at his monitor as the data scrolled past. "Am I meant to be impressed by your games?" He spat. These readings were ridiculous nonsense! Fudo must be bluffing after his capture.

Yusei anxiously rubbed the knot of tension that had formed in his temple. Talking with Kaiba was like trying to deal with someone who had the ego of Jack and the intellect of Din. "Like I said," He repeated tersely. "That was a Duel I had with Joey. You can explain the cards away as prototypes but the technical information is impossible, no matter how you try to justify it."

"Unless it was hacked in some vain attempt to access my servers," Kaiba retorted. "When it failed, you had no other choice but to break in yourself."

"Name one person who could break into your servers this way." This was getting ridiculous but Yusei tried to remain empathetic. He could hardly blame Kaiba for his scepticism.

"Rebecca Hawkins." He shot back.

Fudo sucked in a sharp breath. "She's unavailable." He gritted his teeth. Behind him, Wheeler hunched his shoulders to put strain on the zip ties. Isono noticed and instantly placed a warning hand on one arm.

"People have a way of making themselves available when I call." Kaiba reached for his phone and was amazed to see a stern finger holding down the hook. Nobody who knew who he was would be so reckless as to get in his way to any degree. Even if Fudo was insane, his intrusion proved he wasn't stupid. And that glare he had was one Kaiba had seen in the mirror as a child, back when he had been plain Seto.

"Where is she?" Mokuba's crush aside, Kaiba had invested a considerable amount of legal fees protecting the blonde prodigy and would need to recoup his investment.

"America." In the corner, Joey began tensing up again.

America? "And why would she go there?" Ice in his veins, like when an upstart politician in that backwards country tried throwing some theological argument in his way.

"Because her grandfather died," Fudo grimaced. "And it's my fault."

Kaiba was not as ruthless as people thought - he was efficient. If someone happened to be standing between him and an objective, he would take the most expedient measures to remove that person. As long as nothing tried going directly against him, all was safe.

Unless one of the few people he had a passing interest in was involved. Then, he was liable to get angry.

"You killed Dr Hawkins?" He coldly replaced the receiver.

"No," Fudo frowned. "But he should have lived for another year. In trying to draw Yugi's killer to me, I changed the timeline."

"Enough!" Kaiba slammed both hands down as he shot to his feet. "I don't believe a word you've said. You have no proof of your story and if you have hurt so much as," Fudo whispered two words so that only he could hear.

Joey watched that expression change in ways he had never seen. Shock, rage, curiosity, existential dread. "Isono," He growled. "Take Wheeler."

"What'd you say?" Yusei had said two words low enough for only their host to hear. "Kaiba!" He shouted at Isono started dragging him from the office. "What did he say?!"

Yusei glared across the table. Kaiba stared back with disgust. "There's no way you can know those names." He spat.

"I've read your autobiography." Yusei shot back. "You picked them out during the flight back from England." A detail he'd overlooked. He'd been told Kaiba was in England and failed to recognise the significance of the date. How was he to defeat Yliaster if he kept failing to take advantage of his knowledge of the future?

"I haven't told them to anyone." Kaiba could believe in Shadow Games and Dark Duels after all he had been through but that didn't make him accepting of every insane thrown his way.

"Not yet." Fudo emphasised.

It was possible that Gozaburo had detailed the chess game somewhere, even probable. And the contents of his safe could be determined by an inventory roster and a basic understanding of where anyone with a safe would put expensive jewellery. The break-in? KaibaCorp regularly hired penetration testers for both physical and digital security - Fudo could have scavenged the best attempts and welded them into a single working plan. Even the intrusion into his systems could be explained away by a pigtailed prodigy.

Except that Kaiba had had plenty of time on the flight across the ocean to consider his future. And there were two names he had eventually settled on as the coastline of his homeland came into view.

"Where is Yugi Mutou?" Trust was hard-earned by Kaiba. He had a passing respect for his opponent and could rely on the fact that he wouldn't cheat. It was as close as he came to real trust.

"Academy Island, ten years from now," Fudo replied. "Heading up the Slifer Red dorm." Another facet of planning that wasn't yet public.

"Take a seat," Kaiba called up his calendar and blocked off the rest of the morning. "Leave anything out and I'll make sure you spend the rest of your life in an unmarked cell with only three people on the planet aware of your existence."

"That won't take long," Accepting the gracious offer, Yusei perched on the edge of the plush leather chair across the desk. "I'm dying and Yliaster stole the medical equipment I need to stay alive."

"Then you had better hurry." Kaiba waited patiently, as if he had all the time in the world.

Dr Wakefield was a fat, obnoxious, toadesque facsimile of a healer. Beside the wall of medical accolades behind his desk, there was no sign that he had any healing instincts at all.

Unfortunately, he also happened to be the man in charge of the facility housing the late Dr Arthur Hawkins and was unimpressed by the visitors demanding an explanation.

"I'm sorry for your loss," The fake sympathy oozed off him like the disgusting body spray he was wearing. "But we take the utmost care for the privacy of our patients." He was in the midst of explaining why he was trying to turn them away without seeing anything of the facility other than his office.

"Rebecca is his next of kin," Duke rudely cut across the excuses. "As such, she has rights to full access to any records pertaining to her grandfather."

"Ms Hawkins is also a minor," Wakefield smirked. "And minors are not typically privy to complex legal documents. Now, if we were to contact her guardians, I'm sure we can straighten this all out." A meaty thumb opened a file before him. "Would you prefer I call Mr or Mrs Williams?"

"Please, don't," Rebecca said in a small voice. "I just want to know what happened to my grandpa." Even when she was pretending to be a helpless little girl, her voice had never sounded so tiny. She'd been forced to add her other set of grandparents to the records as emergency contacts and made it clear they were a last resort yet he was trying to leverage that against her in a time of grief.

Duke wordlessly pulled up his phone and hit 2 on the speed dial.

"I truly am sorry for your loss," Wakefield oozed false sympathy. "But it would be better if I contacted your grandparents to see how we'll proceed."

Ignored by the quack, Duke glared at his phone as an unknown voice picked up. "Who is this?" He glanced suspiciously at the handset. "This is meant to be a direct line." There was some polite discourse that he answered with a snarl. "It's Duke Devlin calling, put him on."

"If you want to take a phone call, you can do it outside." Wakefield knew that he had won by how the tiny blonde had crumbled. Not many doctors could feel good when children got hurt but he practically revelled in it.

Ignoring him, Duke placed a gentle hand on Rebecca's shoulder as he continued to talk in less than peaceful tones. "Then get him out of the meeting or the press will hear stories that even he can't ignore."

Sighing wearily, Wakefield picked up the handset on his desk and pressed the button for security. "We have two visitors in my office who are refusing to leave," He said callously. "Please send someone to have them escorted off the premises."

A single finger was raised before an expression that told Rebecca that Kaiba could have some real competition for 'Most Ruthless Bastard on the Planet' if Duke was this angry for much longer. "Either you find out where Rebecca's grandfather has been taken in the next two minutes or you'll waste so much money on lawyers that my entire business will become a net loss." Tone carries a lot stronger than words and, while Rebecca couldn't hear the reply, she could hear the polished rage coming down the line. "Here," Duke leaned across the desk. "It's for you."

"Young man, I'm the head of one of the most prestigious medical facilities on the Western Seaboard." The toad grinned widely. "Don't think that some two-bit lawyer is going to intimidate me to do so much as ask security to be nice when they throw you out."

Duke had noticed the tiny flicker towards his eyeliner, the barely perceptible gap before his gender, and felt the last vestiges of patience go on strike. "Ninety seconds left." He said pleasantly. Then he lunged across the desk, grabbed the spotless white coat in one hand, and slammed the parasite of human misery atop the leather-bound mahogany. "Better talk fast!" He screamed around the handset while forcing it deep enough into the pudgy face to press multiple keys. "It only takes forty seconds without oxygen for the brain to start taking permanent damage! But I reckon the little piggy here won't last thirty, isn't that right, PIGGY!" He bellowed into the ear not listening for a heartbeat in the deceased tree fibres.

Hearing the shouting start, the two guards in the corridor arrived in a hurry. Wakefield was heavyset and pinning him to the table was a feat of physics.

"Right," One guard grabbed Rebecca by the arm. She had backed away with both hands over her mouth at the unexpected violence. "You're coming with me."

Duke dropped the screeching face on the table, turned, and punched the guard grabbing Rebecca hard enough that he briefly left the floor. His equally burly colleague didn't like that and secured both of Duke's arms in a savage lock. Short of dislocating both his shoulders, there wasn't much he could do. Rage only went so far.

"Put him down!" Piggy shrilled with one pudgy hand keeping the phone pressed tightly to his face. "PUT HIM DOWN NOW!"

Rebecca hadn't heard fear like that outside a Shadow Game. The guards protested a few times until Piggy was literally stamping his feet and screaming at them to leave.

"I don't know where your grandfather went." Piggy was wheezing from the exertion and clutching at his head with both hands. "We got a call that he was being transferred to another facility. The email looked right and we called the backup contact number on the paperwork to check." The first number on the list was Rebecca's cell phone, all calls billable to her no matter what the cost. The backup was an Industrial Illusions number that was meant to get a message to her wherever she was on the planet, courtesy of Yugi's extensive medical insurance and a tiny 'plus one' clause. "We arranged the transport and delivered him to the next facility yesterday but the guy we spoke to to confirm he had been moved said he had no idea what we were talking about. I tried to have him brought back but they said he'd already been checked out and wouldn't tell us anything. That's all I know, I swear." He collapsed into the chair with heaving sobs vibrating every inch of his massive frame.

"I'll take my phone back now." Piggy held it out in a meaty palm without making eye contact. "Some very unpleasant men are going to be along soon to take everything you have - don't think that anything you do is going to make me so much as ask them to be nice when they come. Hawkgirl, let's roll out." Holding the door open, he gave such a glare to the broken man that she could honestly have testified that it caused him to physically collapse into screams of pain before the door swung shut again.

"Thanks for that," Duke sighed in aggressive relief to the voice on his phone. "I'll transfer my controlling shares to you when I have the chance. Consider it my," He stopped in the face of a silky smooth tone. "Hang on." Turning to his companion, he looked her over with a single raised eyebrow. "It's for you."

Rebecca carefully took the handset. The last man to take this call had broken into a sobbing mess. The one before that had gone mad with rage. Let it be a gender issue. "Hello?"

"Becky-Girl!" Swooned the foppish voice. "So sorry to hear about the trouble. Needless to say, I've got my best people on it (and some of my worst too!)."

"Mr Pegasus?" She stared up at the dice-wearing idiot who was her closest confidant. "Duke called you?" Talk about the nuclear option.

"I know, Dukey-Boy needs some lessons in the finer arts of diplomacy." A sigh as rough as a butterfly storm graced the line. "Industrial Illusions is at your disposal until we get this mess sorted out. There are some people I know in the area who should be able to poke around a bit faster than you and my favourite game designer, I'll give them his number."

"Thank you." She would have given her left arm and both legs to make sure her grandpa was safe right then. An international billionaire with fewer scruples than eyes was a godsend. "I'll make sure to pay you back."

"Don't mention it, your grandpa worked on several of my earlier archaeological digs when Duel Monsters was still in the conceptual stage." Arthur Hawkins had mentioned the stories a few times but Pegasus had always been the absent investor or barely cared about the outcomes. She'd had no idea that he'd even heard of her grandfather before she intruded into Yugi's life. "And tell Dukey-Boy that you can keep his shares for now - I'll be using this little outburst in our next round of negotiations to have him design some custom little cartoon dice! Ciao!" Rebecca pulled the phone away and stared at the dialling tone. It made more sense than the conversation.

"What did he say?" Duke had a valid reason to be concerned. On the surface, he'd just blackmailed one of the most powerful businessmen of the millennium. In reality, Pegasus was far more ruthless and powerful than a mere billionaire.

"I think he gave me controlling shares of Dungeon Dice Monsters." She handed the phone back while wiping a tear away. "I'll need to have a steady lieutenant to run the business for me though. Do the boring day-to-day stuff."

"I'll call around." Duke rolled his eyes. There was definitely someone smiling down on him. "Let's get to work."

"What work?" Rebecca hurried to catch up with his long legs as he strode back to his car.

"You heard what he said," Duke repeated stubbornly. Rebecca was a smart kid but life experience was one thing she couldn't learn from a book. No matter how much she was trying to control her emotions, they were strong enough to dull her attention to detail. "Toad-Face said your grandpa was checked out of the last place he was sent."

Rebecca finally realised why he was grinning. "And they only check out patients." She breathed. Living, breathing, patients. But, "Do you think,"

"Yusei said these people can travel through time," Duke cut across her doubt before it could begin. "How difficult would it be to fake a few phone calls and a couple of emails? All they'd have to do is shuffle your grandpa around a few times and we'd spend days trying to find him."

Considerably less, with the resources of Pegasus and Industrial Illusions behind them. "What are we waiting for?" Rebecca jumped to punch his arm. "Let's get going!" Duke slid into the driver seat, gunned the throttle, and burned rubber pulling out of the parking lot. Rebecca tuned the radio to some funky tunes as she grabbed his spare sunglasses and embraced that tiny flicker of hope with a wide grin.

Duke managed to return it with as much enthusiasm as he could. There was a darker reason for his optimism: Grampa Hawkins death would only serve as a brief distraction while his life made for a far more valuable bargaining chip. Yliaster had made a hostage of the one member of their family who couldn't fight back.

Checking out patients? Check out that review (that you're about to leave)!