Broken Wings

When a black bird falls from the sky and into now Poke'mon Master Ash Ketchum's lap, he doesn't understand why the wounded creature entrusts him to help it return to health. As it heals it's broken wings, Ash realizes some things about his past and his friends as he faces the challenge of setting the young bird safely free.

Ash sat in the fork of the Japanese maple tree with a gameboy in his hands. The tree had been easy to climb, as the trunk split into branches at his knees when he stood at the foot of the tree. So Ash sat, playing Poke'mon TCG thoughtlessly with Pikachu at his side.
The Gyarados card used bubblebeam on his raichu, the Raichu was paralyzed, Ash healed it and used Thunderbolt... It was dull for him, he watched the screen blankly, remembering what had happened.
The three friends had gone their separate ways, Ash chose to stay in Ecruteak city. Brock had gone back to Pewter, and Misty, they didn't know where she went. Though her parting words, said through tears, had gouged Ash's heart.
"I hate all of you! I hate you Ash! For being an idiot! I hate you Brock! For being a buffoon! I hate your Poke'mon too! for being just like you are! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and her voice had died off as she ran away into the forest, clutching her bag and Togepi tight.
Ash looked at the world without color as he thought. A tear ran down his cheek and spattered across the screen, obscuring the image. Ash moaned and didn't bother to wipe it off. He dropped the gameboy over his shoulder and into the grass, then stared at his hands. Pikachu broke the silence,
{What's wrong, Ash?} he asked. Ash moved his mouth, but no sound came out. Pikachu sighed.
{Not Misty again, Ash? Sheesh, that was three years ago! Why don't you just face it?} the Poke'mon asked. Ash turned his head away.
{Okay, I see. If you're going to be that way, then, I'll go away} Pikachu replied to the unsaid answer, leapt from his trainer's shoulder, and stalked away.
Suddenly a scream reached the Ash's ears from the sky, and everything burst back in vivid color. A black bird shape tumbled down out of nowhere! Ash looked up and forgot everything else. He jumped down from the tree as the creature continued to scream and stretched out his arms.
Ash caught the bird, and it screeched and flailed, pain and fear written in its eyes. Ash gently stroked it as it trembled, trying to calm it down as he sat down on the carpet of grass, not wanting to drop the injured animal.
"It's okay, I won't hurt you. It's okay little bird," he whispered to it. It looked up at him uneasily and rolled over onto its feet, cringing in pain as he rolled across one wing. This left bloody red marks on Ash's jeans. It seemed to be calming down. Ash looked carefully at it. It was a young thing, the size and shape of a Spearow, almost. every inch of it was black, including it's tiny talnos and beak. Ash carefully stroked it's head as he noticed both wings were broken. He carefully sat it down off his fist and on the ground, then called for help.
"Pikachu! Hey Pikachu!" he yelled. The mouse Poke'mon poked his head around the corner of the house, maybe twenty feet away.
{What? I just found the ketchup bottle} he called. Ash smiled.
"I need the first aid kit!" he called back. Pikachu cocked his head.
{I don't understand it, but I'll get it!} the Poke'mon yelled and was off. The bird nibbled at Ash's sleeve in curiosity. He smiled at the Spearow like creature and stroked its head again. The bird closed both eyes in pleasure, forgetting both of the broken wings which dragged on the ground.
"We'll help you, little guy," Ash reassured it. The little black face turned up and looked at him in the eyes, its own shining with trust.
Pikachu returned swiftly, his little yellow head fit through the space between the handle and the white box, so the handle was in his teeth and the box bobbed up and down on his back. Pikachu deposited it in front of Ash. He then looked at the little bird.
{Hello, who are you?} he asked casually. The little bird smiled.
{My name is Chase, well, actually it's Storm Chaser, but I like "Chase" better} it replied, apparently a little bit easier about talking now that he knew he was safe. Ash opened the kit.
"Well then Chase, we'll try to help you. I don't know much about bandages and stuff, but I think we can get you through untill the Poke'mon Center opens. They know what they're doing there," he told Chase. Chaser nodded his sleek black head and looked at the contents of the box.
{There might be a bone chart or something in that pocket there} Chaser pointed with his bill. Ash looked at the inside of the lid. He had never noticed that pocket, but he carefully took out the papers and rifled through them.
"Hhmm, avian, avian, avian, aha!" he pulled out a pale blue sheet and looked at it. It showed the skeleton of a bird, and Ash carefully examined the wing. He looked at Chaser.
"I hope you don't mind a little pain, because I think I understand this, but it will probably hurt," he said.
{Go ahead} was the reply. Ash carefully pulled the bird's left wing out to its full extent, the wing's owner cringed, but didn't make a sound. The tissue twisted around near the base of the wing, and Ash carefully unwound the flesh and feathers. Chaser squawked and wriggled in pain, but he didn't pull away.
Ash was feeling lucky he had gotten this far, so he dug in the kit with his unoccupied hand and pulled out two thin peices of wood to set the bones with.
"Pikachu, hold up Chase's wing, please," he said. Pikachu obeyed and Ash, feeling very much like a surgeon by then, took out the bandages and lined up both bits of wood on either side of the break, like the papers showed, and he wound the bandage around them tightly, but not enough to cut off circulation. Ash cut the bandage and tucked the end underneath so it wouldn't come undone. Pikachu released Chase's wing tip and he carefully, with a wince, folded it back to his body and turned so that they could do his right wing.
The break was much worse. There were two this time, one near the base, and one towards the big arc on the wing. Ash bandaged the first one like he had before, then he had to do some intricate work with bits of clear wire, bandaging, and wood. When Chase was done, he recoiled that wing too and looked up at Ash and Pikachu.
{Thanks! They're beginning to feel much better!} he said and hopped onto Ash's knee. Ash noticed how thin he was.
{Sheesh Chase! What on earth happened to you? First your wings are broken, and now you're half starved!} Pikachu cried.
{I don't really remember} the bird replied guiltily, {I do know that I'm half starved. I think it might have to do with why I broke my wings} he added. He looked at Ash hopefully.
"Okay, we'll get you something to eat. What do you eat anyway?" the trainer asked.
{Meat!}Chaser crowed. Ash smiled and transported him from knee to fist and stood up.
"Alright, we'll see what we can do." They headed towards the house, Pikachu in the lead.
When they reached the kitchen, Pikachu returned to his concoction. Today he had decided it would be a good idea to roll an apple in kechup then eat it. Chase watched him with mild interest as he covered the fruit in the sticky red goo and sat on the floor munching it. Ash, meanwhile, hunted through the cupboards and the refridgerator, and returned triumphantly with a Tauros steak from the freezer.
He set that to thaw on the stove as Pikachu got to the core of his apple and whiped up the remainders of the experiment with a paper towl. Ash started a conversation.
"So, what are you, Chase? I've never seen anything like you before."
{I don't know. I can't really remember anything before I broke my wings, except my name, of course} he replied. Pikachu jumped up on the table with Storm Chaser.
{You have to remember something! I can still remember the first time I ever stepped on grass, you should remember something!} he cried in surprise. Chaser gave them another guilty grin.
{I can remember, a face. I think it might have been my mum. I remember yellow, and black, and a bit of orange, and some blue, too} he said. Ash sighed.
"Well, I guess that helps, a little," he said and retreived th thawed steak from the stove.
"How do you eat it?" he asked. Chase paced around it.
{Like it is. That's how I always eat it} he said and stripped a piece off, which he ate. It wasn't a large steak, so it didn't take him very long. As he watched, Ash realized that he, too was hungry. So he took two slices of bread, put on some Delibird meat and cheese, then ate the sandwhich. Chase finished his meal and said that he was feeling full, and by then the Poke'mon center had opened up.
The center had special conditions for service. If it was something not very serious, like a break that could be treated at home, it was polite to wait. If it were life threatening, the center was open for it at any time. This stopped the center from being swamped with Houndours with hiccups, Sandshrews with stomache aches, and other such common ailments that many trainers didn't know how to fix.
Ash was washing his hands when he noticed the scratches on his fore arm from Chaser's talons. The bird didn't know that his claws hurt him, so Ash huried up to his room and found a clean sock without another one like it. He cut the toe end off so that he left a band to put his thumb around and stuck his hand through it so it covered that and his wrist. It was unproffessional, but it was somewhat like the gloves that falconers used and Ash hoped it would work.
He hurried back down and told the Poke'mon it was time to go. Chaser jumped to his fist and Pikachu landed on his shoulder. Ash got on his bike and headed for the center. Pikachu was used to this and Chaser had a surprisingly strong grip and sense of balance. They were there in a matter of minutes, Chaser seemed unphased even though his feathers were sticking out in every possible direction.
Ash chained up his bike and went inside to wait in line to get to the front desk. Chaser comfortably perched on the edge of the long curving bench around the fire place in the middle of the room. It was summer, so the fire wasn't burning. (I remember the episode Charmander, the Stray Poke'mon, and that's wat the Poke'mon center looked like!) When it was their turn, Chaser was back on Ash's fist and Pikachu was on his shoulder.
"Hello, how may I help you?" Nurse Joy smiled pleasently. Ash smiled back.
"This morning, Chaser here dropped out of the sky and into my yard. Both of his wings are broken," Ash said, holding up the young black bird. Nurse Joy smiled again.
"We'll see what we can do. Thankyou!" she said and a Chansey came out and Chase calmly landed in its hand. Pikachu winked at his trainer and followed the Chansey into the room.
Ash decided to go to the library while Chaser was being healed. He was going to do some research on what Chaser's mother may have been. He still remembered the young bird's description, but it didn't help much as he flipped through bird books. There were all kinds of color variations of Poke'mon these days now that people had been breeding them for striking patterns. One variation of a Fearow came close, but it was red instead of black.
He was losing hope towards the end of a foul smelling old book when a picture caught his eye. Yellow, black. It was a color drawing of a Zapdos in full flight. Ash put down the list he had been making of anything likely. Mostly he looked at the head. It looked a little like Storm Chaser's, and the eys were vivid blue. Ash looked it up and down, then quickly scanned the information page. It read,
Little is known about this bird, and sources are not even sure Zapdos is a legitimate Poke'mon. It is estimated to stand around five feet high. Coloration is said to be mainly jagged yellow feathers with black tipped flight feathers. A baby Zapdos has never been found and it is reasonable to beleive there is only one Zapdos in existance. It is said to have electrical powers above any Poke'mon discovered and is said to appear in full flight during severe thunder storms. Zapdos is being eagerly researched by most proffesional researchers and we hope to overcome the mystery of this majestic bird soon.
Ash reread this twice before realizing what it may mean. Chaser could be a Zapdos, a young Zapdos though. He had heard a breeder miserably being comforted by his friends as he told them about an experiment with coloring that had seemed to work at first. He had blue Pidgeys, but as soon as they evolved into Pidgeottos the coloring was gone.
Ash marked the book and closed it. He went up to the card catalouge and looked into the Z drawer. He found two books: LEGENDARY POKE'MON: WHAT WE KNOW and THUNDER BIRD. He hunted them down and flipped through the two books.
Legendary Poke'mon:What We Know was slightly thicker than Thunder Bird, obviously, because there were more Poke'mon in it. Ash found it much more useful than the bird book. It contained listed sightings of legendary Poke'mon and descriptions, artist drawings, and blury photographs of legendary Poke'mon.
Thunder Bird was even more help. The authors felt that Zapdos actually did reproduce and that each new sighting was when the young bird was fully grown and still careless. It continued to talk about how greatly possible it was that Zapdos was real, had sightings listed and the areas they were in, descriptions from the witnesses, artist drawings, and more blury pictures.
But the most interesting part was at the back where there was an account of a man whom had found a large bird Poke'mon nest on a recreational hike with his brother. It quoted that there had been a tiny black bird in the nest and a yellowish haze around it, almost like an electric force field. Suddenly it began to storm and the man returned to their camp. The fellow was an accomplished artist, and had drawn an illustration of it and sent it to researchers.
Ash looked at the drawing. The bird looked exactly like Chase, a Spearow sized body, every inch of it was black, and the beak was pointed at the end.
Ash stopped looking then. He closed the two books, returned the bird books to their section without trouble as there were only three, and checked the legendary Poke'mon books out.
With that he headed back to the center to check on Pikachu and Chase. Thoughts began to bubble up in the boy's mind. What if Chase was a Zapdos? That would explain his name. What if someone else found out? What if someone tried to take him away? He shoved the thoughts aside. Everything was going to be fine. Storm Chaser would recover from his broken wings and Ash could set him free. Pikachu would be a big help, and he may be even more of one if the bird was a legendary bird. Pikachu, Ash suspected, had a shrine to Zapdos and Raikou in his closet. Pikachu had his own room, and kept it guared with a light screen so no one but him or another electric Poke'mon could get in. ash had no idea what Pikachu kept in there, but he knew the walls were yellow and streaked brown. That was enough reason for him not to want to go in Pikachu's room, the color would hurt any sane person's eyes.
Ash reached the center and sat on a cusioned bench to await knews on Chase and wonder if Pikachu would be caught. Pikachu could take care of himself, Ash decided, so he cracked open Legendary Poke'mon: What We Know and waited.

Misty Waterflower watched Togetic training. She had changed her outfit since her traveling days, now favoring a red jogging sweater that was a little baggy and a pair of loose jeans. She was bored and a little bit miserable that day, though she didn't know why. Golduck came out of the house carrying a tray. It had pink lemonade and some sort of crackers on it, and Misty eyed them suspiciously.
"What are those?"
{They're crackers with nacho cheese and chilli powder}Golduck smiled happily. Golduck was much smarter now that she, yes, all along Psyduck was a she, had evolved. Politoed folowed Golduck.
{Hence the lemonade. Golduck's dangerous when she takes control of the kitchen} the frog rolled his lamp like eyes, then shot out his tongue and stole a cracker from the tray and ate it in a gulp.
{Now that's one spicey cracker! Aggh! Flavor over load! Flavor overload!} he yelped and ran to get some of Golduck's lemonade. Misty sighed. Politoed was, to put it mildly, eccentric. It made Misty wonder. She had always thought it would be Golduck who was the nutty one. After all those head aches when she had travelled with Ash and Brock...
Misty violently shoved the memories from her mind. She hated them. But she didn't hate them at the same time. She missed them was the truth. She missed Ash's optimistic disposition and brocks talent and art for getting lost. Of course, she didn't miss Team Rocket much, Team Rocket she could live without.
More than any of them, though, she missed Ash. The truth was that she liked him. But she was afraid that Ash didn't like her. She remembered screaming that she hated the both of them as she ran away, and now regretted it with all of her heart. Togetic flittered over to her after finishing with a Hyper beam excercise.
{Mother, you know that Ash lives in Ecruteak city. and you also know how he is, he forgets things quickly. I think he'd forgive you} she said. Misty looked up at Togetic, meaning to be angry, but she could never be mad at the Poke'mon nomatter how hard she tried. She smiled lightly.
"Togetic, please don't use Mind Reader on me again. I'm not sure though. I mean, half of me wants to go appologize and half of me is afraid to. What should I do?" she sighed. Togetic nodded her white head.
{That's how I feel when I train. Half of me wants to pummel the right side of the rock, half of me wants to pummel the left side. Listen to the one that's loudest} and the young Poke'mon went inside. Togetic always made sense to Misty. She was the smartest of the team and Togetic just seemed to have a quality that healed a wounded spirit.
Misty listened to her own thoughts, trying to decide. She could make a fool of herself, but that was better than living a lie, right? Misty sat still for what felt like years as she pondered her own head, then made her decision. Togetic came back outside and Misty smiled at her.
"Tell the others to pack their things. We're going to go surprise someone in Ecruteak City." Togetic beamed. She would get to play with her old friend, Pikachu again.
Misty packed some essentials, like a toothbrush, some clothes, some toothpaste, and other such things. Goldeen was going to stay home with Starmie and Staryu, because they didn't like to get out of the pool.
Seadra was happy as long as she didn't have to live off Golduck's chilli cheese crackers. She said they gave her gas, but everyone was too smart to ask how. Seadra was the one who tinkered with the structure of a ball point pen and said she could make a better one. It was easiest to leave her alone.
{So, we're going to visit Ash?} Asked Golduck. Misty nodded. Golduck stared at the sky from the lawn chair.
{I think I remember Ash. He had a yellow animal on his shoulder. Good Mew I hated being a Psyduck!} she sighed. Nobody blamed Golduck. Anybody who had Misty willing to slam a bicycle down on their head was not lucky. Misty smiled.
"Yeah, you remember Pikachu," she said as she stuffed her pack with her things. It was easier to mave things around these days. Kurt had invented a new system similar to a Poke'ball. It was called an item ball, and it was see through and eliptical, so it was easy to fit into a pocket or something and you could tell what was inside. (Notice: The idea for the item ball was not a copy off of capsules from DBZ, but I was playing along in my happy li'l red version when I learned that those funny things you walk into and push A are called item balls. I'm surprised I haven't yet seen them in a fic other than my own, such a nifty little idea...)
{Are you bringing your mallet?} asked Seadra innocently. Golduck and Togetic glared and Seadra stuck out her tongue. Misty was packing, so she didn't notice the exchange of looks amongst the Poke'mon. She snorted to supress a laugh. That mallet had been through a lot.
"I think so, if I left it in my old bag it's coming with us," she told Seadra, who gave a sly raise of her eye brow.
{Oh really? I think I'll just go inside} she said and away she went. Seadra floated to her room, gathered a small bunch of things, and stowed them in Misty's old bag. She was just admiring how clever she was when Golduck opened the door. Both Poke'mon froze.
{I just wanted to pack afew of my more exotic pans. I've heard rumors about hotel food} Golduck quickly explained. She knew what Seadra could do if she was angry. Seadra just smiled at the end of her long beak.
{I was packing, too. I've heard hotels have limited channels} she said.
{If anyone asks, this didn't happen. And aren't you still tinkering with that pen?} Golduck asked.
{Right, yeah, but I do take breaks} muttered Seadra and she left. Golduck heaved a sigh of releif and promptly packed the item balls.
Minutes after Golduck left, Togetic brought in one little thing. It was her Teddy Bear, which she couldn't sleep without. So when Misty came to get her bag, she didn't notice that it was filled more than when she left it, and so they prepared to go. The three Poke'mon that were coming went inside their Poke'balls, and Misty got on her bike. Ash had paid her back a long time ago with somesaved tournament winnings, so she didn't have to dredge that up out of the mud. And off they went!
Misty still prefered her bike to a car or bus or whatever. It was good excercise, and it was light and small. You didn't have to wait on traffic if you rode a bike. It was faster than walking and it wasn't crowded. You could take a bike off road and on the trails instead of the blistering roads in the summer. Bikes didn't smell like gasoline, and they didn't even need gas!
The advantages to bikes were infinate, Misty thought asshe peddled down the sidewalk, the city flying by in a blur of color, sound, and smell. She could ride a bike forever, she often thought. The road split off into the woods up ahead, and misty swerved. Bug Poke'mon didn't bother her as much anymore. In fact, she actually was beginning to see that a Spinarak could be kind of cute. She didn't know how or why she even noticed, but it still happened. The forest whizzed by and the shocks on the bike made the ride smooth as silk. Ecruteak wasn't far, and Misty was sure she would reach it by sunset.

I wrote another chapter, Fweehee!
New chapter WHOO!!!!!!!!!!
I'm using Chaser again, YAY!!!!!!! He hasn't been in ONE WHOLE CHAPTER!!!

Nurse Joy soon came out of the back wearing rubber gloves with a flailing Pikachu in her hands. Ash suppressed a smile with much difficulty, having predicted this. Nurse Joy smiled, although it seemed a little forced.
"We found your Pikachu in a patient's room, he wasn't supposed to be there, according to our safety policey," she said. Pikachu wriggled free and jumped into Ash's lap. Ash scratched the mouse behind one ear, and apologized. Even though it had been Pikachu's own idea, Ash felt bad about violating any Pokemon center policy.
{Watcha readin'?} Pikachu asked, opening Thunder Bird. Nurse Joy had left, so Ash figured that it was safe to tell him.
"I think I've found out what Chase is, you can guess," Ash told Pikachu, not daring to say the name in the crowded center. Pikachu stared at the cover of the book.
{He doesn't look like one} was the reply. Ash leafed through to the drawing and Pikachu nodded, then fell silent. And so it went, Pikachu seemed to find the books interesting, being a Poke'mon himself. He read slowly, as he didn't do this often, and seemed to absorb what this would mean.
{We could get in a lot of trouble. Having a, well, you know on our hands could cause some problems. Chase could get stolen or hurt or something} He said quietly. Ash looked sideways at him, thankfull that he was the only person in the room who understood Pikachu.
"Look at the drawing in the back, and I know this could be difficult," he whispered quickly, praying to Mew that no one would understand what he was talking about. Pikachu, to Ash's infinate releif, didn't speak again.
Hours passed, Ash and Pikachu traded books regularly until they were finished with both of them, and finally after what felt like an eternity, Nurse Joy came back flanked by two Chansies. The center was less crowded now, so it was easier.
"Chase, as I think you said his name was, is doing very well. The bandaging was applied quickly so healing will be easier. You may see him now. Though our test results have found something surprising, please follow me," she said through that never-ending grin. Ash and Pikachu got up, both felt as though a weight had been lifted from their shoulders now that something interesting was happening, and they filed after Nurse Joy and the Chansies into the automatic doors.
They passed several rooms with numbers on them and plastic slots where some charts were, Nurse Joy occasionally stopped and picked up afew of them as they went down the narrow hall way and reached the last door, which was next to an elevator and a stair way to the upper floors. Nurse Joy opened the door and the train of Poke'mon and Ash filed inside.
"These test results are very strange, Ash Ketchum. This Poke'mon is unidentifiable, it is neither Spearow or Fearow or any other bird Poke'mon yet discovered. Also, there is an extremely high amount of electrical energy in its blood stream and its feathers gather static easier than a dry balloon. Do you have any idea why?"
"No, he just fell out of the sky this morning. He doesn't seem to remember anything, though. Maybe somebody's out there illegaly experimenting with Poke'mon splicing or something. It's happened before," Ash shrugged. He had seen the numerous reports of creatures spawned of Poke'mon DNA, Night dark Persians with red stomaches and silver bone armor and Zubat wings that shot flame, Ekans with a Spearow head and wings, and many other numerous cases of Poke'mon cruelty. It was sickening. Humans had taken genetic research too far this time, and things were getting hectic.
The nurse nodded thoughtfully and led them out.
"You can fin your patient in room 78009, first floor." and she left the hall to return to the desk. Ash and Pikachu hunted up and down the hall until they found it. Some delinquent had scribbled a smiley face on the white door in the middle of each zero with permanent marker, so it was hard to miss.
Ash wnt in with Pikachu right behind him, and they found Chaser sitting on a bed with a cast on each wing, Ash noticed that his attempts at bandaging had been removed. Chase squawked in delight and hopped in the air once. Ash smiled to his new friend.
"So, how're the wings?" he asked and sat down on the chair near the bed.
{Getting better! I'm happy you're here! I missed you!} Chaser chirped happily. Pikachu jumped onto the bed to be with the young bird and smiled.
{We think we know something about you that you don't} he said. Ash moaned, wondering how Pikachu could bring it up at such an inconvenient time.
{What?} Storm Chaser asked, putting one raised talon down, facing Pikachu, and cocking his head.
"We have an idea about what you are, Chase, look," Ash said as he propped open one of the books, which he had brought along. Chase hopped to his knee without any trouble and peered at the image of the drawing of a Zapdos. He shook his head.
{No, it can't be me! I'm all black!} he said. Ash flicked to the back of Thunder Bird, he noticed he had done this a bunch that day already. He pointed at the picture of the Zapdos chick.
"There, does that clear some things up?" he asked. Chaser closed his striking blue eyes and concentrated hard on something. A slight tremor ran across his body and then he opened his eyes again with a sigh.
{I got yellow, black, orange, white, and blue again but nothing else} he sighed. Pikachu jumped onto Ash's other knee.
{Don't worry about it, whatever you are. We'll have you back to normal in no time!} he reassured. Chaser forced a smile.
{Yeah, I sure do hope so} and with that he hopped back to his bed.

Thanx for all the nice stuff everyone's been saying! I appreciate it!
YES!!!!!!! MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chaser has a dream, hehe.
The black bird twitched and flared his healing wings, enthralled in a dream so vivid he could smell the embers of the one above him, he felt the air over his small wings and he screeched at the pursuer in his mind. He knew how the dream would end.
Storm Chaser flared both night black wings to dodge a swipe from the other. The crimson bird above him screeched in frustration, tossing his mighty flaming head. Chase felt the air sizzling with the heat from the phoenix's mighty pinions, the fire bird spoke.
{It pains me, child of thunder, to hunt you. Yet I must or they shall kill me} the throaty voice said, and Chaser screamed in anger, sweeping into a dive to escape his pursuer's groping talons. The other made a sweep dive in attempt to catch the elusive black bird, his great golden claws at least as big as he was. Storm Chaser zipped into the branches of a tree, his small size allowing him to dodge the branches like the captive Moltres could not. The phoenix set the tree ablaze as Chaser evaded again, his muscles screaming from strain.
{I shall not become a captive!} he yelled and attempted to ride a thermal upwards, but the Moltres interfered. Chaser screeled in alarm and raked his talons along the pursuer's face, whom gave a yell that nearly deafened the younger bird.
The Moltres rose above him and dove again, Chaser flapped in panic, attempting to dodge on his overly taxed wings. The young Zapdos scarcely managed a dodge, then he gave a yell. One wing was snapped, caught in a tree limb. The other was getting ready to swing back, so Chase did the only thing he could with a lamed wing. He leapt into the tree, towards the ground to hide. His bad wing spattered blood onto the leaves and into the air as he frantically moved, tumbling half the way. He heard the overwhelming scream of the fire bird and he hurried, using, beak, claw, and good wing to reach the ground, and from there he hopped as fast as his legs would allow over the ground, knowing very well what his pursuer would do.
The foilage around him began to burn, as Chaser had predicted. He powered on as fast as he could, his body weakening from the endless chase. The young bird saw a light as he dodged over the undergrowth, around trees, and over logs, which were rapidly catching the flame. Almost there!!!!!!!! He thought in panic. The light grew in vibrance and size, Chaser reached it in valuable seconds, glad to be out of the blaze and onto the grasses. They wouldn't catch fire as easily as the forest, so he had time. But without the cover of the trees returned the trouble of the Moltres. It screeched in delight and dove to try to capture him again. Chase leapt aside and ran onward. He knew the Moltres wouldn't miss the next time. The young bird powered as fast as he could, but the golden talons caught him. He screeled and clawed at them, slicing with his beak.
{Hah! Thunder child! You shan't escape me now!} Why had the Moltres called him thunder child as he took flight? He did not know, or care at the moment. Chaser flared his good wing and flailed, pecking at one talon in particular. The Moltres dropped him in surprise, and the speed they were going at broke his good wing. Chase screamed as he plummeted down, down, down, towards his demise...
He woke panting heavily, in his hospital bed and safe. He whirled around and sighed, twitching his tail feathers, when he saw that he was safe. He sighed in releif and sank back into his bed. Sleep found him again swiftly, and he rested peacefully this time, the Moltres did not haunt him again. 

All credit goes to Zita from http://www.pokemoncrater.com/

Don't let the longness of this thing scare you away from it. It's an amazing story. ^_^

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Virtually Yours*
Kaiba sat in the backseat of his limo, tapping away at his laptop keyboard. Well, that’s what he was supposed to be doing. His history homework had really piled up in the last few weeks.

But that’s why I can’t possibly concentrate on it now... he thought. He had been working day and night for the past month and a half, trying to undo the damage those corporate suits had done to his beloved virtual adventure game. Now, it was finally ready for testing. But he had made sure personally that nothing would go wrong this time. Along with himself, six other teens from the city had been recruited to test the game out. This afternoon, he was going to embark on his life’s dream. One of them, anyhow.

The limo slid to a smooth stop in front of the KaibaCorp buliding. He could hardly contain his anticipation as he stepped out of the car. Then he looked down at himself.

Priorities first, he thought. I’ve got to get out of this god-forsaken uniform! He entered the towering building and took an elevator to the 52nd floor- his private loft.

He exited the lift and looked around the plush apartment. Well, it wasn’t exactly penthouse material, but it was close to his work, which was good enough for him. It was really just a big living room and kitchen, with a few doors leading off to other rooms: one bedroom, one full bath, and another room that he had turned into office space for himself. He thought back to a time when that really had been a second bedroom, with a small set of bunk beds. He and his brother Mokuba used to sneak in when their adoptive father was working.

Shaking the memories from his mind, he made his way to the bedroom to change. He looked in his closet, which was filled mainly with his business suits. He wrinkled his nose. Not exactly what I had in mind... Then he spied a plain black shirt with no sleeves that seemed to be buried amidst the rest of the materials. Hmm...

Not my normal style but...maybe we’ll consider this an experiment. It was perfect. If he dressed differently than normal, maybe the recruits would think he programmed himself into the game. It would be the greatest way to find out exactly how realistic this virtual world was. He donned the black shirt and a pair of black pants, then looked in the miror.

This should do it, he thought. Kaiba heard the door to the apartment creak open, and poked his head outside the bedroom door to see who it was. His sister Raia strolled in.

“Hello, Seto,” she said. She looked at his outfit. “Hmm...it’s a new hairdo, right?” she asked jokingly.

Kaiba narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m testing out the new game today, in case you’ve forgotten,” he said.

“So you’re trying to look like-” She stopped.

“Like who?” Kaiba asked.

“Nevermind,” she answered. Raia started towards the door.

Kaiba ran in front of her, blocking the exit. “Like...who...?” he asked more seriously.

“I said nevermind,” Raia answered. She stepped sideways, trying to get around him, but he stepped sideways too, blocking her path.

She quirked her brow and gave Kaiba a “Don’t-even-try-this-‘cause-you-know-you’re-gonna-lose” look.

He took a slow step towards her. “Look...like...who...?” he asked, each word slow and deliberate.

Raia took one cautious step back from him, then looked straight into his eyes, trying to stare him down.

It didn’t work.

He charged towards her, and she bolted across the room, giggling. She leapt and cleared a coffee table, landing on the sofa in the living room. He followed, but jumped up over the armrest instead of the table. By the time he got there, though, she had rolled herself off the couch and was squirming along on the narrow space of floor between the couch and table. Kaiba himself tumbled off the couch and landed on his back, but managed to reach out and grab his sister’s ankle.

Struggle as she might, she couldn’t wiggle out of his grasp. He got to his knees and crawled closer to her. Then he knelt on one of her legs.

“Ow!” she cried. “That hurts!”

“Look...like...who...?” he asked again.

“Ow!” She couldn’t help laughing. “Get off me!” She tried smacking him but he grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the floor.

He repeated the question for the fifth time. “Look like who?”

Raia was panting, trying to calm herself from the effects of the adrenaline and her own laughter. “Your outfit,” she said, still chuckling. “You look like Yugi.”

Kaiba’s eyes narrowed and his face hardened. He stood up and let Raia go. When she saw his expression, she sobered up quickly.

“It’s not meant to be an insult, Seto,” she said quietly.

“Well, it is as far as I’m concerned,” he snapped.

Raia just shook her head as she left the room.

Seto went back into the bedroom. He changed the shirt for one with long sleeves and threw his white coat overtop. Much better, he thought as he glanced in the mirror. He checked his pocket to make sure his deck was inside, then headed out for the KaibaLabs building.

When he arrived, he breezed through the door, and was soon joined by a young woman in her twenties.

Never underestimate the benefits of having your own personal secretary... he thought, hiding the grin on his face.

“KaibaCorp recruited six teens to test out the virtual game today,” the woman said. “They are gathered in the main building, and they’re being briefed right now.”

Kaiba ran over the conditions in his mind. Each player will be transported to a different location in the game. Each one must make their own way through the adventure. After two hours, the game ends and eveyone gets a free crash landing back into their bodies.

I love my life.

He finally made his way into the lab room. Situated in the very center was the virtu-pod. From it, tubes, wires, and cords created an intricate web of duck-or-you’ll-hit-your-head and watch-out-don’t-trip-over-that surroundings. The woman following him went over to the control panel on one side of the room while Kaiba hopped into the pod.

“Virtual screen- closing.” the computer recited.

Gotta kill that computer voice, Kaiba thought. Very annoying.

“Virtual screen- locked,” the computer continued. “Insert dueling deck into the drive recognizer.”

Kaiba pulled his deck out of his pocket and placed it into the slot. All this felt eerily familiar. The last time he tried out this game, had got trapped inside by those slugs who *used* to work for him. Then his little brother had to rescue him. Very embarrassing. Adding insult to injury: Mokuba brought Yugi and Joey along for the ride. Well, those suits got exactly what they deserved. Memo to self: hire window repair man on retainer...

The woman’s voice broke into his thoughts. “The computer registers all other pods ready and standing by.”

“Excellent,” Kaiba replied. “Execute virtual uplink.”

The woman threw a switch, and that’s all there was to it.

Kaiba’s eyes opened slowly. He looked around and found himself in the middle of a large meadow.

Perfect, the stasis worked just like I predicted. His idea had been that if the player was unconscious before they were transported, they wouldn’t be able to feel anything. He had been right. Not that he had doubted he would be.

He sat up off the ground and lounged back on his elbows. The sun felt warm on his face, a stark contradiction from the miserable little town called Domino. Domino. Who the hell thought of that name anyway?

Near the edge of the meadow were the first line of trees in a vast forest. From that direction, he could hear the various sounds of crickets and birds. He picked himself up off the ground fully and stretched his arms up. Time to go find me some @$$ to kick, he thought. Nothing focused his mind like a good duel.

Dang, forgot my gum.*

He started off in the direction of the forest, but soon after stopped and reconsidered his decision. The thought of all the bugs made his skin crawl, and also gave him not-so-warm-and-fuzzy thoughts of a certain worm of a duelist he had once faced.

Think I’ll take anouther route... Kaiba thought. Not that any other direction looked any more inviting. To the north and south eventually lay a desert and an ocean, respectively. The only other way to go was east, where the meadow sloped up towards a majestic mountaintop. He gazed at the mountain, trying to remember if he had programmed any towns along the way. The scope of this game was so vast that it was impossible for even him to remember every detail. Added to that, the mind transport had made his brain a little fuzzy. Here goes nothing.

He began the journey to the high peak. Time passed slowly in this virtual world, he walked for ten minutes...twenty five minutes....fifty minutes....an hour. Dusk had already started spreading its shadows across the field. This was definitely not what I had in mind. He knew he should have placed himself somewhere other than the meadow. That was the only area he now remembered he hadn’t really programmed any monsters...

He stopped short, listening intently. As he had moved towards the mountain, the grass of the field had gotten gradually taller, and was now up to his waist. He knew he’d heard rustling behind him. He was being followed. Kaiba pulled a card from the duel disk on his arm and his muscles tensed. He could feel the surge of adrenaline as he waited in silence, needing only the slightest excuse to turn around a demolish something with his Blue-Eyes’ attack.

It came. The faintest sounds of breathing and rustling behind him. Anyone else would have thought it only their imagination, but his hearing was better than that. (Besides, he had no imagination, right?) He spun on his heel and held the card out in front of him. “Blue-Eyes White....!” he started.

“Aahh! No! Wait, wait!!” a female voice called, sounding panicked.

“Huh?” Kaiba asked in surprise. He looked, but what- or who- ever it was was still hiding in the grass. Then he watched as a figure rose up, her hands held up in front of her.

Her looks were striking. She had jet black hair, which was cut in shaggy layers to frame her face. Her dark green eyes sparkled like emeralds, and were complemented perfectly by her deeply tanned skin. She was clothed in a black tank top and blue jean capris.

Kaiba looked angrily at her. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked in frustration.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen any normal-looking people around here.”

“Kinda the point, isn’t it?” Kaiba replied tersely. He turned his back to her and continued walking.

It was the girl’s turn to put an expression of annoyance on her face. “Nice guy,” she muttered. She ran ahead of him, then stopped and faced him. “Tell me that was a fluke and you’re not really that rude...” she said.

Kaiba gritted his teeth and growled. “Go...away...” he ordered with a tone of threat in his voice.

The girl’s brow furrowed in anger. Then she thought a moment and her face relaxed. “Let’s try this again...” she said.

“Let’s not,” Kaiba interrupted.

She ignored him. “Hello,” she said. He just looked at her.

“Now it’s your turn to say hello,” she coached.

“I don’t have time for this,” was Kaiba’s answer. He side-stepped the girl and walked past her.

She ran in front of him again. “Say hello,” she coaxed.

“Hello.” he said shortly. “Can I go now?”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he replied.

“What’s your name?” she asked, a little more insistent. Kaiba narrowed his eyes in irritation. The girl merely quirked a brow and waited for his answer.

“Seto Kaiba,” he said, trying VERY hard to control his often short temper.

“I’m Delaney,” the girl said back. “Nice to meet you.”

“Now can I go?” he asked.

“You really need to work on your manners,” she said.

Kaiba could feel the tension involuntarily clenching his fists. It was taking an extreme amount of control for him not to just sock her in the face.

She obviously noticed his fight-ready muscles, because she backed a step away from him and chided, “Go ahead, take your best shot...”

He stood still, trying to consciously send commands to his muscles to relax. The girl grinned.

“Scared you can’t beat a girl?” she taunted.

That’s it... he thought. No one comes into my world, into MY game and mocks ME! He charged at her and aimed a fist at her shoulder.

The girl chuckled and quickly sidestepped. The momentum Kaiba had gathered was stopped by nothing and he fell to the ground.

“Didn’t your mommy ever teach you not to hit a girl?” she jeered. Kaiba’s ocean blue eyes burned with fierce anger. In a flash he was back up on his feet and had grabbed her by the arm before she had a chance to react.

She gave a startled cry at the grip he had on her shoulder. It became quickly pbvious that she did not appreciate being handled. The two just stared at each other for a long moment, eyes locked and each aflame with intense rage.

Kaiba pulled the girl close and murmured menacingly in her ear, “Leave. Me. Alone.” Then he pushed her backwards and she stumbled to the ground. She picked herself right back up and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket.

“You think you can push me around just because I’m a girl?!?” she cried in fury.

Kaiba said nothing, but reached up and grabbed her hand, pushing his thumb directly onto the pressure point of her hand. She yelped in pain and let go, then he easily twisted her arm downwards.

But she was quick too, and as her arm was going down, her opposite leg came up and caught him with a hard kick in his shoulder. He let go of her hand and staggered backwards. She looked at him and her eyes widened as she realized what she had done. Kaiba looked at her, his eyes blazing. She took one look at his expression and was off like a shot, towards the bottom of the mountain. He ran after her, in hot pursuit.

She practically flew through the grasses- until her journey was cut short by a stray rock. The girl tripped over it and landed hard on the ground. Kaiba smiled in satisfaction and slowed down a little. He finally walked up to her and saw her cradling her arm, which had been cut by another sharp rock. She rolled onto her back and looked up at him and the cruel grin on his face.

“Are you going to behave now?” he sneered.

She took a moment to catch her breath before she answered, “No!” Before Kaiba had completely processed her answer her leg shot out and swept behind his, knocking him onto his back. Then she struggled to her feet. Looking about, she spied an opening in the side of the mountain, close to the bottom. Trudging along as fast as she could go, she made her way to it and crawled inside the cave. Moments later Kaiba followed her inside.

The interior of the cave was dark, and Kaiba couldn’t see but a few feet from the entrance where the daylight was coming in.

He could, however, hear Delaney’s soft panting. His eyes narrowed in a wicked expression. He was thoroughly enjoying this hunt. He took a few more steps into tha cave, and his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He looked around, finally able to make out details- but it was too late.

Delaney had hidden herself on a shelf of rock near the ceiling, and just as Kaiba spotted her she jumped down and landed on his back, dragging both of them to the ground with a loud *thump*. Delaney got off his back and took a few steps, preparing to run deeper into the cave. She stopped short.

Kaiba half-picked himself off the floor and rubbed his head. He stopped too, when his ears picked up the quiet sound of rumblings.

*<grumbles as she cleans up words so they don't just show up as ###'s> in case you've never heard it, there is a quote from the Japanese series that I particularly like, which is what this little joke is derived from. it goes something like: "I'm just here to chew gum and kick @$$, and I'm all out of gum."

Part Three
"What is that?" Delaney asked in a hushed voice. She softly walked towards the entrance to the cave. The rumblings had grown louder, and now both Kaiba and Delaney could feel the ground trembling. Delaney peeked out the cavern entrance to see what in the world was making that sound. As it grew much louder and more intense, Kaiba realized what it was.

Landslide!!! He ran up to Delaney and grabbed her waist, pulling her back into the cave seconds before a massive boulder crashed to the ground where she had been standing.

Delaney shrieked in surprise as she and Kaiba fell backwards from the force of the tumbling rocks. Within seconds, the cave entrance was sealed shut.

Delaney wriggled to get out of Kaiba’s grasp. "Let go of me!" she yelled.

Kaiba released her and could feel her skin brush against his as she crawled away from him.

The cavern was completely darkened now. He couldn't see where Delaney was, but her voice penetrated through the shadows.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?!" she cried angrily.

"I thought I was saving your life!" Kaiba shot back. "But now I think it would have been wiser to leave you there!"

"At least then I wouldn't have to be stuck in here with YOU!" Delaney retorted.

Kaiba growled. How in heaven's name did she get in this thing!?!? He had never met a more annoying person in his whole life. His thoughts were once again interrupted by Delaney’s voice.

"OW!" she howled. "I can't see a frickin’ thing in here!"

"Good," Kaiba snapped. "Then we won't have to look at each other."

"I'm afraid I'm a step ahead of you," Delaney responded. "Elf's Light!"

The light from Delaney’s card pierced the darkness, and then the entire little grotto was illuminated by her magic card- a tiny sprite who radiated beams of weak light. It situated itself in the middle of the cave, equidistant between Delaney and Kaiba. She was sitting against the wall, knees pulled up to her chin and arms wrapped around her legs. He was still lounging on the ground, resting back on his elbows. He looked at the immense pile of boulders that blocked their only way out.

Well, this has just been the PERFECT day... he thought cynically. Met the world's most irritating woman, got beat up by her in my own game, and am now trapped inside a cave with her with no way out, no way to call for help, no food, no water, and no heat. Who could ask for more?

He was sure night had fallen outside the cave, but there was no way to tell except for the severe need he felt to yawn. He didn't, but he heard Delaney do so softly. Kaiba looked over at her. She had tightened the ball she had curled herself into and closed her eyes. He listened to her breathing and could tell by the way it shook that she was getting cold. They were on the side of a mountain at night; it was only going to get colder. He also noticed that the cut on her arm was still bleeding a little.

If she falls asleep now, she might not be able to wake up, he thought.

Good! another side of his brain argued. Maybe that'll shut her up!

Kaiba also heard another voice inside his mind. You can't leave someone like this. It's not you. He was tempted to think that yes, it actually was very like him, but the mental voice was an echo of his sister, Raia. He knew she was right, he couldn't just let Delaney suffer, even if he would enjoy watching.

He got up and walked over to her. Delaney’s eyes flew open and she stared straight at him with a distrustful look on her face.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked accusingly.

"Well, I was going to help bandage your arm, but if you don't want my help..."

"You're right, I don't," she snapped.

Kaiba’s brow furrowed in indignance. He went back to where he had been sitting and laid down against the cold, hard, stone floor.

Just lovely, he thought sarcastically.

For the next twenty minutes, Delaney struggled to tie a strip of cloth around her shoulder, but to no avail. The wound still had not closed fully, and the only thing really sealing it was the caked blood that stained her shoulder and half the length of her whole arm. She tried once more to tie the cloth, but her hand slipped and smacked her shoulder.

"OW!" she cried. Her face winced in pain. She looked over at Kaiba. He could tell that she didn't want to, but she was being forced to ask his help.

"Could...you...?" she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"What, help you?" he asked in mock indignation. "Well maybe I don't want to help you now."

Her rage flared again. "Well, you know what, I never thought you did, but I was hoping that there might be some semblance of a conscience inside that thick skull of yours!" she retorted angrily. "It seems I was wrong and that if you had one, it has long since been squished by your over-inflated ego."

He rose and walked up to her, seething anger burning in his eyes. She met and held his gaze, matching him fury for fury. Then he did something neither of them had really expected.

He snatched the cloth from her hand, knelt down next to her, and tied it around her shoulder. Delaney watched him, a blank look of confusion evident on her face.

"Do you have any aqua-types?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"Monsters," Kaiba replied. "Do you have any aqua-type monsters in your deck?"

Delaney, even more confused now, pulled her deck out of her pocket (with her other arm) and began flipping through it.

"Does this work?" she asked as she handed him Water Omotics.

"Perfect," he answered.

She took the card from him and held it face-up in front of her. In a flicker of light the creature appeared. Kaiba looked at his shirt, then reluctantly bit at the seam that connected the sleeve to the rest of it. After a moment, he had ripped part of the seam and was able to rip the sleeve off his arm. He dipped it into the jar of water that Delaney’s monster held and touched it gingerly to her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she asked before she winced in pain.

"Cleaning the wound," Kaiba answered. "What does it look like?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot," she snapped. "I meant why are you even bothering?"

"I'm bored," he retorted icily. He carefully wiped the bloodstains off her shoulder. When he finished, he couldn't seem to help himself from running his fingers down her arm.

"Thanks," she muttered quietly, putting her hand on her arm and giving him a very clear "Your job is done, now go away" look. She curled herself up again and pushed herself up against the wall. She held out the card she had used before and the Water Omotics returned to its cardboard home.

Kaiba returned to his spot on the opposite side of the cave and laid back down on the ground, trying to get some sleep. Delaney curled up again, trying to keep herself from shivering and failing miserably. She could see goose bumps bristle on Kaiba’s bare arm when he hit the cold stone floor. She sighed and resigned herself to the fact that if they wanted to say alive, they would have to work together, at least for the night. Kaiba was far to proud and arrogant to admit that even he needed help, so Delaney waited until he was asleep. Then she crawled over to him and waved her hand in front of his closed eyes, just to make sure. When he provided no response, she laid down on the opposite side of him, putting her back against his. It was meager payback for his help.

Kaiba opened his eyes. He had been awake the whole time, but figured that Delaney would be better off if she didn't know that. How could he sleep? He had already made his impression on her as the conceited, cold-hearted businessman that everyone else saw in him. The part that worried him was why he cared what kind of impression he had made. What was so great about her that he felt himself regretting who he was? He felt the heat radiating from her back and traveling down his spine. It had been soo long...

So long since he had felt the warmth of another person against his own skin. So long since anyone had dared to tell him off like Delaney had earlier. Granted, he did enjoy surrounding himself with "yes" people who cowered at him. He liked having people around who would bow to his every whim. But there was something to be said about someone who could put you in your place once in a while.

Put me in my place?!? he thought in astonishment. What am I talking about!?!? No one puts Seto Kaiba "in his place"! I must be losing it. Maybe it's a horrible side effect of the game... After all, it was she who had been following him. She taunted him into the fight. She had run into the cave where the two were now trapped. By all accounts, she was at fault, and all the logic in his brain insisted that he should hate her for everything that she'd done to him. On the other hand, he knew that the feeling in the pit of his stomach was definitely not hatred. Kaiba continued to let his thoughts drift as the night wore on, and eventually his mind slipped and surrendered him to the deep darkness of sleep.

Part Four!
He awoke the next morning to piercings of light that leaked through the minuscule cracks between rocks. It was just enough to brighten the cave so that he could see everything with a fair amount of detail. He shifted a little, and realized that Delaney no longer lay next to him. He picked himself up and saw her back to where she had been the evening before- sitting with her back against the wall and her knees pulled up to her chin.

She must have moved earlier, thinking that I didn't know what she did last night, Kaiba reasoned. Nice try.

He stretched his arms up. Spending the night on the floor of a cramped little cave was not the best way to get a good night's sleep. He flexed his fingers, trying to shake out the tingles. He had slept on his arm all night, and it had in return fallen asleep. He looked around, getting his first decent look at his surroundings. A few hundred feet deeper into the cave it split off into two branches. And he couldn't for the life of him remember where they led.

Delaney walked up beside him. "Any bright ideas, whiz kid?" she asked mockingly.

"Well, gee, I could give the run-of-the-mill answer that we split up, but what fun would that be?" Kaiba retorted. "I wouldn't get to watch if you fell into a hole or were attacked by giant man-eating bugs..."

"You are well-practiced in the art of being a prick, you know that?" she interrupted.

"And #### proud of it," he replied. Kaiba could already feel his anger rising.

What a lovely way to spend the day, he thought contemptuously. "Come on, this way." He grabbed her arm and started dragging her down one of the passages. Then he heard a loud *SMACK* and felt a sharp sting on his hand.

"If I have to tell you one more time not to touch me..." Delaney warned.

Kaiba spun around to face her. "You'll what?" he asked viciously.

Delaney met the fierceness in his gaze with her own, but didn't answer him. Instead she asked, "Do you even know where you're going?"

Kaiba turned back around and walked deeper down the passage. "If my calculations are right, just by having you around puts us at about the fifth circle of hell or so," he answered. "So it's only downhill from there, right?"

To his surprise, Delaney said nothing. He braced his back, ready for a smack, a kick, a punch, anything. When nothing happened, he stopped and turned back to look at her. She was still standing near the entrance to the passage, her face expressionless.

"Are you coming or not?" he asked impatiently.

"Since it would seem that you are so much better off without me," she started. "I think I’ll stay back here."

"And what do you propose to do about food and water for yourself?" Kaiba asked.

"Why do you care?" she shot back.

"Fine. You want to stay here, be my guest," he answered sharply. He turned his back and started walking through the passage again. After a few more feet he stopped and turned to look back at her. She wasn't there anymore.

She must have gone down the other passage... His thoughts were interrupted by an echoing scream. Delaney! His instincts took over and he ran back to the main part of the cave and down the other passageway.

"Delaney!" he called. This corridor was too dark to see much of anything.

"What are you doing here?" the angry answer came.

God, doesn't she ever let up? Cautiously wandering a little farther, Kaiba found her hanging onto a ledge on the opposite side of a large hole in the middle of the path. "What happened?" he asked.

"I was trying to commit suicide," she answered sarcastically. When Kaiba didn't answer she yelled angrily, "The floor caved in, what the hell do you think happened?!?"

"I told you I wanted to be around to see this," he said mockingly.

"Just help me out of here!" she ordered.

"I'm quite enjoying this, actually," he said. Instead of another biting remark, Delaney’s answer was another scream as she slipped a little.

"Help me!" she pleaded, desperation setting into her voice.

Kaiba sighed. Then he backed up and took a running leap over the chasm. He landed on the other side, but one of his feet didn't quite make it. It slid off the edge and he let out a surprised yelp. Delaney shrieked as her grip slipped a little and she fell farther down. Fortunately, Kaiba had managed to hang on with his arms and other leg and pulled his foot up onto the rest of the ground. He grabbed Delaney’s wrists and grunted with effort as he pulled her up out of the fissure. Then he fell backwards and she fell to her knees, both of them out of breath.

"Took you long enough," she said between breaths.

"I got here didn't I?" he asked. The two continued to try and catch their breath.

After a moment, Delaney spoke. "Thank you," she said quietly.

Kaiba looked at her in mild surprise. "Don't mention it," he said, falling flat onto his back.

See, a part of his brain said, it's not so bad having someone else around...

When they were finally able to move again, the two continued their journey through what had become quite a long and winding hall through the mountain. The scenery changed from the dull brown and gray rock that had formed the entrance to shimmering stalactites and mineral-rich walls that sparkled in every color imaginable.

"Wow," Delaney breathed. "This is beautiful."

Kaiba couldn't help but grin a little as Delaney admired their surroundings. It was very encouraging that she at least thought the scenery was realistic. Then he stopped short. Maybe a little too realistic, he thought as gazed at the land bridge in front of him.

It was only a few feet wide, and probably a good few hundred feet to the other side. However, it was the only crossing over what appeared to be a very long way down that would end in sharp stalagmites rising from the floor.

Delaney had stopped behind him, put now peered over his shoulder to see what was going on. She took one look at the slim bridge and the ground- or lack thereof- beneath it, and her eyes widened in fear.

"No thanks, I choose life..." she said.

"I’ll go first," Kaiba offered.

"Cant we just go back?" she asked.

"What, you're not afraid are you?" he teased.

"Hell yeah I am!" she answered.

"Look, if we were to go back, what would happen? We'd have to start all over again down the next passage and probably end up right back here anyway," Kaiba reasoned. "I’ll start across to make sure it's safe. I’ll give you a signal of when to follow, OK?"

Delaney nodded her head reluctantly. Kaiba got on his knees and started to crawl across the landbridge. He would put pressure with his hand on the next space before he went on. After fifty or so of these paces, he called back to her.

"It seems solid enough. Come on."

Delaney got on her hands and knees and followed suit. Kaiba waited until she was right behind him before moving on. He tried not to look off the edge of either side, but he accidentally caught a glimpse. Ooohhh... that ground looks so far away... he thought nervously.

He and Delaney made their way slowly across the landbridge. Almost there... he thought, but in the next move he felt his hand slip off the bridge and could feel himself start to fall.

Part Five
"Kaiba!!" Delaney yelled, just before having to wipe a splash of water from her eyes. He sat before her perched up on his hands in an ankle-deep pool of water.

"What the..." he started. Then he looked down at the water and waved his hand over it. It cast a perfectly mirror-like reflection of his arm. Then he looked up at the vast expanse of ceiling above him and the stalactites hanging from it.

It wasn’t a gorge at all! It was a reflection of the ceiling!!!* he thought angrily to himself.

Delaney released a long breath. She must have realized now what it was, too. She stood up and held out her hand. Kaiba looked at it for a moment, then took it and pulled himself up, with her help. The two walked easily across the last few feet of the bridge.

"Well, Sir Braniac, now what do we do?" she asked.

"What, you in some kind of hurry?" Kaiba shot back.

"I’d like to get out of this labyrinth before I get killed," Delaney retorted.

"I can’t make any promises," Kaiba responded coldly. Delaney growled in reply.

"You’d just love that wouldn’t you? I can see the headline now: ‘Businessman Snaps: One Dead’. It’d make great publicity, don’t you think?"

Kaiba’s simmering anger boiled over. In a flash, he had turned around and pinned Delaney to the wall, his hand clenched firmly around her neck. She gave a cry of surprise, then her body froze. Her expression gave away shock at first, and then finally the first ever glimmer of fear that he had seen in her at all.

"Publicity or not," he began quietly, "I would take great pleasure in this..."

She stared back at him, but now her gaze was expressionless. No, it wasn‘t, but the fear had been replaced by something he could not recognize.

It would be so easy... Kaiba thought. One little squeeze would end all my troubles. I might get out of this game sane that way.

Delaney watched him for a long moment before she finally choked out, "Go ahead, do it."

Kaiba looked at her in mild surprise. Then he narrowed his eyes and applied a little more pressure to her neck. Delaney’s eyes bulged a little, and he could hear the air rushing down her narrowed air passage. Her chest heaved with the effort of taking in air, and the action somewhat distracted Kaiba from his task.

What am I doing?! He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and released her throat. He took a few steps back before he opened his eyes. Delaney stood frozen against the wall, breathing heavily. Her eyes narrowed, showing off a deep anger that had taken place beside whatever else was in her eyes.

"What’s wrong? Can’t even take care of one little challenge?" she mocked in rage. "Or are you afraid or something?"

Kaiba’s fury flash-boiled again. The two charged at each other, Delaney directing her fist at his shoulder. He caught her wrist, and their eyes met once more. Kaiba looked at her and suddenly realized that it wan’t fear that he had seen before. What he saw there shocked him more than anything Delaney had ever said or done. He could feel the anger in her pulsing through her veins, but it was a mask for something much more infuriating. Then he recognized that his anger had been a cover for something this whole time, too. Something he had never wanted to admit...

Delaney was still trying to push her way at him. Kaiba’s arm shook with the effort of keeping hers in place. He let every anger he had at her have its moment, then he released her arm. Delaney was thrown off by the maneuver and fell into him. Instantly he pulled her up and put his mouth to meet hers. Passion, infatuation- call it what you will- and a million other emotions coursed through his veins and were expressed in the single kiss he pressed on her.

Delaney seemed for a brief moment to be completely taken aback at the new twist of events. Once her brain had enough time to process what was happening, she pulled back from him and raised her arm. She used all the strength she could muster and slapped Kaiba across his face.

Kaiba stumbled back a step, stunned for a moment. Then he went down on one knee, his head spinning. Delaney’s hands flew to her mouth to cover her gasp.

Kaiba reached up and touched his sore cheek. ####, that girl packs a wallop.

Delaney took a cautious step towards him. Her face had her remorse written all over it. She knelt down in front of him and held out one of her hands. She acted like someone trying to approach a small rabbit or kitten. Kaiba just looked at her, not sure what she was going to do next.

When he offered no resistance, Delaney moved closer and touched his cheek gently. He looked away from her and winced a little, less from the sting on his cheek than the heat of her touch as it shot through his system.

"I’m sorry," she whispered as she moved a little closer to him.

"I think I needed that," Kaiba replied. He turned his head back up to look at her and their noses nearly collided. He could feel himself drowning in the deep ocean green of her eyes. The feeling returned to the pit of his stomach. It would be so easy... he echoed, but with the idea of a completely different action in mind.

NO! he thought. I can’t lose control. Not to her. He could feel her warm breath on his face. Submission shows weakness. Her eyes shimmered with regret and concern. Surrender shows weakness. He could sense the blood running through her as much as he could feel his own. Weakness makes you vulnerable. His heart thundered in his ears.

I can’t do this. I can fight it.

"Never leave yourself vulnerable," a voice echoed in his mind. And old voice that he had tried very, very hard to forget.

I can’t surrender. I can’t give in... I can’t...

He did.

Delaney moved closer and put her mouth to his this time, but Kaiba didn’t fight it. A sharp sensation jolted down his spine, followed by tingles that spread slowly to engulf every inch of him, like the wake after a speeding boat. A part of his brain that he had not even known existed began sending commands to his body. Without knowing why, he gently grasped Delaney’s shoulders and sank slowly to his knees. Delaney took the cue and moved with him. Then she was letting her instinct take over. Her hand crawled its way up Kaiba’s arm and found the back of his neck, which her fingers then began lightly stroking.

The voice in his mind was silenced. He had come this far, and he couldn’t go back. Right now he didn’t want to, anyway. Boiling blood ran through his body, and all the heat he couldn’t stand flowed out through his lips as well as his hands and fingers, which had found their way around Delaney’s waist and were tracing intricate designs on her back.

Delaney pulled away, and both of them were breathing heavily. She looked into his deep blue eyes. He could sense the question in hers: What are we doing?

Kaiba tried to formulate an answer for that question, but his brain had been turned to mush. As much as he tried to produce a single, intelligent thought, nothing would come to him. An animalistic sensibility had taken over his mind, and he found the fleeting intelligent thoughts to be crowded out by his own base desires. The more he was near her, the more inebriated** he became. The point came where he could no longer hold himself back. He leaned in and pressed his lips to her once more, but he didn’t sop there. Delaney let out the smallest of surprised expressions as he kept pushing. She let herself fall backwards, and Kaiba crawled overtop. Their kiss deepened, and each of their action spawned a reaction from the other. She caressed his shoulder, he stroked her arm.

Delaney pulled away again, but only for a moment.

"What’s your real name?" she asked.

Kaiba looked at her with a somewhat puzzled expression. "Huh?"

"I mean, don’t you have a first name? Something people call you besides ‘Kaiba’?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I think that that’s a little formal for our circumstances," she answered.

He sighed. He did have a first name, but only a very select few even knew what it was. And of those few, even fewer dared to call him that name to his face. Actually, the only ones who did were his brother and sister. He remembered something that Raia had once told him, after he had asked her to call him Kaiba.

"Kaiba is the name of the cold-hearted jerk who runs this company. And rightly so, because that’s who USED to run this company. But to me, you are SETO. You are my little brother, and that will never, EVER change. I see what no one else does, and I call you what no one else can."

He leaned in and whispered in Delaney’s ear, "Call me Seto."

*this idea was based on a true story. my family and I went to a park in Missouri called Meramec Caverns. Inside was a little path of ground across a very wide, but very shallow lake. you could see the bottom at first, and it was only and inch or so deep. when the tour guide switched lights on that were aimed at the vast ceiling, the water cast a perfect reflection. i swear i got vertigo looking at the water because it was like looking into this huge chasm. very cool.
**a fancy $20 word for "drunk" or "intoxicated", in case you didn't know

Kaiba lay on his back against the ground. His shirt hung open, and the gentle breeze that wafted through the cavern felt icy against his hot skin. He allowed his thoughts to aimlessly meander about his mind for a while, until they decided to settle on one distinct question:

What have I done?

It was a question he feared to answer, so he pushed it from his mind for the present. He looked at Delaney, who was curled up beside him and apparently dozing soundly. How she could sleep after that kind of adrenaline rush totally mystified him. Another breeze floated by, pushing a strand of hair into her eyes. He reached over to brush it out, when his hand froze.

Wait a minute. How is a breeze getting all the way in here? He carefully got up so that he wouldn’t disturb Delaney. Then he headed through a nearby archway, which led into a vast chamber of rock. Looking around, he noticed that there were three openings in the walls! They cast large circles of light on the stone floor, and they were definitely large enough to crawl through.

Kaiba ran back to Delaney and threw his jacket over his shoulders. Then he knelt down beside her and was going to shake her awake, but something stopped him. His hand hovered millimeters over her shoulder, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

A stranger’s voice was resurrected in his mind. Am I nuts?! This is my chance to get away from her!!

I can’t just leave her here... He felt like those kid’s cartoon characters with an angel version of themselves on one shoulder and a devil version on the other.

SHE trapped me in this crummy cave...

That doesn’t give me the right to abandon her...

I’ve never wanted anyone else around...

But, I-I...

Another voice interrupted his argument.

"Seto...?" Delaney asked softly. She had turned so she was laying on her back and looking up into his eyes. "What’s wrong?"

He looked back at her, silent. How could he answer her? Where would he even begin?

Dammit! Ditch the ##### and move on!! You don’t need anyone else around, especially not one who’s this annoying. You don’t need this kind of aggravation! Get rid of her!

He was appalled at the cruelty of his own thoughts. How could he think that about her? Especially after...

Then it hit him. These weren’t HIS thoughts at all! They were a stranger’s voice. A voice that caused so much anger in him he could feel his muscles tense unconsciously.

I... I ne... I...

Delaney reached up and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. As her fingers slid across his skin, he could feel the twitching of tiny stubble on his face. The simple feel of her against him was exhilarating.

He leaned down and kissed her softly once, using her overwhelming presence to silence the storm in his mind.

"I found a way out of the cave," he said when they finished.

Delaney sat up. "How far is it?" she asked.

"A hundred feet or so through that archway," Seto answered, indicating the formation of rock behind her. He stood and held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her up off the ground. "Follow me."

He led her back to the place where he had discovered the openings in the stone walls.

She took in the sight of daylight, but also noticed the sharp, jagged edges around the holes.

"You seriously want me to crawl through that thing?" she asked.

"Well, you could always stay here," Kaiba retorted.

"Oh, you’d love that wouldn’t you?" Delaney shot back.

Kaiba’s eyes narrowed. "I just might," he responded angrily.

Delaney growled quietly in reply. Kaiba turned away.

Dammit! he thought to himself. Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!! Why can’t she just be normal for a change?!? Why does she have to make everything so...

A small yelp of surprise from Delaney interrupted his thoughts. He looked back and found her attempting to squeeze through one of the holes in the wall.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I am trying to get out of this hellhole! What does it look like I’m doing?!" she answered.

Seto laughed. "Trying...and not succeeding."

"Are you going to help me or what?" Delaney demanded.

"Actually, I’m thinking about just standing here and watching you," Seto answered.

"SETO KAIBA YOU GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME OUT OF THIS THING OR I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL..."

"You’ll what? You can’t even get out of that crack in the wall and you’re threatening me?"

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Delaney roared in frustration.

Seto tried to stifle his chuckles, but he wasn’t too good at it. He watched her struggle to get through for another five minutes until he saw her body go limp from effort. He walked over to her and inspected the situation. The opening was large enough, why couldn’t she get through? Then something caught his eye: a long piece of material strung between an edge of the rock and her shirt.

"Here," he said. He reached down and yanked the cloth from the rock. It made a loud ripping sound, but Delaney was able to fit through the rest of the crevasse.

"Thanks," she muttered from the other side.

Seto grinned and took off his coat. He tossed it out through the hole, then pushed himself out.

Delaney saw the smirk on his face. "Jackass..." she mumbled.

She and Seto looked around their new surroundings.

"Where are we?" she asked.

#### good question, Kaiba thought. Before he had time to formulate an answer, the ground rumbled beneath them. A huge shadow cast darkness over the whole field before them and shaded half the mountainside.

"Oh, dear God, PLEASE not another cave-in!!" Delaney whined.

The shadow split and became several large shadows circling the ground. Kaiba looked up at the sky. It was just as he suspected: his first real fight in the ####ed game. Silhouettes of half a dozen large dragons circled overhead. Delaney looked up at the sight.

"What the hell are those?" she yelled, trying to be heard over their deafening roars. One of the figures in the sky opened its jaws, between which were formed a great sphere of white electric light. It let out a roar that Kaiba knew all too well.

"MOVE!" he yelled, pushing Delaney behind a large boulder nearby. The ground where they had been standing was struck with the dragon’s attack and sprayed into the air in a million shattered pieces that rained back down on Delaney and Kaiba.

Who the hell programmed Blue-Eyes White Dragons into the game!?!?

Part Seven
Someone ELSE has messed with the program?!? ####!!

The two heard another roar from overhead. Delaney’s eyes widened in fear as she realized what was attacking them.

"Stay here," Seto ordered.

"What? Where are you going?!"

"Someone has to get rid of those things," he said.

"You’re insane!!" Delaney argued.

"You have any other ideas?" Seto asked.

"Isn’t LIVING an option?!" she countered.

"We won’t get much of that it if those things keep attacking us," he said.

Delaney remained silent, but for a warning: "Be careful, Seto."

He nodded and walked out from behind the massive stone into the open field. Looking up, he identified the silhouettes of the dragons. There were four. Four Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

If I summon my Blue-Eyes, I could destroy one, but it would leave me open by attacks from the others. I’ll have to figure out some way to scare them off.

"Dragon Seeker!" he called out loud. Summoning the Dragon Seeker automatically destroys one dragon. God, I hope this works...

A bright light shone from the card he held, and the monster materialized into view.

"Destroy one of those Blue-Eyes!!!" Kaiba yelled.

Kaiba’s creature jumped up to an incredible height, as though it could fly, too. It took a slash at a dragon, which vanished in tiny specks of holographic dust.

The other dragons seemed to realized what they had witnessed and flew off in different directions in a flurry of loud screeches and roars.

Delaney peeked out from behind her hiding place. "Wow," she said. "You destroyed a Blue-Eyes? I’ve never seen anyone do that before."

Don’t patronize me, Kaiba thought, recalling unsavory memories of his first duel with Yugi. "You can come out now," he called.

"Are you sure? I don’t want you summoning any freakies on me," Delaney answered.

"Don’t tempt me," Kaiba replied flatly.

She came up beside him. "Might I suggest having this in your deck for a future date?" she asked, holding out a Dragon Capture Jar to him. Kaiba looked at it and grinned, but took it anyway.

He looked around, taking his first decent survey of where they were. They were a little higher up the mountain slope, but the ground was at a surprisingly low angle. Below them was another grassy field that went on for less than a mile. At the edge of that field was a dreary-looking wasteland. However, on the border between the two landscapes, there stood a building.

Kaiba had been so involved in his examination of the land, he hadn’t noticed the new shadow that covered the grassy field and slope until Delaney lightly smacked his arm. This time it was no dragon. The sun had been blocked out by large, gray, menacing clouds. He could hear thunder resounding in the distance. A storm was almost upon them.

"Come on. There’s a small building at the edge of the field," Seto said, gently taking Delaney’s arm. She presented no arguments as he led her down the mountainside and across the grass. They had only reached level ground when they felt the first drops coming down: one...two...three... Lightning bolted across the sky. The thunder growled again, more ominously than before. Then in a matter of minutes, the sparse drops became hard rainfall. Kaiba and Delaney were not even halfway across the field. He broke out in a run, and she followed suit.

Delaney was athletic in her own right, but Kaiba was still faster. She tried keeping up with him, but the soil had turned quickly from dirt to mud, and it slowed her progress. Then, she hit a deep sinkhole of soft mud and her leg sank in to her knee.

Over the wind and rain and thunder, Kaiba could scarcely hear himself think. Still, his ears were able to pick up Delaney’s cry for help on the roar of the wind. He stopped and turned back, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

"Delaney!" he called, hoping she could answer him. When no reply came, he started running back.

"Delaney! Delaney!!" He couldn’t see her anywhere. Finally, a faint sound was carried by the wind to his ears.

"Seto! Seto, I’m over here!" she answered.

"Keep calling, I can’t see you!"

"I’m trapped in a sinkhole! I got stuck in the mud!"

She screamed, and a crash of thunder replied.

Seto ran towards the source of her voice. He finally found her next to a mud puddle, one of her legs submerged in muck up to her calf. Her hands and face were brown stained from the dirt, and spatters of water had ricocheted off the puddle and spotted her shirt.

"Help!" she said again.

Seto worked quickly, grabbing her leg and yanking against the vacuum of mud. He couldn’t get it out, and the puddle apparently felt justified in replacing any newly made extra space with more of Delaney’s leg.

"We’re going to have to dig you out," Seto said.

"Oh, geez. Could this day BE any worse?" Delaney complained.

"Don’t say that!" Seto replied.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because the general rule is that whenever someone says that, the situation inevitably DOES get worse," Kaiba explained. He looked up, and in the distance, he could see three large figures in the sky, flying in his and Delaney’s direction.

"I rest my case," he said. Delaney turned to look, and saw them, too.

"We’ve gotta get you out of here fast," Kaiba said.

"Any ideas?" Delaney inquired.

"No, not really," Seto answered.

"Oh," Delaney said.

"Start digging. I don’t care if you just had a manicure or are the queen of Monte Carlo- just dig."

Delaney obeyed. The two of them got to work fast, but because the ground was so liquid, it tended to spill back in just after they had cleared some away.

"It’s not wor-king...!" Delaney cried.

Kaiba looked up again. The three figures in the sky had drawn closer, and he confirmed his suspicions. It was the remaining three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, apparently back for revenge.

"Ok, last shot," he said. He stood facing Delaney and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist.

"Hey!" she protested.

He pulled on her body as hard as he could, gritting his teeth with effort. Delaney took the cue and, grabbing onto his arms for support, pushed off the ground with her other leg. The mud puddle tried angrily to keep her captive, but eventually the two of them overpowered it and freed Delaney’s leg. She and Kaiba fell to their knees, panting from the struggle. Kaiba raised his eyes and saw that the dragons were only a couple hundred yards away and closing fast.

"Come on!" he said, grabbing Delaney’s arm and pulling to her feet. They took off running.

Finally, the two made it to the building. It was a massive stone structure with wooden double doors twice as tall as Delaney or Kaiba.

"Small building, eh?" Delaney quipped.

He reached for the handle of one of the doors and pulled, but to no avail. He grabbed the handle with both hands and planted his feet, but when he tried opening it, the door didn’t budge.

The massive dragons were yet in hot pursuit, and were now less than a football field away.

Part Eight
Kaiba grunted in his struggle to open the door, but it still wouldn’t budge. Delaney stood behind him and grabbed his waist, pulling with all her strength. Finally, the doors cracked apart, and after a little more strain were separated enough for the two of them to squeeze themselves inside. The door gave a loud bang as it swung closed behind them. Delaney and Kaiba heard more loud impacts as the angry dragons landed on the roof of the building.

They stood still, panting once again from fatigue and stress. They stood just inside the great doors soaked, muddy, and generally miserable. Kaiba looked at Delaney. Her black hair was stringy and matted to her head, and her arms were mud stained up to her elbows. Her clothes, what little was left after tearing her shirt back in the cave, clung to her skin, which had become pale and clammy. She dropped herself to her knees, still out of breath.

Kaiba shook his head, throwing off some of the loose water from his hair. Delaney shielded her face against the water that splashed in every direction.

"Keep the rain outside, will ya?" she asked.

He knelt on one knee in front of her. "Why, does it bother you?" he asked grinning. He could only imagine how bad he looked right now: his own pale, dampened skin, his still dripping hair spiked out in all directions, and his sopped clothes. In spite of all of that, he couldn’t help noticing the affectionate look in Delaney’s eyes. It almost seemed like she thought he looked attractive, even in this condition.

Yeah, right. he thought. Although, I gotta admit, she doesn’t look so bad...

Their gazes held for... Who knew how long? Delaney crawled on her hands and knees up to him. The weight of the water tugged down at her shirt, and Kaiba’s eyes involuntarily drifted down for a moment. He caught himself and tore his eyes away, looking away from her completely. He could still feel her nearness, and sickening waves of desire crashed over him. He looked back at her. She hadn’t moved at all. He closed his eyes and leaned in to kiss her. Their lips brushed so slightly...

A deafening roar resounded in the chamber, and Delaney sat back on her legs, covering her ears. Kaiba cringed at the sound. Then another boom reverberated through the whole room, and rocks and debris came crashing down around them. Delaney ducked slightly and covered her head. Kaiba grabbed her and pulled her close to him, taking a few sharp and heavy rocks against his own back. He looked up through the dust and saw that one of the dragons had gained the intelligence to kick a portion of the roof in on top of them. It roared ferociously, seething anger echoing in its vociferous call.

Delaney uncurled a little and looked up at Seto, true fear glimmering in her eyes.

"You have to get out of here," he said.

"What? What about you?" she asked.

"I’m going to try to see if I can fight them off," he answered.

"You ARE crazy! Come with me!" Delaney argued.

"If I do, we’ll just have to keep running from them," Kaiba reasoned.

"Then let me stay and help you," she pleaded.

"I can’t do that," he replied.

"Why not?!"

"I can’t bear to see you get hurt."

"You would have relished the opportunity yesterday," she countered.

"Well, kind of a lot’s happened since then, don’t you think?" The dragons let out even more earsplitting roars. "There’s no time to argue. There’s a window at the other end of this room. Now GO!"

Delaney turned around and sprinted off. He was right, there was a huge stained-glass window at the other end of the 150 foot room. A dragon on the roof over Kaiba’s head stomped its foot down again, causing another shower of stone around him. It was almost big enough for the dragon to get through.

Come on, you can make it! he cheered silently. Delaney was only 50 feet from the window.

The dragon above Kaiba’s head looked in through the hole it had created. It gazed evilly at him for a moment, then opened its massive jaws and prepared to attack.

The Dragon Capture Jar! he thought suddenly. He reached for his deck and nearly tore the card out. It burst out brilliant white light, which enveloped the dragon. The monster struggled and roared as it was sucked into the magical container.

One down, two to go, he thought. He turned back to look at Delaney, who was less than 20 feet from the window. All she had to do was break it. She was going to make it out!

The dragons had other plans. Right in front of her, the window shattered inward. Delaney fell to her knees, covering her head against flying glass shards.

NO!! Kaiba thought. Before any muscle could react, he was picked up and swept aside by an enormous white tail. His back hit the wall with more force than Kaiba knew was even possible, but his mind was not on himself. He fell to the ground and looked up, hoping Delaney had gotten past the dragon.

She still knelt on the ground. One of the gargantuan Blue-Eyes White Dragons stood in front of her. She looked up and started to tremble. The Blue-Eyes opened its orifice*, and Kaiba couldn’t see anything more. He shielded his eyes from the blinding light that radiated from the monster’s attack.

He looked back and Delaney was on the floor. She looked so weak. She had only enough time to look up and back at Seto before she herself vanished in the same holographic dust that consumed the game’s defeated monsters.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" he cried. Sorrow, despair, rage, fury, helplessness, and innumerable emotions raged through his mind in a fashion to rival the storm that still brutally raged outside. His teeth clenched and his hands balled themselves into fists.

No! She can’t be gone! Not now! He stood up. Fury burned in his eyes hotter and more cruelly than he could ever remember. The storm outside with all its rage could not even begin to match the wrath inside his heart. Though now the outside had become the inside. The broken window and massive opening in the roof allowed the rain and the wind to assault his body shamelessly once again. The dragons had left, seemingly having received satisfactory revenge by seeing Kaiba as broken as he was now. But he was so enraged, he felt nothing. His muscles had become so tense they sent sharp pain signals to his brain, but he felt nothing. Then his body went limp, and he fell to his knees, damp tears brimming in the corners of his eyes.

No, he thought, his heart suddenly hardening. I have to get her back. No matter what it takes. I can't lose her.

I love her.

* $10 word for "mouth". i just thought it sounded a little more sophisticated.

Part Nine
Rain and wind whipped him from all directions. Thunder howled its eerie song, and lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the earth below for brief moments. A mirror of the heart of the man who knelt inside the ruins of what had briefly been a sanctuary.

The rip in his heart seared with a pain hotter than any rage he had ever felt. The tears that dripped down his cheeks stung him worse than any lashing he had ever received. His heart was split so severely, someone who would happen upon him now might think him bona fide schizophrenic.

Delaney...she’s gone, Seto thought in a deeper sorrow than he had ever known.

Why do I care?!? Kaiba argued in rage.

I...I love her, Seto repeated.

NO! You don’t! You don’t love anyone!! You don’t need anyone!! Nobody else matters!! Kaiba insisted. Love is an emotion! Emotion shows weakness!! Weakness makes you vulnerable!! Vulnerability is not an option!!!!!

Those thoughts were not the thoughts of Seto. Those were the thoughts of Kaiba. Of Gozaburo Kaiba and the boy he had trained in his cold-hearted ways. The thoughts of one man in the world who was truly incapable of love. Who was void of all emotion except anger.

Seto Kaiba mulled over all these thoughts for a very long time. He came to only one conclusion.

I fell in love. I surrendered myself to her, and I gave her something that I can never take back. If vulnerability is the cost of that, so be it. What’s done is done. Maybe in the future it won’t matter, but right here, right now, it matters more to me than my own life.

Seto picked himself off the ground. He would get Delaney back if it was truly the last thing he ever did. He knew he would rather wander aimlessly forever trapped inside this condemned game than leave it without her.

He was on a mission. One to revive a lost love. But one question remained:

How?

The answer suddenly struck him in the form of returning memories. He could now clearly recall the entire scope of the game’s programming. There was a way to regain a fallen player without going to the final level.

The Dragon Lair.

As ruthless as his associates had been in reprogramming the game, he was so inspired by their ingeniousness that he did leave in one part of their original sabotage. He had created a separate area of the game that was supposed to be a secret level. Lucky him. He knew every secret of the game.

Seto made his way over to the shattered glass window. There he crouched down and picked up a large piece of broken glass. For reasons he did not yet know, he put the glass shard in his pocket before he left the destroyed temple. As soon as he felt the outsideness, his leg muscles went spastic and he broke out in a blind run. Well, not entirely blind. He mapped out the route in his head.

South to the water, west to the forest. Find the tree in the middle of the forest that is different from all the others. Stand by it in moonlight and the Dragons’ Lair will appear. As he was running, Seto looked up at the sky. The storm had calmed somewhat, but thunder rumbled angrily in the distance, and lightning still streaked across the sky. The darkness was artificial. It was not the night that he would need to find the Dragon Lair, although he was sure that behind the black curtain of clouds night had indeed fallen.

Finally, Seto reached the beach that bordered the edge of the water. He collapsed from exhaustion into the damp sand of the shoreline, unable to move anymore. He breathed heavily, his chest and shoulders heaving. The tides came in angrily as the sea was still hazed by the effects of the storm. The frothy white water engulfed his wrists and knees repeatedly, and occasionally dared to rise higher. After a long moment he picked himself up a little and still kneeling, looked out at the big black ocean before him. Since he had stopped to rest, his thoughts had attained the task of catching up with his mind.

Delaney...how could you leave me? I...I never had a chance...to... How could you do this to me?

His ocean blue eyes glimmered with tears as his thoughts started to turn on him.

It was my fault. I could have saved you. I could have kept you with me, then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. He had failed. He cared for her so much, and he had wanted to protect her, but instead he had sent her off to her end. The worst part was that he had...

I’ve... I’ve killed before, Seto thought.

No! That wasn’t me!! That was... I didn’t do it!

Another tear spilled down his cheek and inside, a fire ate at his soul. It stung him worse than anything he had ever felt. He realized that he had reached a new low in his life. Not because he had stooped to emotions, but because he was a failure. Everything that he had ever hoped was dashed away in his realization.

I nearly had to cheat to win against Yugi at Duelist Kingdom. Even after that, I couldn’t beat Pegasus. I couldn’t save my brother on my own. I was stupid enough to get trapped in this game the first time, and Yugi and his friends had to rescue ME. Now, I’ve let down the only woman I’ve ever cared for. Seto then had the most bizarre and ironic and unexpected thought of his whole life.

He wished Yugi were there to help him.

There was a time when that thought would have sent him into a rage. Now, however, Seto had not the strength nor the will to be angry with himself for such a notion. Though it betrayed the very essence of his own consciousness, he was more focused on Delaney than the resentment he had for Yugi. It was then that he was struck with the knowledge of exactly how deeply she had changed him. Somehow, her presence and her affections had melted the icy heart that had been residing in him for so long. She had such a power over him that it altered his very being, down to the core of who he was.

The tears remained at their places at the corners of his eyes. Another even got up the nerve to spill over and down his other cheek. Then he noticed that the tear sparkled as it traveled over his cheek bone.

Light? From where? He looked out at the black ocean and up at the sky. In the distance, still a ways out over the water, the clouds had cleared. He could see the pinpricks of starlight twinkle in the deep blue blanket of sky. The storm is clearing!

He picked himself up. But that forest is so far away... I’ll never make it!

His eyes narrowed in resolve. I am #### well gonna try! He was off like a shot, off to the most dangerous mission of his life.

The Dragon Lair had been programmed to be a secret level. If someone could actually get through all the chambers successfully, they were awarded a very powerful magic card, one that could not be used or found anywhere else in the game.

Monster Reborn.

He had to try. If he could get past all the dragons, he would be able to use the magic card to revive a monster OR a player that had been defeated in the game. However, getting past those dragons was a really big if. There were five different chambers, each progressive area being inhabited by respectively stronger dragons. It was also the only part of the virtu-land where the computer could actually duel back, using magic and trap cards to power up the dragons.

Focus, Seto coached himself. You actually have to find this thing first. THEN worry about beating it.

Finally he reached the edge of the forest. The tree that’s different from all the rest... He looked around. This was a completely mixed forest, with numerous types of trees in this area. He pushed on, farther into the dense woods. He studied the leaves, the bark, the height, anything that would indicate that one was different from the rest. He finally came upon one particular tree. He looked at the surrounding ones, and found what was off.

He was standing in front of a large pine tree. The scent of the sap wafted through the cool night air. All the rest of the trees are deciduous, not evergreen.

Now all he had to do was wait for the moon to rise.

Part Ten
Seto sat against the trunk of the pine tree. His head hung over to one side, and his eyes were closed. The soft sounds of his breathing were carried by the night breezes.

Delaney kissed his cheek. "Don’t ever think that," she said.

"It’s true," Seto replied.

She looked him square in the eyes. "You are NOT anything like that. I know what kind of sweet, gentle, kind human being you can be. Don’t let what anyone else thinks change who you are.

"But I already have..."

A little gust blew by his sleeping form, gently arousing him from his slumber. His half-opened eyes looked around. He did not like the idea of being torn away from such a sweet dream. Besides, he was exhausted. He did not want to be disturbed until the morning light broke.

It’s still night...? His eyes flew open. The Dragon Lair!

His gazed traveled up to the dark sky. The clouds were gone, and the moon was full at its height. He stood up and looked around frantically for whatever might be an entrance. When he couldn’t see anything, he put his back against the tree again, and slid down to the ground. His depression made the scraping of his back by the rough bark seem especially pleasant. He sighed heavily.

So much for that idea... How do I get in there? Another wind flew by, pulling some leaves from their harbor on the tree branch. As his eyes followed them, he spied a tiny light coming from behind a rock.

That’s it! He walked over to the rock and inspected it for a moment. Then he picked it up and pushed it out of the way. A larger light poured out from a hole in the ground. He put his fingers through the opening and pulled with all his might. The ground shifted, and he pulled what would have been an enormous chunk of earth...had it not truly been a stone door.

There was a staircase that led down into what seemed to be the heart of the earth itself. On each side, torches that had caused the light to shine up were mounted on each wall at regular intervals.

Seto’s heart jumped into his throat. Adrenaline surged through his muscles, bracing him for anything he might encounter. He took in a deep breath and started his journey down the winding stairs.

He heard eerie sounds coming from aways off. Sinister growls and the constant drip, drip, dripping of water. For the first time since he was a little child, he felt his throat tighten with fear and anticipation. Down he went, an endless spiral into the unknown. He tried to calm himself by reminding himself that he already knew what to expect. After all he had programmed the whole thing, right?

After what seemed like a millennium, Seto reached the bottom. He could not even tell how far he was underground. The darkness encircled him, and he could scarcely see a thing, save one. An archway stood tall and menacing in front of him. The dripping noises continued, to the point that the rhythmic dripping started to fray his nerves. This was truly the lair of the beast. Whatever lied within this level was going to be on a mission to destroy him, just because he was trespassing on such a sacred den. Regardless, he gathered up the last ounces of strength and courage he had, and entered the first chamber.

To his somewhat surprise, the sight of a flurry of tiny green Petit Dragons greeted his eyes.

"You have got to be kidding me," he mumbled. What kind of a challenge is this? He pulled a card from his deck.

"Ryu-Kishin!" he called. The pale gargoyle appeared in front of him. One thousand points may be low, but it’s plenty to destroy these pests. I’ll save my stronger monsters for later. "Attack!" he ordered.

The monster stood and stretched a little, then flew straight up. He dived back down, swiping at a dozen of the little dragons and destroying them.

Seto grinned. This should be a piece of... Huh? He saw something on the ground that he had not noticed before. Several dozen Firegrass plants were anchored to the floor near rocks and such. After his Ryu-Kishin monster finished its attack, the remaining Petit Dragons began growling. On flitted over next to a Firegrass plant, and both were enveloped in white light. Seto watched the transformation before his eyes. The magic card for this chamber was Polymerization!! The two creatures had fused themselves into a Darkfire Dragon. The new monster gave a great roar and released a scorching stream of fire at Seto’s monster, which roared in its own right and vanished. The LP count of the deckholder on his wrist beeped softly as it lowered his life points to 1500.

Alright then. Maybe this will be a little harder than I first imagined.

At least twenty more of the little dragon creatures followed suit, touching the Firegrass and morphing into Darkfire Dragons.

Correction. This will be a LOT harder than I thought.

He drew a card and growled. The Battle Ox is stronger than these, but it’s weak against fire. I’ll have to play it in...

"Defense mode," he said aloud.

Then one of the flaming creatures snarled and released another jet of flames. Seto shielded his face from the heat. Then his Battle Ox appeared and disappeared just as quickly.

He drew another card. "La Ginn, the Mystical Genie!" he cried triumphantly. "And, the Magic Lamp!" He held up the cards.

"Attack!" The genie obeyed, sending out a multicolored blast at a few of the dragons, which promptly vanished in a chorus of roars.

There were only three Darkfire Dragons left. All of them suddenly turned on Seto’s monster, sending out rivers of blazing flames.

"La Ginn, retreat into the lamp!" Seto ordered. The genie was pulled inside, and the dragons' attacks hit the lamp. Seto grinned as he watched the lamp reflect the creatures’ attacks back at them, destroying the remaining monsters.

His La Ginn and Mystic Lamp vanished in a shimmer of light.

Another one of those accursed rules, he thought. Every card that was used in a certain chamber was not allowed to be used in another chamber. So he was going to have to come up with a brand new strategy for each area.

But how do I get there? Looking around he saw that the chamber he stood in was solid all the way around. The only way in or out was through the door he had entered to get there in the first place.

There must be something else I have to do... His thoughts were interrupted by a tiny tinkling sound near his ears.

"Huh?" A tiny little fairy flitted around his head. He followed it with his eyes as best he could as it circled around him repeatedly, then finally came to a rest on top of his head.

Seto frowned. "Get off me," he said angrily, brushing it away. The fairy flitted away from his head, a look of indignance on its petite face. Then it turned and flew off, through a small crack in the wall that he hadn’t seen before.

This must be the way to the next chamber, he thought. He walked over to the wall and looked through the little hole. It was indeed the next chamber, but from what he could see, it was empty.

"Where are the dragons?" he wondered aloud.

The answer came in the form of a squeaking sound, much like that of a baby’s toy.

You have got to be kidding me... Baby Dragons? Wait a minute...

He knew that he was going to have much more than just simple baby dragons to worry about. Nevertheless, he couldn’t let that stop him. He worked his fingers into the little hole and pulled, moving and opening another stone door.

One level down, four to go.

**MUAHAHAHA!!! Think he'll make it through in time to save Delaney?! Find out in the next episode of <big giant voice> MY FANFIC!! <evil laughter>
<grins innocently> well, until then, keep reviewing! :D

Part Eleven
Seto looked around, a little nervous. He could hear the Baby Dragons, but he couldn’t see them. The kiddie-toy squeaks continued and grew gradually louder and more frequent, until they became a loud descant of constant noise. He cringed at the sounds, which went on for several more minutes until suddenly, they were silenced altogether.

He looked around, trying to prepare himself for an attack. Instead, one single Baby Dragon wandered out of the shadows and stood before him.

"Huh?" Seto said, a little confused.

The Baby Dragon gave one little squeak, as if challenging him.

"Fine then. I summon the Judge Man!" Seto announced.

The miniature orange dragon let out a surprised squeak.

"Gotcha," Seto grinned. "Judge Man attack!"

The massive warrior charged at the little dragon, which let out a final squeak of pain before it vanished.

"Too easy," Seto said. He looked down as another Baby Dragon marched out into battle.

Hmmm... Didn’t quite learn your lesson? He was about to order his Judge Man to attack again, when something above his head caught his eye. Another monster floated down and rested just above the Baby Dragon.

Oh, no! A TIME WIZARD?!

"Time Magic..." the little clock-looking creature recited. Then both it and the little Baby Dragon were surrounded by bright light, and Seto watched as the form of the Baby Dragon grew and morphed.

Aww, ####!!

The glowing stopped, and in the place of the first dragon now stood a Thousand Dragon. With a roar, the dragon tilted its head back, then released a gust of toxic gas. Seto’s Judge Man warrior vanished in a cloud of dust. His life point count lowered from 1500 to 1300.

Really gotta stop underestimating this ####, Seto thought. The remnants of the dragon’s attack clouded the whole chamber. Seto suddenly found himself a little short of breath. He gave a small cough, but tried to push it aside.

My Blue-Eyes could wipe this dragon out in a breath of its own...but I can’t risk using it now. I might need it later. Once I’ve played a monster anywhere in this level, it can’t be used again in the Dragon Lair. I’ll have to come up with something else, and quick!

There had to be something in his deck. Something he hadn’t thought of yet. Well, whatever it was, he still couldn’t think of it. So for now, he had to be patient.

"Hitotsu-Me Giant, in defense," he said reluctantly.

The great dragon attacked again, and Seto’s monster again disappeared. Seto felt his chest tighten a little, like having a bad cold. He coughed again- a little more forcefully this time- and found that his breathing had become a little labored.

####ed dragon’s going to poison me to death! Gotta focus. If I keep wasting monsters, I’ll never get out of here. But for now, that’s all I can do...

"Mystic horseman, in defense mode," he said, straining to get more air into his lungs.

The Thousand Dragon looked at him with a cruel smirk on its face. It was clearly enjoying the torture of this player’s deck and body. It reared its ugly head once more and released another attack, but Seto was waiting for it.

"Negate attack!" he announced. That would at least keep him from having to use another monster for a turn. It did not, however, get rid of the dragon’s smoke attack, which permeated the entire chamber. Seto fell to his knees, panting heavily. His sight phased in and out of focus, and the room felt like it was spinning around him.

He reached for his deck. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to withstand another attack from that dragon.

Come on, deck, he pleaded. It’s all up to you...

He pulled out one card, but his eyes wouldn’t tell him what it was.

I’ll just have to play it... he thought weakly. He held up the card, and the monster shimmered into view. He strained to focus his eyes to see what it was.

The Cyber Jar! The machine let out a burst of green energy directly at the Thousand Dragon, which roared in anger. It readied itself to attack, but ran out of time just in time. It disappeared in an enraged roar at its defeat.

The smoke began to clear, and soon settled, but Seto still had difficulty breathing. His sight, however, had returned to normal, and he deemed himself able to go on to the next chamber of the underground lair.

A few tiny specks of light drifted down in front of his eyes. He looked up, and once again the tiny Key Mace fairy fluttered above his head.

"I guess it’s your job to show me the way out?" Seto said.

The little fairy nodded, and pointed its tiny scepter to a nearby pile of rocks. A minuscule stream of water flowed over them and down to the floor. Seto picked up one of the rocks near the top, and the stream became a little larger.

If there’s a lot of water behind here, disturbing these rocks could flood the whole place! He looked back at the elfin creature, who only nodded in reply. Seto looked back at the rock pile and picked up a few more, which he tossed to the side. The stream that had started as a drip was now a slow faucet, running water over the remaining rocks. He reached his hand to pick up another one, but froze when he heard a low rumble echo through the chamber.

I’ve got a real bad feeling about this... Seto thought. He stood and backed away from the rocks and streaming water. Soon the ground started to tremble. He looked back at the rocks. There was now a decent water flow coming through, and a few spaces between the cracks were spurting water sporadically. The whole cave began to shake, and stones came falling down from walls and ceiling. Seto jumped when one particularly boulder-sized rock fell right beside him. His eyes widened as more and more liquid came pouring out of the wall. His eyes darted around the chamber, but the Key Mace was nowhere to be found.

Coward, he thought. Fine with me. Bring it on!

As though the game could sense his thoughts, the rocks suddenly burst forward, and a raging river swept into the chamber. The water surrounded and covered him in a matter of moments. He tried to open his eyes underwater, to get his bearings, but it was too salty. As soon as his eyes even cracked open, they burned agonizingly. So he resorted to kicking blindly through the water, hoping that he would eventually be heading up.

After only a minute of his sightless expedition, he could feel his lungs start to burn. It didn’t help that he hadn’t been able to breathe normally before this. He swam through the water, becoming increasingly dizzy, and praying that he would live through this. He began to wriggle desperately through the steadily rising water.

Finally, his head broke the surface. He coughed harshly as his lungs emptied out, and gasped eagerly for the feel of fresh air in his lungs. He could finally open his eyes, and saw that the water had by now risen to fill over half of the little hollow. His feet weren’t able to reach the bottom, so the lake that was forming had to be at least seven feet deep already.

There was only one way out that he could see, and that was to swim back through the opening in the wall through which the water flowed into the cave. But Seto had no idea how much water was still back there.

I may not be able to break the surface in time, he thought. The water continued to rise steadily, and the space of air between him and the ceiling was closing. He looked up, and saw another pinprick of light coming through the rock above his head!

That’s the way out! He reached up and pushed at the stone ceiling. Unfortunately, with nothing under his feet, he only succeeded in pushing himself underwater. He came up for a breath.

How am I supposed to move this thing!? he thought in desperation. Then an idea struck him. It would be a last-ditch effort, but he had to try.

What if it doesn’t work? I’ll drown in here!

I’m just going to have to take that chance.

The water rapidly filled the remainder of the chamber, spilling over his head. He turned over and swam back down to the very bottom. His hands found the soft mud that had once been the solid ground. He turned back over and aimed himself at the top of the cavern. Then he gathered all the strength he could and pushed off from the bottom with everything he had...

<laughs evilly> isn't this so much fun?! well, i must be off to torture poor seto more! keep reviewing!!

Part Twelve
Seto sped upwards towards the top of the chamber. He braced himself just as his shoulder slammed hard against the stone above him. A sharp jolt of pain shot through his arm, but he had succeeded in his mission. He had felt the piece of rock budge away from its nesting place.

His lungs started to burn again. He had to get out of there now. He pushed up against the piece of stone and kicked fiercely in the water to propel his body upward.

Come on... MOVE!! he pleaded. Seto could feel his legs cramping, and his lungs ached for air. He had to consciously keep his mouth shut, otherwise he was sure his body would have no qualms about taking in a lungful of water.

Oh, God...please don’t let me die in here! He had worked too hard in his life to die from drowning!! Assassination- that he could handle. Horrible technological accident- even better. But there was no way he was going to let himself be sent to his grave by a little WATER!!! Every muscle in his body screamed for release, but he could not do it. Not until...

THE ROCK MOVED!!!! Seto felt the stone above him shift again and loosen from its place. With one great heave, he pushed it up and slid it onto what was ground above him. Then he broke up through the surface of the water, coughing and panting hard. Though he was exhausted, he managed to pull himself up and out through the hole onto solid ground. There he collapsed to the floor, still breathing heavily. His clothes were sopping wet, and his hair released streams of water that dripped down his face and into his eyes. His head spun with dizziness, and the chill of the cavern was amplified by his soaked clothing.

What I wouldn’t give for a nice warm fire right about now... he thought. Just then, he noticed a bright flash of light out of the corner of his eye. He slowly picked himself up onto his hands and knees. When he looked, he saw a small fire blazing warmly near one of the walls.

Okkk... that was waaaaaay too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence... A single high screech then pierced his ears and resounded through the cave. It took several moments to fully echo off, and was followed by an eerie silence.

Seto looked around at the upper heights of the cavern. The apparent lack of threat was extremely unnerving. He liked to face an opponent who attacked head on, instead of lurking in the shadows. Right now, however, he wasn’t sure if had any strength reserves to fight with.

Another screech echoed through the area, and Seto was struck with a sense of familiarity.

I’ve heard that sound before... He closed his eyes, trying to use the sound to create a mental picture from his memory. Whatever was making the noise, it was obvious that Seto had faced it before.

The wind blew through his hair, pushing a few stray strands in front of his eyes. He was high up somewhere, but still exposed to the outside. A window was open? No, he WAS outside. On a roof...

He felt a hot blaze travel by his cheek. His eyes flew open and he dodged to the left as a stream of fire came at him. He looked around and realized that a dozen or more little fires had been started all over the floor of the chamber. He looked at them more closely, and also noticed that they weren’t burning on wood or leaves.

Then what are they consuming...? he thought. Before he could think of an answer, a huge figure came swooping down at him. He had barely enough time to react and duck as the giant creature sailed over his head and then flew back up, into the shadows.

I’ve got to get a monster out, otherwise, I’m open for an attack! Seto realized. But how do I know what to play if I can’t see it?!

He growled. "Come on out!" he called heatedly. "What’s wrong, afraid I’ll beat you too easy?!"

In reply came another shrill screech. Then above his head, the image of a new dragon appeared. A Curse of Dragon looked down at him with evil red eyes. It opened its mouth and another hot stream of fire rained down. Seto ducked and covered his head, but the blaze didn’t hit him. Instead, he looked around and found himself surrounded by a ring of flames. The Curse of Dragon stared at its prey, obviously thinking it had sealed Seto’s demise.

No single monster I have can beat that creature, so I’ll just have to use a combo...

"Ryu-Kishin Powered!" he called. The monster appeared in front of him and gave a low roar.

Seto imagined that if the Curse of Dragon could laugh, it would be doing so. Instead it shot out another trail of flames, which destroyed Seto’s creature. His life points lowered from 1300 to 900. As much as he had not wanted to, he had to sacrifice the points to destroy the monster.

Gotcha, he thought. would have imagined that monsters are smart enough not to be beaten by the same strategy twice, but I suppose I was wrong.

"I play Swordstalker!" he announced. "Attack!"

The dark warrior leapt up, and slashed its wicked blade at the dragon. The creature gave a shriek in surprise right before it disappeared.

Swordstalker’s attack was originally 2000, but playing it after Ryu-Kishin was destroyed gave him an extra 400.

Now that the Curse of Dragon was gone, Seto was still left with one tiny problem. He was surrounded by fire, and the ring was becoming gradually smaller. Somehow, the flames were feeding directly off the stone floor.

Burning Land, he thought. There’s no other way fire could consume solid rock. He looked around, but he could find no gap in the flames, which were now leaping as high as the ceiling. Drops of sweat trickled down his still-soaked face, mixing with the salt water already in his eyes.

The water! he thought. He turned to look for the hole in the floor, but couldn’t see it anywhere. Finally he spotted it, but to his dismay, the fire had spread across it and was burning right on the water’s surface.

Okay, scrap that idea... Now what? The blazing circle closed in on him another few inches, and was steadily moving in.

Seto then heard the familiar sound of tiny tinklings. Indeed, the Key Mace made its programmed appearance once again to help him.

"I’m open to suggestions," he said mockingly. The fairy shrugged, then giggled like a madman as it flew away, followed by it’s signature trail of sparkles.

"AARGGGHH!!" he roared.

Why did I even bother...? he thought in frustration. Then he felt as if someone had smacked him across the cheek. His body stood at full attention as the answer came to his mind.

Delaney. The thought of seeing her gave him a surge of determination.

Wait a minute, don’t I have a water monster in my deck? he thought. Grappler! It’s a long shot, but it’s the only shot I have.

He pulled the card out of the deckholder on his wrist. He looked around. The flames were within only a few feet of burning him to a cinder. The edges of his clothes were already becoming singed and scorched.

He held up the card. Just then, a stray spark leapt up and hit the card, which combusted in his hand. He dropped what was left of it and blew cool air on his burnt fingers.

#### IT!! That was his last hope. Now, he was going to fall victim not to water, but to its opposite. The heat of the fire was causing him to swelter, and he could almost feel blisters forming on his skin. He sank to his knees in a mix of despair and mental exhaustion.

No...it can’t end here! I’ve come so far... Delaney...

That was his last thought before he passed out from the heat.

**This is so much FUN!!! I am now a major fan of Seto torture!! <runs off to write the next part and torture him some more> <maniacal grin>

Part Thirteen
Seto’s eyes fluttered open slowly. "Uuunnnggghhh..." was all he managed to groan. He awoke to find himself surrounded by a shallow puddle of water less than an inch deep.

"Huh? The fire... What happened?" he murmured. I must have passed out. But then why am I still in the cave?

A drop of water fell from above and splashed down on his cheek. He wiped his face with his hand, and when he opened his eyes, he was gazing at the ceiling.

Those stalactites...they look smaller than before...

"Icicles," he said softly. They hadn’t been stalactites at all; they were giant icicles!

The fire melted them. The dripping water must have put out the flames.

He sighed in relief and remained on the ground for a few long moments, extremely grateful for this chance to rest. His thoughts drifted off again, to silky black hair and a pair of emerald eyes...

I’ve made it this far, and I’m not giving up now. Not after she did so much... It had been the simplest things; like how cute she was when she got mad at him, or how she hit him and expected it to hurt. Those seemed to be the things that had melted his heart the most. There were other things, too. She hadn’t been afraid to tell him off when he’d deserved it, and for that she had gained his great respect. It was strange how he would have not even given her another thought had she not been able to make him so fierce with anger. Then, even after he had shown off the jerk he really was, she still tried to be nice to him. No one had ever put forth that much effort on his behalf; not even Mokuba.

So now he was prepared to do just as much, maybe more, to be with her again.

He picked himself up out of the puddle and stood up, fresh sources of strength flowing through him. Then he noticed a few stray twinkles fall in front of his eyes and land softly on his nose. He looked up, and sure enough, the charming little Key Mace flitted a foot or so above his head.

"You know, this is really getting annoying," Seto said.

The Key Mace feigned a look of wounded pride, then shot off through a tunnel at the other end of the cavern. Seto followed, kicking up sprays of water as he ran.

He stopped at the entrance to the tunnel. He could feel a strong breeze flowing through it, and the end wisps of wind pushed the damp hair out of his face. A sense of nervousness crept over him. Who knew what would be at the other end of that tunnel? Well, normally he would, but he was still on kind of an adrenaline rush at the moment.

He wandered into the passageway, which had become a small river in the process of those dripping icicles. As he pushed forward, the wind started to kick up and push back. His coat flailed behind him, and he had to shield his eyes against the gale’s force. Finally, he found himself at the other end of the tunnel. The wind almost knocked him over, but he grasped the edges of rock to keep his balance. He fell down on one knee anyway, after an earsplitting roar shook the entire cave. A few stray rocks fell on top of his head.

What the hell was that?! In the distance, the roar was followed by sounds of giggling.

Seto stood back up, still being pushed back by heavy winds, which were gradually starting to secede. He looked around the newest chamber to see what he would be up against. There, in one corner of the cave, stood his newest nemesis.

A Harpie Lady? I thought this was the D-R-A-G-O-N lair...

Another deafening roar rang out through the cavern. Seto ducked and covered his ears against the painfully loud call.

Ok, THAT was NOT a Harpie Lady. Then what...? Now he noticed the chain that hung from the hand of the Harpie.

"Ooohhh, this is not good," he muttered. Once again, a strong gust sailed by, almost knocking him over. From a high shelf of rock in the chamber, two more Harpies swooped down and took their places next to the first. Each one now had a chain hanging from its hand.

That means... Seto looked hard into the deep shadow behind the three creatures, trying to confirm his suspicions. The Harpie Ladies all let out a loud, shrill call at once, and out of the blackness marched exactly what Seto had thought it would be:

Harpie’s Pet Dragon.

Seto took a step back and looked up at the massive pink dragon.

Pink dragon? I always thought Pegasus was a nutjob...

The presence of the three Harpie Ladies raised the dragon’s attack to 2900, that he knew. Unfortunately, there was only one creature in his deck that could beat that. Well, technically there were three.

The dragon opened its jaws, and produced a more intense blast of air than any he had encountered yet. He planted his feet firmly into the ground beneath him and clung almost desperately to the edge of the tunnel’s exit.

When the monsters saw that he was determined not to be defeated, the Harpies released the chain and started soaring around in strange patterns, back and forth above his head. The dragon stood at its place, waiting for Seto to fight back.

I have the feeling I’m going to regret this...

"Blue-Eyes White Dragon!" he called. The card shimmered and shot out brilliant beams of pure white light, which burst forth and created the silhouette of the massive dragon. The light faded, but the image of the terrifying beast remained.

"White lightning attack!!!"

The creature opened it own huge jaws and released a beam of pure energy at the lesser dragon, which screeched loudly and vanished.

He looked up at the Harpies, who had frozen in awe in their places. He gave a sinister grin as he ordered his own creature to attack again.

As the Harpies disappeared, he turned back around to see something else emerge from the shadows. A spike-tipped chain shot forward and pierced through the heart of Seto’s Blue-Eyes. It passed out through the other side and then aimed into his deck.

"Aaahh! A Chain Destruction card?!?!"

That automatically destroys the other two Blue-Eyes in my deck!! He looked up at the dragon he had already summoned. Since he had completed the level, the monster disappeared from view.

"NO!" he cried. There’s still one last level to go through, and my best card’s been destroyed!!*

Seto looked around and was suddenly aware that the cave walls had started to vanish as well. The were replaced by huge, straight stone walls covered with intricate carvings. The chamber the new surroundings created was huge. The ceiling was well over twenty feet high, and he couldn’t even begin to measure the general size of the room. In the center was a large depression in the floor, about twenty-five by thirty feet or so. At one end of the chamber, a massive table rose up from the ground and became surrounded by figures in red robes. At the other end rose up a big chair, which was quickly surrounded by figures dressed in similar, but white, robes.

Seto found himself standing near the edge of the square pit in the floor, and across from him, another person seemed to materialize from nowhere.

"Huh?" His eyes widened as he got his first good look at the guy. He was about Seto’s height and build. Seto was struck with the sudden sense of looking into a mirror. Underneath priestly looking robes and headdress, a lock of brown hair hung between the guy’s eyes, which were also a very familiar shade of blue...

"You think you can defeat the great sorcerer?" Seto’s opponent bellowed. "We’ll see just how mighty you are."

Seto took a step back. Normally, he would have leapt at the challenge to duel, but right now he was also aware that his supply of useable monsters was running dangerously low. He wouldn’t even have his Blue-Eyes to help him.

I’ve got to try, he thought. If I give up now, there’s no hope of saving Delaney. And I'll have come all the way through this for nothing

He took a moment to survey the room again. Looking at the red-robed figures, he realized that they were guarding not a table, but some kind of altar. Their quiet chanting now reached his ears. He looked at the opposite end of the room, where there was now seated a shadowy figure on a throne. The white robes surrounded the throne and its occupant, and their chanting floated on the air as well.

He looked back at his newest adversary. "I accept your challenge."

*Um, yeah, if you hadn't already figured, this part was written BEFORE he got Obelisk, 'k?

Part Fourteen
"Then let the battle begin!" the sorcerer cried. "I begin by summoning..." he held up what looked like a small golden scepter.

"The Koumori Dragon!"

The creature rose up from the pit between Seto and his opponent; a wicked dragon with a malevolent look about it.

Seto narrowed his eyes. "I summon the Rude Kaiser!" he called as he held up his card. In the signature flash and fading of light, his creature appeared in the pit, which he had now guessed was what went for an arena around here. "Attack!"

The alligator-looking monster charged and attacked. The dragon disappeared in another flash of light.

Seto’s challenger growled angrily.

"Not a bad strategy for an amateur," he said. "But I have many far more powerful monsters at my disposal." He held up his scepter again. "I summon Tyhone the Dragon!"*

Whaaattt...? The new dragon looked little more than a red bowling ball with a snout. You’ve got to be kidding me.

"Attack his beast, my faithful pet!" Despite the tiny size of its wings compared to its body, the little dragon lifted off the ground. It spat out huge fireballs from its muzzle; one, two, three of them. Seto watched in amazement as the Rude Kaiser was destroyed in a sea of blaze. Seto looked at the Life Point counter on his wrist, which beeped quietly as it lowered his score to 800.

Ok...not good, he thought. I’m running out of options here. Guess it’s time to use a magic card or two...

"I call out the Lord of Dragons," he announced.

"Another weak creature. Is that the best you’ve got?"

At the moment, yeah, it is. "And I use this: Go, Shadow Spell!"

"A dark curse!**" his adversary cried. "What sort of magic is this?"

"Shadow Spell lowers the strength of your monster, so now you will lose if you attack," Seto explained.

"That may be what you believe, but it is not the truth. I beckon the Blackland Dragon!" The new monster was a strange green contrast to the red of the guy’s last monster. "Attack his warrior!"

Seto shielded his eyes from the heat of the blaze. When he looked back, his monster had already vanished from the field, and his adversary was laughing cruelly. He lost another 300 Life Points in that attack, leaving him with only 500 to spare.

Seriously running out of options here. Come on, think!

"Steel Ogre Grotto*, destroy the red dragon!" he called, holding up his card. The creature that appeared was a mammoth black machine. Before Seto’s opponent had a chance to react, Tyhone was already smashed to bits.

"Nooo!" the sorcerer cried. "You will pay for that!"

"Look," Seto said. "I’m after something, and right now you are the only thing standing in my way." He narrowed his eyes. "So if you think that I’m going to lose to you, you’ve got another thing coming."

Kaiba’s challenger narrowed his eyes. "I see. You are after the great resurrection magic. You should know that hundreds of men have tried to obtain it, but none have ever gotten past me."

"Then I’ll be the first. It’s your turn."

"And I will use all the magic I have to call on my mightiest monster!" He held up his scepter once again, and it glowed intensely. The whole chamber was bathed in a blinding light. Then, quickly as it had come, it faded, and on the field stood an enormous white dragon.

A Blue-Eyes?! No way! Kaiba gritted his teeth.

"And now, I choose to merge him with the power of his brothers, forming the most powerful beast ever!"

Seto watched on in panic as one Blue-Eyes became three, and the three became the most fearsome beast he had ever faced:

His own Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

Seto’s eyes were widened in utter shock at the sight of the dragon. Then his attention turned to his opponent, who looked a little weak. The guy was panting heavily, like all the energy had been drained from him.

"Whatever monster you choose to summon will be no match for the power of my dragon," he said quietly.

He doesn’t have enough magic to make the dragon attack. So I have one turn, and I’d better make it count.

He looked at the deck on his arm. There was absolutely no monster that could wipe out a creature that strong in one turn. He thought about conceding.

NO! I have never given up. I may have lost a duel... He gritted his teeth at the thought. ...but I’ve NEVER given up. There has to be something. Some strategy I haven’t thought of yet. He put his hand to his deck. I trusted in my deck to help me save my brother... He drew a card. ...and now I have to rely on it again.

He looked at the card in his hand. He blinked once, almost in disbelief. Then, slowly, a malicious grin spread across his face. He pulled one other card from his deck, but this time, he knew exactly what he was doing.

"I call out Saggi the Dark Clown!" he said. The monster appeared, and looked like a dwarf in comparison to the mighty Ultimate Dragon. "Then, I place both my monsters to defend me."

Seto’s adversary laughed. A cruel, sinister chuckle that turned Seto’s stomach.

"I’m glad to see that you are accepting your defeat, but must you also embarrass yourself?"

Seto didn’t answer. He stood just stood there, his face like a mask.

His opponent’s face fell when he realized that his taunts weren’t even phasing Seto.

"Just hurry up and finish your turn," Seto called irritably. One attack and you’re finished...

"Fine! Attack now, my ultimate dragon!" The monster’s attack caused the whole chamber, inside and out, to vanish into whiteness. The force of the explosion rocked the entire place. Seto felt himself fall and hit the ground. Though he could scarcely hear anything else over the roar and rumbling, he could here the demented cackling of his opponent.

Finally the light faded and the rocking stopped. The sorcerer had an evil grin on his face.

"I have defeated you!!" he called triumphantly.

"Are you so sure?" Seto asked with an equally wicked smile on his face. He stood up. "Just look at your formidable dragon now."

They both looked at the dragon, which was bellowing loudly. Slowly, it started to dissolve into little speckles of light.

"NOOOO!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DRAGON?!?!"

Seto let out his own sinister snickers. "Just a little magic. The Virus of Death! All your strongest monsters are destroyed, including your Ultimate Dragon."

"NNNNOOOOOOOOO..........!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the sorcerer screamed. Both he and the dragon were enveloped in light. When the light faded, both had vanished.

Seto sank to his knees. He had actually defeated his own strongest monster. The thought struck him as almost funny. There was one time where he thought it was invincible, but now he could see that there was almost nothing that was.

Not even himself.

He looked up as the robed figures on each end of the room vanished. Then, he saw a tiny light emitting from the top of the altar-table thing. Cautiously, he walked over to it. Placed neatly in the center was his prize for completing the challenge of the Dragon Lair: Monster Reborn.

He took it gently into his hand, afraid that it might break if he touched it wrong. Then he held the card above his head.

"Monster Reborn, restore the player Delaney!"

Light shot out from the card.

*actually the cards Tyhone #2 and Steel Ogre Grotto #2, but I thought it kind of sounded dumb to say their names like that...
**kind of a mini-joke. the Japanese name of the card is actually Darkness Curse, if you didn't know (does someone want to tell me how "Darkness Curse" is any different than "Shadow Spell"?)
Also, i was torn between making the guy's last monster a BEUD or a REBMD. lemme know which one you guys think i should make it in the final draft. i really do appreciate your opinions!

Part Fifteen
The light traveled back to the pit/dueling arena and settled there. In a moment, it had morphed into a human shape. Then it faded away. In its place, a feminine figure lay on the ground. Though her back was to him, Seto could see her jet-black hair was sopping wet, and there was a band of cloth tied around her shoulder. His heart jumped into his throat. Anticipation coursed through him faster than his own blood could carry it. The black tank top she wore had a large, long rip on one side. Her pants were caked with mud all the way up to her calf. Exactly as she was imprinted on his memory, and exactly how he had seen her last. He remembered thinking how bad they had looked, muddy and drenched. Now, just as she was, he found that her appearance appealed to him more than any other woman he had ever seen.

As fast as his legs would carry him, he ran up to her and knelt down in front of her sleeping form.

"Delaney," he whispered.

Her eyes slowly opened. She looked up at him with a groggy look. "Seto...?" She sat up a little and looked around. He smiled at her, then turned away for a moment, to wipe away a single tear that streamed down his cheek before she saw it.

"Where are we?" she asked softly.

"You’re here with me. Isn’t that enough?" he replied.

Delaney smiled, and Seto leaned in and kissed her. Three days of love and loss flowed through him. To have her back with him...it was an emotion that he couldn’t even comprehend, let alone try to begin to express. All he could do was kiss her, feel her warmth against his skin, her lips against his. She reached up and put her hand against his cheek. Her touch was so soft, so...reassuring. He almost couldn’t stand it. He could hardly stand himself.

In the back of his mind, his automated response system was still trying to stop him. He still had the tiniest feelings that he shouldn’t be doing this, that emotion shows weakness.

Weakness be ####ed. Finally, he pushed the thoughts from his mind entirely. He couldn’t stand it any longer. Seto pushed himself on her a little more forcefully, and both of them sank to the ground. He pushed the strap of her tank top off the edge of her shoulder, then lightly slid his fingers along her collarbone. Delaney drew in a sharp breath, and he felt her chest rise and fall beneath him. Her near presence stirred emotions and produced sensations he didn’t even know existed before this. He took her in an embrace, and kept kissing her, with each passing moment more and more force and passion. More than just those three days, but suddenly it seemed as if a lifetime of bitterness was swept away. He could feel nothing- nothing in his mind or heart except the aching love he felt for her. He wanted her. He needed her to be with him.

They pulled apart momentarily, both of their breathing coming closer to panting, and their hearts racing, thundering in their ears.

"Delaney," Seto whispered softly, "there’s something I need to tell you..."

Delaney put a finger over his mouth. "It’s ok, you don’t have to tell me anything."

"I want to tell you this," he said. She looked up at him, pure affections reflecting in her emerald eyes. He stared at her, completely captivated for a long moment. Her eyes, as green as the sea, could drown him in an instant, and he knew it. He had completely lost control of himself, of his mind. The most bizarre thing was that he didn’t care. He willingly surrendered himself completely to her power, and he didn’t mind in the least. He trusted her with his heart, as he had never done with anyone else. Not even his own brother had so successfully been able to break into the most tender parts of his heart. That privilege he now knew had been saved for the woman he loved, and no one else.

The woman...I love, he thought. But how could he tell her? No words could possibly express the care he held for her. There was no way to put into words what she had done to him. The one who had started as just another girl, had evolved into the one woman that his heart desired.

"Seto...?" Delaney said softly, breaking into his reverie. "You were...going to say something...?"

He gave her a smile warm enough to melt ice on contact. He shook his head. "Nevermind." He knew a better way. Something far more powerful than words. He took her into his arms and kissed her again. Their lips brushed softly at first, but once again the kiss grew in intensity. He could feel her fingers crawl up his side, and then start working out the buttons of his shirt. His hand moved instinctively to the tear in the side of her shirt, where it met with her bare skin. Then he kissed her neck. He could feel her breath catch. She ran her hand through his hair and kissed his cheek. Her touch fired a heat through his body that was a million times more intense than any fury he had ever mustered. His advances on her became more desperate, and he could feel her responses.

Game be ####ed. Seto knew that what he did then and there could never be forgotten. Though some may argue that it wasn’t really his body that partook in such an action, it was all the same to him. The body is merely a vessel for the life force of the mind, and his mind processed every sense and every action. Another loss of self it became, in a certain sense, but it was a part of himself that he was quite willing to be rid of. It would be the last time he would ever remember not having his usual air of confidence and power. Everything he had built himself to be was stripped away in moments, leaving her to see him for the lonely, introverted, awkward teenage boy that he was. He felt himself undeserving of her. She too, seemed the lonely little girl, but to his eyes, to his heart, she was the epitome of beauty and elegance. A creature of angelic grace, that had been sent to him from heaven.

Now she slept beside him, her body leaning against his and her head nestled easily in the crux of his shoulder. He was seated upright against the wall, still not quite sure how they had gotten over there. He chuckled a little at the thought. He brushed her hair out of her face and gazed at her. Even asleep, she could rival the splendor of the very stars. His heart soared. For all the magnificent being that she was, she had chosen to give her love to him. Through all his facades of the careless, insensitive, even cruel personas that others found in him, she loved him anyway. He knew it. And he loved her as well. It was a hard fact that could no longer be denied.

So sue me, he thought. He yawned a little. Seto had finally hit the lull after the rush of adrenaline and a cocktail of God-only-knows-how-many OTHER hormones. He put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him, then rested his head gently on top of hers. He could feel her chest rise and fall, and he could still feel the gentle thumping of his own heart. Their rhythms fell into synch with each other, and they lulled his mind into a deep sleep. But not one without its pleasant dreams of the woman he held at his side.

**ok, for some reason, all my romance chapters tend to be really short. <sighs> oh, well. still pretty potent, i'd say. NOW REVIEW!

Part Sixteen

The next morning, Seto awoke to the annoying yet strangely pleasant sounds of birds chirping. Delaney was still cuddled next to him, and he couldn’t help but smile a little. He looked around with sleepy eyes.

How...did we get back outside? he thought. He felt Delaney stir beside him.

"Seto...?" she said, still half-asleep. He looked at her, but didn’t answer.

"If this is a dream, please don’t ever wake me up," she said quietly.

It did feel like a dream. And not those strange nightmares that made you feel disconnected from your body. This was like some kind of enchanted dream. Seto felt like he had died and gone to heaven.

Although how I would get in so fast is a complete mystery...

Delaney looked up at him with eyes that still weren’t quite all the way open.

"Now what?" she asked.

"Now what what?" Seto replied.

"Ohhh...don’t do that. It’s too early," Delaney complained.

Seto chuckled. "What’s wrong with what we’re doing right now?"

"Absolutely nothing," Delaney said grinning. "But I think it will be kind of strange if people pass by and see two teenagers just sitting here in the middle of the woods." She shifted around a little more, right before she let out a shout.

"Ouch!" She touched her shoulder gingerly. It still had the strip of cloth tied to it, and the material was stained with blood that had soaked through.

"Hey, careful," Seto said. He gently untied the rag and took it off her shoulder. The wound had started to heal, but was still caked with old blood.

Delaney glanced at the injury and wrinkled her nose. "Gross," she muttered.

"Come on," Seto said, and helped her to her feet. "I think I know somewhere we can go to help that."

Delaney looked around. "I just hope you know your way out of here."

"Of course I do." Seto looked around, too. At least...I should. He retraced his path from the wrecked temple to the forest in his mind. Ok, so...east should get us out of here and to the beach. Good enough for me.

He looked up at the sky. Judging from the remnants of pale pink on the clouds, it was still morning, so all the had to do was follow the sun.

"Follow me," he said, gently taking her hand. She followed behind him, for once devoid of complaints. They made their way through the thick foliage, emerging from the wood less than an hour later.

"See, that wasn’t so bad," Seto said.

Delaney smacked at her arm. "Insects not included," she muttered. Seto bit his lower lip to keep from chuckling. Somehow, Delaney had managed to attract every variety of mosquito and other forest insect known to mankind. Her arms and legs each had several little red bumps, and Seto saw her fist repeatedly clench and relax, trying to resist the temptation to scratch.

"I bet it’s because you’re so sweet," he said jokingly.

"Better watch out for the competition," Delaney replied.

"I’m offended that you would compare me to an insect," Seto retorted.

Delaney put her arms around his neck. "Well, sometimes, you do creep me out," she said with a grin. Then she turned and headed for the ocean’s edge.

Seto followed. Delaney stopped at the edge of the water and let the waves roll up over her feet. She stared out at the water, a faraway look on her face. Seto couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking about, although he could definitely make some guesses.

"Seto?" she asked softly.

"Yes?" he answered.

She turned to look at him. "How did we end up in that...wherever we were?"

Seto looked out over the water, and admired how the wave crests glittered when the sunlight struck them. "We...I uh..." he couldn’t seem to articulate what exactly had happened. That in itself was fairly uncharacteristic of him, he loved to brag. Somehow, he just didn’t feel it would be a good idea...

Delaney looked at him, her deep green eyes soft. Her fingers traveled down and held against his, intertwining ever so slightly. He felt such a sense of comfort with her. He didn’t have to pretend to be the hardhearted person that everyone thought he was. Instead he felt himself driven to be what she imagined him to be: just a sweet, humble, average guy. He liked that- a lot. Telling her what happened just didn’t seem right, but when she came close to his ear and whispered, "Please, tell me what happened...", that’s when he broke down.

"You were...attacked by the dragon," he started. His eyes became glassy with the memories of his own emotions.

"How did I get back?" she asked gently, apparently trying to not prod to far.

Seto blushed a little. "I, uh, used a magic card..." he stammered. "I used Monster Reborn to bring you back."

"Monster Reborn?" she asked. "Isn’t that impossible to use here?"

"Almost. A person can only use it if they get through the Dragon Lair..." He stopped, realizing that he had just spilled the entire beans.

"The Dragon Lair?" Delaney asked, a little confused.

Seto sighed. Might as well let her know. He explained what the level was, how to find it, and what had happened to him inside.

Delaney looked at him with wide eyes. "You did that all, just for me?" she asked, completely stunned.

Seto felt himself getting a little red. He couldn’t even answer verbally, he just kind of nodded his head.

She smiled at him, an expression warmed with gratitude and admiration. "No one’s ever done anything like that for me," she said. "Heh, not even close."

Seto chuckled. She looked so sweet, he felt his blood getting heated again. Somehow, simple things like her gestures and her tiniest features, he had been able to memorize. He was so enamored with her, that he almost couldn’t wait to get out of this game, find out if she was really just like this. But then again, he wouldn’t be able to bear leaving this beautiful place, to leave her at all. He wanted to freeze this one moment in time, to carry it around with him like the locket he wore beneath his shirt.

Delaney stepped closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. They stood there a long while, gazing at the ocean’s majesty. In Seto’s mind, it still paled in comparison to Delaney. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had ever felt so...content. Or if he ever had at all.

Seto took Delaney into his arms and looked into green eyes again. He could get easily drowned in their ocean-like depths. She looked at him, and he could tell she felt the same way. He just knew. He closed his eyes, and leaned in to kiss her...

...And then she was no more. The ocean fell away, the sky and the clouds disappeared, and Delaney vanished as well, right before him. Then the ground gave way, and he felt himself falling a loooong way down....

ok, better? worse? should i give up now and spend my time doing homework like i'm supposed to be anyway? it's up to you!

Seto sat there, awake, but he kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut. No, no, no, no, no! Why did it have to end there?! Send me back!! he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs. He kept silent. Maybe if he kept his eyes closed, he wouldn’t wake up...

Or maybe I’m just being an idiot. He opened his eyes and found himself back in the virtu-pod in the lab. The blonde-haired secretary looked at him from behind a glass window.

"Are you ok, Mr. Kaiba?" she asked, a hint of puzzlement in her voice.

Of course I’m not ok!! I just got ripped away from the only happy moment of my life!!

"Yes, I’m fine," he answered. He tried to mimic his old, low, gruff tone of voice, but he couldn’t quite seem to manage, at least not to his own ears. He got himself out of the pod. Glancing at the clock, he noticed that it was poised exactly two hours later than when he looked at it last.

Two hours...? I’ve lived three days of my life in two hours? No way. I can’t believe that none of that actually happened... The thought caused the corner of his eye to glimmer with the birth of a tiny tear.

"Mr. Kaiba?" the secretary asked again.

He looked up at her, his face hard as normal. "We ran background files on all the participants, right?" he asked.

"Of course..." she said, obviously confused.

"I want them all on my desk in an hour, got it?" he snapped. The woman hadn’t even nodded her reply by the time he had turned and left the room.

As he walked, he couldn’t shake the feeling of disorientation. Three days. Three days that had vanished, just like the game had around him. Three days of his life that simply did not exist. He couldn’t stand that idea. How could that much of something simply not happen? It really did, he knew it did. Then again, how does one define reality? Had he somehow found more of a realistic life in a virtual reality game? Some people go through their whole lives without any semblance of reality.

He had originally planned to head back up to his loft, but some unknown force guided him instead to his office. He sat down in the comfortable- and very expensive- desk chair and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city below him was enveloped in a dense gray fog. How depressing. If he strained his eyes, Seto could almost see the silhouettes of the few fairly recognizable Domino buildings: the school clock tower, a few other not-so-high rise buildings, and...the Kame game shop?

His self-hypnosis was broken by a short knock at the door. The same blonde-haired secretary strode in and placed a stack of file-folders on his desk.

"The files you requested," she said almost curtly.

Kaiba nodded in reply, not even moving to look at her. Perhaps it was true that environment plays a harsh hand in human behavior. He hadn’t been back in the "real" world for more than twenty minutes, but just being in his office made him feel like he was his same old self. It repulsed him to some extent. On one hand, this was who he had been all his life; on the other hand, he was starting to like the person that he had grown to become in the last few days. Hours. Whatever.

Just as the woman reached the door, Seto turned to face his desk and muttered a low "Thank you," before she left. She was obviously surprised by the gesture, because he noticed that she stopped a moment before shutting the door.

He sighed and slid the folders towards himself. He flipped open the first one and scanned through it. He already knew what he was looking for. Inside was a complete profile, including a picture. The whole thing kind of resembled a police file. He always made sure that he had all the information there was on anyone who came even remotely in contact with his company.

Unfortunately, this particular file had a picture of a young boy with really short blonde hair. Not quite what I’m looking for... Seto thought.

He impatiently leafed through the next four files. Still the photos weren’t showing what he wanted. One was a girl with long red hair (So not her real color,); another with dark hair, but dark brown eyes; the third a white-haired young boy (What is this, Albino City?); and another girl with blonde braided pigtails. That last one made his stomach churn.

He looked at the final one on his desk. That’s got to be it. He opened it, and to his supreme chagrin, it was still not what he was looking for. He closed the file and furrowed his brow in thought. If these were the files of all six recruits, and Delaney was not one of them, how did she get into the game?

He picked up all six files and scanned them again. Not one of them was even the remotest description of the girl he was looking for. He turned to his computer and ordered it to search the company system for anyone who had accessed the virtual game in the last two days. Nothing. No record of any attempts to hack into KaibaCorp’s mainframe, and no one had been in that virtual game except for him and the six people whose life stories sat in clean manila folders on his desk.

What is going on? he thought. Maybe she was that good of a hacker that she didn’t leave a trace. Is that even possible? He shook his head. Not on my system. I’m not even that good. So why was there no record of her anywhere?

It was time to put his own hacking skills to the test. Bypassing the city’s Records Department security was the easy part, the difficult task was to be looking through everything. He had nothing to go one except a first name (which now occurred to him could be an alias) and one incredibly accurate physical description.

His concentration was broken by a knock at his door. He looked up suddenly as the blonde secretary poked her head into his office.

"Mr. Kaiba?" she said, almost meekly.

"Yes?" he said, sounding strangely polite.

"You have a call on line one," she informed him.

"Thanks," he said, back to his more brusque self. The woman left, and Kaiba picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey big brother," a childish voice greeted.

"Mokuba? What do you need?"

"Nothing. I was just...um...wondering when you were coming home. You, uh, left kinda early this morning..."

As Seto listened to his brother’s voice, he could already tell the real reason Mokuba was calling. It usually happened around this time every afternoon.

"Still having trouble with your math?" he asked.

Seto could practically hear the sheepish expression on his brother’s face. "Yeah. Could you help me?" Mokuba asked.

Seto grinned. "I’ve just got one more thing to do here, and then I’ll be home as soon as I can, ok?"

"Ok!" Mokuba said "Bye, Seto," he said.

He paused a moment before he replied. "Bye," he said softly, hanging up the phone.

He looked back at his computer, ready to enter some kind of search that would lead him to what he was looking for. Before he entered anything, he stopped a moment, his fingers hovering over the keyboard.

What am I doing? It’s not like she just ceased to exist. I’ll probably see her tomorrow at school, he reasoned. It would also give him a nice opportunity to ask her how exactly she got into the game in the first place.

He closed out his computer, stood up and left. This matter could wait until tomorrow. Right now, he had to help someone with their pre-algebra homework.

**ok, not the best chapter, but it was a necessary transition piece. But still, i hope you like, and don't forget to review! <ONCE, i might add...>

Part Eighteen

Kaiba stood at his locker. If he didn’t head to third period soon, he was going to be late, just like he had to first and second already. He couldn’t help himself. He stood there still, watching every person as they passed by. He hadn’t seen Delaney anywhere yet, but there was still a long rest of the day to go through. The hall gradually cleared and the crowd of students thinned out to a trickle. Seto winced as the bell rang.

####. He sauntered off to his next class.

And so went his day, and still not one trace of Delaney. He became more and more puzzled, and more and more impatient. He really wanted to see her again. Seto had gone through that entire day only for her, since concentrating on assignments was pretty much impossible in his condition.

Eventually, he found himself back at his downtown high-rise. Exactly where this little adventure of his had begun only yesterday. It still unnerved him that... well, this whole ordeal was starting to unnerve him. He sat at his computer, and started searching anything he could: local online yellow pages, records departments, heck, he even thought of hacking into the police department. If she WAS some kind of master hacker, she might have a record. Or she may have hacked it right out.

After hours, his eyes hurt from staring at the blinking screen, and he STILL hadn’t found a trace of her. His eyes narrowed in anger. He stood up sharply and walked to the window. Not only was he now upset that he just couldn’t find the one woman he was still in love with, but he was angry at himself for letting someone get into the game without detection. It wasn’t possible!! How could HE, of all people, be so careless? Or so outdone! By a GIRL!!

His thoughts threw him into a rage, and he turned back to his desk. In a fit he swept his arm across it, knocking everything off and sending the computer across the room. It shattered against the force of the wall, and he just looked at it with a blank stare on his face. The machine sputtered and hissed, as its last breaths before death. He looked down at the rubble that now covered the carpeted floor of his office. Through all the papers and files and whatnot, the corner edge of a silver picture frame peeked out. Kaiba knelt down and picked it up. Through the shattered glass front, he gazed at an image of himself when he was five or six years old.

Oh my God... he thought. He hadn’t seen this picture in forever. It must have been buried beneath the rest of his life on the desk. The picture was him as a young boy, holding a bundle of cloth. A person really had to look closely to see the tiny face of a baby, he was so small. Mokuba. Seto closed his eyes and thought for a long time. He had been so transformed, that he realized he had nearly left everything else in the dust. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had spent some real time with his little brother. And his sister, too. She had just recently been reunited with them. What did she think of him now? He was not the same person he had been when they were separated. He thought of how his family was still always there for him, even went he didn’t return it.

He looked again at the murdered contraption on the floor. Seto breezed out the door, stopping at the blonde secretary’s desk.

She looked up at him, simply waiting for the prompt of his instructions.

"I want those pods destroyed," he ordered.

"Excuse me?" she said, taken aback.

"You heard me," he snapped. "I want all seven of those virtual pods dismantled by the time I get back tomorrow. I’ll take care of erasing the programming myself." He walked off, not even waiting for her response.

"Y-yes sir," she said after him.

He reached the streets of the city. A limo sat right in front of the building, ready to take him anywhere he wished. The thought made him sick. He turned instead and snuck around the side of the building. He checked his watch. Mokuba would be just getting out of school, and Seto was more than willing to walk him home.

About ten minutes later, he and Mokuba arrived at the mansion, completely on foot. He was kind of glad that Mokuba hadn’t offered any protests to walking. It meant that he hadn’t become too much like his brother yet. At the same time, Raia was approaching from the other direction. She caught up to them.

"Well, well, the great Seto Kaiba? Reduced to using his own physical power for transportation? What happened, rent out all your limos?" she asked.

"You know, for an older sister you are REALLY annoying," Seto said.

Raia grinned. "Just doin’ my job." She looked him over for a moment, and her face turned more serious. "Where’s your computer?" she asked.

"It, um, kinda crashed," he said, not ENTIRELY lying...

Raia raised a brow, but she was apparently appeased by his response. "C’mon, Mokuba, I’ll make you a snack," she said. Mokuba emphatically followed her into the kitchen.

Seto looked after them. He just stood there for a while devoid of thought or consciousness. He almost envied them. It was obvious that in such a short time they had developed a real bond with each other, while he had been floating off into the distance. It seemed strange that he had to leave reality behind to realize what should be really important to him. He vowed then and there that he would try to change. As difficult as it might be, he had to live his life with the ones he loved before he wouldn’t have any life left.

But I’m still missing one, he thought.

"Raia," he said. "Can I borrow your computer?"

"Mine? Don’t you have a zillion others?"

"No. My other one is at the loft, and I really didn’t feel like going all the way back downtown if I’m already here with you guys."

"That’s never stopped you before," she replied.

Seto sighed. His sister never failed to point out his faults. Yet he had somehow managed to ignore her for such a long time.

"I suppose. I’ll go get it," she said, heading to the upper floors of the mansion.

Seto sat down next to his brother, who had already devoured half a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

Mokuba looked up at Seto. "You want some?"

Seto smiled. "Sure," he answered.

"Okay!" His brother hopped off the stool and rummaged around for the ingredients. "I don’t think I can make ‘em as good as Raia can, but I can try," Mokuba said.

"Make what?" Raia asked as she came back into the kitchen. She handed Seto her laptop.

"Thanks," Seto answered. "I’ll, uh, be in the study if you guys need me."

He left the kitchen and headed for another room. He shut the door of the study behind him and looked around.

Study, schmudy, he thought. In all reality, it was another office. Talk about taking your work home with you.

Regardless, he hooked up the laptop computer. His sister’s computer was a little slower than he was used to, but he seemed to manage. When the whole thing had finished starting up, he looked at the files on her desktop, and one in particular caught his eye.

A program? I didn’t know that Raia could do that. Then again, why not? They were twins, after all.

His curiosity piqued, he opened the file and ran the program. His eyes widened as he saw what the screen presented him with.

"RAIA!!!!!" he screamed.

** oh, no? what has she done? that's for me to know and you to find out!

Part Nineteen
Raia ran into the room, followed closely by Mokuba. They arrived to see Seto standing, pacing back and forth nervously.

I’ve never seen him like this, Raia thought.

"Big brother, what’s wrong?" Mokuba asked in his innocent little voice.

Kaiba finally stopped pacing. "What is that?" he said, pointing to the laptop on the desk.

The look in his eyes frightened Raia. He looked like he had lost his mind. "Um, Seto? That’s a computer..." she said.

"I KNOW THAT!" he yelled angrily. Raia jumped, and Mokuba cringed behind her. She looked down at her little brother and motioned for him to leave. Mokuba quickly obeyed by scurrying out of the room. Raia could tell that the look his eyes was far worse than she had thought. He was angry. Correction, he was livid.

"Seto, what is it?" she asked gently.

"This! What is this?" he demanded. He turned the computer screen to face her.

"It-it’s just a program..." she stammered.

Kaiba slammed down the top. He turned his back to her.

"Do you have any idea what you’ve done?" he asked.

"I would have a much better one if you’d tell me what’s going on!" Raia countered. She waited for a response, but when, after a few minutes, he offered none, she turned and left the room.

He couldn’t have answered her, even if he’d wanted to. If he would have opened his mouth one more time, she surely would have heard the breaking of his voice. He just stood there, staring blankly at some space between the bookshelf and the floor.

Poetic justice, I suppose, he thought bitterly. He closed his eyes. Poetic that what he had seen on one single computer screen would sting his heart for the rest of his life. Poetic that technology really was his only true love. He couldn’t believe it. No, he could, but he didn’t want to. He knew that his sister often took liberties with his things, but this was too much. How could she do that?

He looked back at the computer and opened it. It was still there. A computer image looked back at him with a soft face framed by shaggy black hair. He stared once again into eyes greener than emeralds. And his own responded with a trail of tears that ran down his cheek.

Delaney was a program in the game. That’s all she had ever been. And he never even saw it! Impossible! That was HIS virtual game! He knew the difference between reality and the virtual world!! He...he hadn’t been able to tell the difference, and he had fallen in love with a computer program.

He shut the top again, very tempted to throw this computer across the room as well. But he kept himself. So that made it final. Nothing that he had experienced in that game had happened at all. He never fell in love. He never gave himself to another. And he never became anyone else but Seto Kaiba: businessman, cold, calculating, with a mind full of thoughts of hurt and revenge.

He put his elbows on the desk and covered his face with his hands. He bit his lip so hard that he felt it start to bleed, but nothing could stop him. There was now a void in his heart, one that bled with the desire to be filled. And it bled right through his chest, up his throat, and finally, escaped in the form of a sob out his own mouth. He wished he felt disconnected from his body. Seto Kaiba didn’t cry! But he was very connected. He acutely felt the sting. He felt the pain of a lost love, of a lost everything.

Unbeknownst to him, Mokuba stood outside the locked door to the room, watching his brother through the keyhole. He had never seen Seto cry before. Never in his life. Something REALLY bad must have happened for him to do that. Mokuba ran off, looking for Raia.

Seto’s whole body shook with the effort of keeping his emotions locked away. It had been so easy for his whole life, why couldn’t he do it now?! Another sob escaped. He looked at his hands for a moment, and saw a trail of blood and tears staining his palms. He stared at them, wide-eyed. How did this happen? The memories of the past days became a sudden blur, and he felt sick and dizzy.

A moment of clear focus was granted to him only by a sharp knock at the door. He looked up and saw Raia. She took one look at him and ran to his side. He was so far out of it, he didn’t even think to turn away from her, so she wouldn’t see him like this.

"Mokuba!" she called, "Get me a towel, and the bottle of alcohol!" The little boy took off like a shot.

"Seto?" she asked softly. "Seto, are you ok?"

He just stared. Not even at her, but some far-off place that he didn’t even knew existed.

"Ok, dumb question," she answered herself. Mokuba cam back in, carrying the things she had asked for.

Raia looked at her little brother. "You have to go start your homework," she said, a little tersely.

"But, Seto needs..." he started to protest.

"He needs to be left alone for a while," Raia cut him off. Mokuba nodded and left again.

**************************************************
**

It had been six weeks. Six weeks since his life had nearly fallen apart around him. Thankfully, with the help of his brother and sister, Kaiba had managed to come back to the real world, and no one else was the wiser. Granted, it was difficult, and he still found himself occasionally reminiscing about the deep green eyes that haunted his dreams.

He stood in front of the mirror in his room. Dressed in his usual, he noticed a tiny brown spot on the front of his coat. He looked a little closer, and realized that it was a blood stain. He looked at his lower lip, which had healed quite nicely. Thanks to his sister’s first-aid training, one really had to look close to see the scar. Which was nothing to worry about, because no one ever got that close to him anyway.

After all was said and done, it turned out that Raia had wanted to try out her programming skills, and put one single character into the game about two days before Kaiba had tested it. It had been purely an experiment. Well, that, and Raia had wanted someone else in the game that she could interact with if she ever got a chance to play. Kaiba thought of the heaps of scrap metal that now cluttered the lab. It was safe to say that she would probably not get that chance now. A part of him almost mourned the loss of the game that he had taken so much care in creating and perfecting, but another part of him was glad that it was over and done with. People say that the third time’s the charm, but he really didn’t want to have to do that again.

He made his way to school, walking the whole way there with Raia, and dropping Mokuba off at grade school on the way. One good thing had come out of it: he was spending more time with his family.

The bell rang, and Kaiba and the rest of the class situated themselves for the first lessons of the day. People highly overestimated the idea of being a genius. It didn’t mean that he already knew everything, just that he could pick it up a LOT quicker than 95% of other people.

His nose was in a book, as usual, when the teacher walked into the classroom.

"I apologize for my lateness," she said. "I have been informed that we have a new student today."

Some kids looked excited, and some looked bored at the idea. Kaiba was among those who had barely even paid attention. The teacher rapped on the desk, and Kaiba reluctantly lifted his eyes.

"I would like to introduce our new student, and I expect you all to be very polite." The teacher motioned off to a part of the room that Kaiba couldn’t see. A young girl stepped out in front of the class. Kaiba took one look at her and his eyes widened. His jaw nearly hit the floor. She stood there, shyly holding her books in front of herself. Her head was bowed a little, jet-black hair hanging down to almost cover dark green eyes. She blushed at the attention of the class and gave the sweetest little smile Kaiba had ever seen in his life.

No, he had seen that smile before.

"Class, say hello to our new student, Delaney."

THE END

SOOOOOOOOOO.......???? What did you think?!?! You HAVE to tell me!! good? no? review, pleeeze!! <begs>

EDIT:: <dances in> Heddo!! It's now time for one of my famous, infamous, lovable, annoying, shameless self-plugs!! (Don'tcha just LOVE 'em?) Anyway, if you are reading this as a result of clicking on the link in my sig, I have a few other links you might find enjoyable:
Of Mages and Monsters
Mirror Force The Path May Lead