C.N. April 2014: Digital Distraction Part 13

The flight had been long, the hostesses rude until they had seen that she had actually been booked into first class and wasn’t just trying to sneak in, the airplane food had been expensive and she was really just looking forward to a good rest before the demo started.

She still wasn’t sure if she had gotten an invite on her own merits. Though the letter she had gotten with her invitation had requested her attendance as both a reporter and a gamer, she had not received one until after her talk with Pegasus. She had a sneaking suspicion that the CEO of Industrial Illusions had bribed them to let her in.

She had been one of the last to arrive at the docks and had been surprised to find she recognised the greater majority of the people there. Almost all of them were World Class Duellists. The only one who wasn’t looked like Kari Ironhide and was fussing at the Duellist in question.

Unable to resist finding out who else had been invited to this shindig, she made her way over. Kari recognised her and though she didn’t look in the mood to deal with her, when Dani said hi, she at least made the effort.

“D.M.G.” Kari nodded to her, putting on a smile she obviously didn’t feel, looking as tired as Dani felt. “You were invited?”

“Yeah, free advertising for them I suppose.” Dani replied, trying not to feel insulted at the surprise in the English Duellist’s tone, “I figured I’d make the rounds, find out who’s here so I can report on everything properly.”

“If I were you,” The woman with Kari who looked like an older version of the Duellist warned, “I’d steer clear of Yugi.”

“Thanks for the warning, Miss...?” Dani asked, frowning slightly at the warning considering she had never had a problem with getting an interview from Yugi up until now and didn’t see why she would.

“Ironhide. Ombre Ironhide. I’m Kari’s sister.” Ombre replied shortly and a little sharply.

“Are you taking part in the beta?” Dani prodded for information, curious about the sister she had never heard of before.

“I’ll be around.” Ombre replied cryptically but not very helpfully. “But perhaps your attention would be better off focused on the invited guests? I bet you’re champing at the bit for an interview from someone.”

“Ombre.” Kari’s tone was sharp as she glowered at her sister, “Be nice, Dani’s one of the few, rare, nice reporters...normally.”

“Nice?” Ombre laughs, “Have you read what she’s written recently?”

“I’m taking the hint.” Dani winced, suddenly remembering that Kari worked for the company that she had been slagging off for the last couple of days. “It was nice seeing you again, Kari.”

She slipped off back into the crowd, avoiding Kaiba like the plague when she saw him, not particularly wanting to get yelled at when she felt like crap. As she made the rounds, taking comments from each Duellist as she passed, she noticed a pattern. There wasn’t a single one who looked completely with it.

All of them were feeling a bit run down for some reason or another when she asked after their health. None of them had slept properly in the last couple of nights and when she finally got to Yugi Mutou, the King of Games, she could see why Ombre had warned her off.

Everyone on the Duelling Circuit knew about there being two Yugi Mutous. At least everyone who either followed the circuit closely or could sense the Shadows as she could. The ‘nice’ Yugi tended to only be around before or after tournaments, or when there was a large gap between rounds. While the Yugi who was out at the moment, the ‘scary’ Yugi, tended to be the one who Duelled opponents into submission. The one who when the chips were down kicked ass and took names. The one who, supposedly, had saved the world multiple times if you believed the rumours.

Four years ago she wouldn’t have. She hadn’t believed in the magic behind the game that had become so madly popular around the world. Now however, she knew about it in great detail, had run into it firsthand. She had barely escaped her last run in with magic alive. And now she was heading back into a dangerous situation where she would be in way over her head.

She was tempted to talk to Yugi about it. A lot of people were convinced he was a magician or sorcerer or something similar. Especially with all the rumours that followed him about magic and mayhem.  It was possible that he would know how to counter act whatever the ShadowSwords, the people Pegasus had sent her to investigate, were up to.

One look at him told her that was a bad idea though. He looked like he was in a foul mood, one that promised pain to anyone who dared cross him. Now was probably an incredibly bad time to ask him about magic. If he was a sorcerer, then he would probably turn her into a toad. If he wasn’t, he would decide she was a lunatic and never give her an interview ever again.

No. This was her task, she would just have to get on with it and hope that they weren’t playing with magic yet. Pegasus had promised her that there would be help on the way if she did get in over her head, but she wasn’t sure how far she could rely on him. After all the CEO of Industrial Illusions was a business man. She could easily believe that if it would be best for his company he would leave her to hang,

She was glad to see the boat dock. She was looking forward to getting a night’s sleep before she got started on her great adventure. The queue seemed to line up automatically and file onto the boat with none of the excitement she would normally expect from a group of avid gamers going to demo some new technology. It was weird and it worried her.

It wasn’t a luxury cruise ship. She hadn’t expected one considering that Dimension Software were a relatively small company in comparison to some of the companies that they were competing against. They had stretched to relatively comfortable rooms though and when she looked at the itinery on her bedside table, the menu looked like someone had dropped a lot of money into it.

She couldn’t help but wonder how much of this was being paid for out of the coffers of Dimension, and how much of this was being paid for by SharpShade, the ‘offical’ company that the ShadowSwords were using as their cover to earn money to continue their less than legal activites.

She still didn’t know exactly what they were up to. Pegasus had said that they were still using Industrial Illusions resources to get what they wanted because he hadn’t managed to flush them out of his company after he had stopped working with them and that they had used those resources to find information about powerful duellists worldwide. She had a horrible feeling that she knew what they wanted them for.

She was pretty damn certain that when it all went down, her backup wouldn’t have time to arrive, but there was nothing she could do about it. Pegasus refused to send anyone in ‘just in case’ in case it all went wrong and everyone died.

“Okay,” Dani told herself as she flopped back onto her bed, “I just have to work out their plan, stop them and save a boat full of Duellists, no pressure...”