Two
Bodies, One Mind
Dinobot
looked up into the saddened eyes of his teammates as he felt his spark fading
away. He felt weak, tired, and above all, he knew he was dying. Rattrap looked
crestfallen as he held onto the raptor-bot’s hand.
“Isn’t
there any way to save him?” he heard Cheetor ask Rhinox. Rhinox sadly shook
his head.
“He’s
too far gone, even for stasis lock,” he mumbled, almost regretfully. Dinobot
blinked his optics and stared up into his leader’s face.
“You
fought well, my friend,” Optimus said proudly. “You saved the valley. You
saved the lives of those who live here…and of those who are still to
come.”
“Then…there
is nothing to regret,” Dinobot grumbled. He winced under the pain he was
feeling. Rattrap gripped his hand harder.
“It’s
like I always say, yer a slag suckin’ saurian,” the transmetal said,
“but it’s nice ta know where ya stand.”
“I
suppose I should say the same back, vermin.” He looked at the others and
said weakly, “Tell my tale to those who ask. Tell it truly. The ill deeds,
along with the good. And let me be judged accordingly...the rest...is
silence..." Dinobot then felt his spark fade out completely and he
slumped on the ground, as an empty shell. The others watched as his spark
joined the Matrix…or so they thought.
***
Present
day
Domino
City, Japan
Seto
Kaiba sat comfortably in his limo on his way to school. He hated school
because of all the happy, cheery people that attended. Especially Yugi Muto
and his little group of cronies. Lately, the young CEO had been feeling
different. He found his younger brother’s new favorite American movie,
Jurassic Park, quite interesting. He usually hated all movies or anything
besides Duel Monsters for that matter, but now he was becoming fascinated by
the Velociraptors in the movie. For some reason, they sparked something deep
within him.
The
limo pulled up by the curb. Kaiba stepped out, briefcase in hand, and he
walked up the steps and into Domino High School. He ignored the glares and
comments passed his way. He was used to being hated. He slowly walked into his
first period class and groaned when he saw that Yugi was in this class
already.
“Hi
Kaiba!” the little boy greeted warmly.
Kaiba
glared down at him coldly. How he hated the runt. Always so cheerful. It made
him want to puke. And then there was his little ‘girlfriend’, Anzu Mazaki:
the friendship nutcase who never stopped ranting about her friends. He noticed
Jounouchi Katsuya was sitting awkwardly in his chair and was chatting away
with his friend, Honda Hiroto.
“Hey,
Kaiba,” Jounouchi spat. “Yugi’s talkin’ to ya!”
“So?”
he snapped coolly.
“Da
least ya could do is say ‘hello’!”
“Don’t
talk, inu. It only makes you sound dumber.”
“Why
I oughtta—”
“Jou,
calm down!” Honda and Yugi shouted. They restrained the blonde boy.
Kaiba
smirked knowingly and took his seat in the back of the classroom, away from
everyone else. He took out a book about Japan and started reading it. He
became bored with it and took out a rough sketch he had drawn of a
Velociraptor. It looked fairly well, a little less impressive than his Blue
Eyes White Dragon and Duel Disc sketches. He had yet to color it, but he knew
what he wanted it to look like. Swamp green eyes with a beige body and brown
stripes. He didn’t know why, but he thought that design would fit the raptor
quite well.
He
let his fingers trail over the pencil marks, until an annoying voice
interrupted his thoughts. “What are you lookin’ at, Kaiba?” it was
another one of Yugi’s friends, Otogi Ryuuji. That black-haired menace had
been trying to be all buddy-buddy with him all semester. Just because Otogi
owned the new game shop in town and had invented Dungeon Dice Monsters, he
automatically assumed he and Kaiba would be best friends. Ha! As if!
Kaiba
scoffed at Otogi and ignored him. If anything, Otogi was his business rival
and must be taken down. The bell rang, much to everyone’s despair. Kaiba
drifted off to sleep as the teacher began to drawl on about American History.
It wasn’t like he needed to listen anyway. He knew all about America, having
been there a few times himself, but only for meetings or Duel Monster
tournaments. He closed his eyes and an image flashed through his mind. That of
a gorilla…then a rhino…a cheetah…a rat…and finally, a Velociraptor.
He
felt himself mold into a heated argument with the rat and raptor. He looked
between the two and blinked a few times, wondering if they could see him.
“Hello?” he said uncertainly. They ignored him, obviously he was invisible
to them.
“You
sure about dis, Choppuhface?” the rat sneered, disturbingly reminding Kaiba
of Jounouchi’s voice.
“Hmm,
I inflicted considerable damage on Tarantulas. He could not have gone far. And
he will no doubt have the counter-virus,” replied the raptor calmly.
“Yeah?
Well, uh, you better hope so…for YOUR sake.”
“Huh?
Excuse me? Are you implying that the current situation is somehow MY
responsibility?!”
Kaiba
smirked. If anyone dare insult him like the rat was doing to this raptor,
he’d have pulled a gun on them. “Well you did start it, gear head!” the
rat suddenly cried, standing up on his hind legs.
The
raptor’s eyes widened angrily. “I beg to differ, cheese lips!”
“Pre-evolved
bird brain!”
“Eater
of garbage!”
“Mr.
Kaiba!” a voice echoed in his mind. “Mr. Kaiba, wake up!” Seto awoke
with a start. He found his teacher staring accusingly at him and his fellow
classmates looking at him curiously as though he were a ticking time bomb.
“Care to explain why you were sleeping in class?” his teacher said with a
disapproving look.
Because
I know all about America, you fool,
he thought grumpily. “I was tired,” he answered. “The pressures of
owning a company are hard, Hikaru-sama.”
“Of
course, Seto. Forgive me.”
Seto
smirked to himself. His fame and reputation saved him so many times from
getting in trouble. After school, he still couldn’t get the vision he had in
class out of his mind. When his limo came to pick him up, he seemed to have
spaced out.
“Kaiba-sama?” his driver said nervously. “Desu ka?” [Are you all right?]
“I’m
fine,” he replied shaking his head. “To Mokuba’s school, Koji.”
“Yes,
sir.” They drove all the way to Mokuba’s school. Seto stepped out of his
limo and waited patiently for his little brother.
“Nii-sama!”
he heard the familiar childish voice of his brother. A small kid with long,
wild black hair ran up behind him and embraced him tightly. “How was your
day, Seto?” he asked excitedly. “Mine was great! I learned so much! We
learned about dinosaurs and all these cool prehistoric creatures.”
Kaiba
smiled. “That’s wonderful, little brother,” he stated. “As for my day,
it wasn’t the best. I fell asleep during class.”
“Why?
Don’t you like school?”
“Hai,
but I just was bored. I had a very odd dream too. About a rat and velociraptor
having an argument.”
“But
why would animals talk? And more importantly, why would rats and raptors be
alive at the same time?”
“I
honestly don’t know.” The drive home was silent. Kaiba immediately went to
his room to think the day’s events over. His Duel Monsters deck was on his
desk, just where he had left it that morning. He sat down on his bed and ran
his fingers through his soft, brown hair. He closed his eyes. Another vision
was appearing.
A
large metal Tyrannosaurus Rex was smirking at him. He held onto a spinning
sword and let out a murderous growl. The Rex began counting on his two
fingers. “Well, let’s see, where are we now? I have the Golden Disk, I
have the power to change the future, and the only remaining obstacle in my
path to unimaginable glory…is yourself.” The dinosaur transformed into a
tall robot with glaring eyes and a sneering grin. “Exhausted, damaged beyond
recovery…defeated,” he spat out.
“Not
just yet—” Kaiba snarled, but the other robot held up a finger.
“Ah,
ah, ah,” he said. “One more step, and it’s raining parts of early
anthropoid, yesss.” He stepped aside to show a tied up human that looked
more like an ape than anything else.
Kaiba
simply gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. Whoever this guy was, was
beyond evil. He was just about as evil as Yami Malik from Battle City.
Kaiba
awoke suddenly, sweating and panting for breath. “What is wrong with me?”
he mumbled holding a hand up to his face. “Maybe Mokuba’s right. Maybe I
DO need therapy. First Egypt, now robots. What next?”
He
walked down the stairs to find his younger brother seated in front of the
television, transfixed on what was on. Mokuba turned and smiled. "Nii-sama,
I’m watching Jurassic Park,” he said happily. “It’s the part with the
raptors in it.”
The
brunette smiled slightly and sat down. He watched as the raptors appeared on
the screen, making their dreadful screeches that he found so interesting. He
found himself drifting off to sleep again, but thankfully, Mokuba snapped him
back to reality. These visions…they seemed much more than mere dreams. It
was as if he remembered being part of it. Fighting long ago for justice and
honor. Seto’s head was swimming. First Isis Ishtar tells him that he was an
evil sorcerer in ancient Egypt. Now he was getting visions or memory flashes
from another life. What could all this mean?
“Seto,
are you all right?” Mokuba asked worriedly. “You’re not sick, are
you?”
“No,
I’m fine,” he lied. He hated lying to his brother, but he couldn’t just
tell him that he thought these dreams were actually memories from his past. A
sudden idea came to mind, but he dismissed it. What help would Isis be now?
She said herself that her Millennium Necklace no longer worked properly for
her, but perhaps she could figure something out. Before he knew what he was
doing, he had stood up and was strolling towards the front door. “I’m
going out, Mokuba,” he said grabbing his blue trench coat.
Kaiba
didn’t even bother asking for the limo. He decided to walk all the way to
the Domino Museum himself. When he arrived there, he spotted Isis’s younger
brother, Malik placing some artifacts in a clear casing. “Malik, where’s
your sister?” he snapped, without so much as a greeting.
The
Egyptian boy narrowed his lavender eyes. “Why do you ask, Kaiba?” he
growled in return. “I haven’t seen you since Battle City. What could YOU
possibly want from my sister now?”
“I
need to ask her something about my past.”
“You
already know it.”
“Not
all of it. I keep getting these…visions of something not from Egypt. More
like…prehistoric Earth or something like that.”
Malik
raised an eyebrow. “I always figured you did drugs, but I had no idea they
could have THIS much of an affect on you.”
“I
do NOT do drugs, Ishtar! Just tell me where your damn sister is!”
“Calm
down, Kaiba. I’m right here,” the soft voice of Isis said from behind him.
“Now, what is it that you seek?”
“Can
you go through my mind and try to help me decipher the meaning of these
visions I’ve been having?” he asked urgently.
“I
can try, but I cannot promise a positive result.” She closed her eyes and
transported him into the past. But instead of seeing himself as an evil
sorcerer, he saw a grassy plain, with three animals on it. One he recognized
as the Velociraptor from his first vision. The next two were of a cheetah and
a gorilla.
“This
is a waste of my talents!” the raptor growled angrily. “I should be
devising battle strategies.”
“Dinobot,
would you stop complaining for once?” the gorilla sighed. So Dinobot was the
raptor’s name, hmm?
“Speak
for yourself, Primal.”
“Hey
guys, look up ahead!” the cheetah cried in a young, teenage voice. His
teammates turned their attention to two flying creatures. One was a red
Pterodactyl and the other an over sized wasp.
“Terrorsaur,
Terrorize!” the bird cried.
“Wazzpinator,
Terrorize!” the wasp followed suit. Kaiba watched in amazement as they all
transformed into humanoid robots with weapons of such power, that it made the
American government look weak by comparison.
“Finally,
a chance for battle!” Dinobot shouted, drawing out a sword and spinning tail
weapon. His eyes lit up green and he shot lasers at the wasp, causing it to
hit the ground with a loud THUD. Kaiba was amazed. Had that been him in his
first life? A humanoid robot with a lust for battle? He had no recollection of
it however. He was shown another vision.
Many
robots were surrounding Dinobot, looking at him sadly. The brunette wondered
why, until he noticed that the raptor looked really damaged. Even he could
tell that he was close to dying. “Dinobot, hang in there,” the metal
cheetah said, almost on the verge of tears. “We’ll find a way to help
you.”
“I’m
afraid not,” the rhino replied sadly. “He’s too far gone…even for
stasis lock.”
Kaiba
saw the rat from before, but he was now pure metal and was grasping
Dinobot’s hand tightly. “We’ll always remember ya, Choppuhface,” he
said with the same Brookline accent that Jounouchi had. Oddly enough, this rat
reminded Kaiba of Jou. Seto felt himself drifting away until he was back in
reality, lying on the floor. He stared into Isis’s blue eyes for awhile.
“I…I
remember,” he said softly, getting to his feet. “I was him…Dinobot. I
was a raptor, fighting for honor and justice. I was part of a force called the
Maximals and fought along side them. I died saving the human race…”
“Yes,
now that you know your true past, I must send you back.”
“Back?
How? Dinobot was killed a long time ago. There’s no way the others are still
on prehistoric Earth.”
Isis
smiled. Malik flinched. “Kami, I hate it when she smiles like that,” he
muttered.
“My
necklace still has some power left in it. Should I transport you back to the
Beast Wars, or let you remain here? The choice is yours, Seto Kaiba…I
mean…Dinobot.”
Kaiba
hated having choices. If he went back, he’d be leaving behind his little
brother, KaibaCorp, and Duel Monsters forever. But if he didn’t, he would
live in solitude the rest of his life without the answers he needed. He slowly
nodded his head. “But…may I call Mokuba to say goodbye to him?” he
asked. He took out his cell phone and dialed in his home number.
“Moshi
moshi?” Mokuba said on the other end cheerfully.
“Mokuba,
it’s me. Dino—Seto. I…um…have something to tell you,” he replied.
“What
is it, nii-sama?”
“I’m
gonna be leaving for awhile. I want you to promise me that you’ll take care
of KaibaCorp for me, okay? I don’t know if or when I’m coming back.”
He
could almost see his little brother begin to cry on the other end. “B-but
Seto, where are you going? I-I can’t run the business without you. You’re
the genius! I know nothing about stocks and computers.”
“I
have faith in you, Mokuba. Please don’t miss me when I’m gone. Good
bye.” He hung up quickly, closing his eyes in anguish. He was leaving behind
his only family. He looked back at Isis. “I’m ready,” he said and
prepared himself to be engulfed in a bright light.
***
Patrol
duty wasn’t fun. Not for Rattrap anyway. Ever since Dinobot had died, it
hadn’t been the same around the base. Silverbolt was constantly with
Blackarachnia and Cheetor was always trying to get her attention. Rattrap
missed his fights with the Velociraptor. At least then he was doing SOMETHING
fun.
All
of a sudden, the transmetal saw a bright light flash a few feet away from him.
He switched to vehicle mode and drove over to see what the flash of light was.
He was surprised to find a fully evolved human lying before him. The human was
a boy, with short brown hair and very light skin. Rattrap transformed and did
a vital scan of the boy. To his surprise, he got a strange energy signature
from him.
“Dat’s
odd,” he mumbled.
“Oww,
my head,” the boy moaned. “Who’s there?”
“Name’s
Rattrap, kid. How’d you get here?”
“…transported…wait.
Did you say Rattrap?”
“Yeah…”
“You
really do sound like the inu.”
“Da
who?”
“The
puppy. Damned Katsuya and his accent. Now I gotta suffer when I’m back here
now too?”
“What
da heck are you blabberin’ about?”
“Nevermind.
My name is…Seto Kaiba.”
“Okay…whatevuh.
Now how ‘bout tellin’ me why you got a strange energy signature inside yer
body?”
“Huh?”
“When
I scanned ya, you emitted dis strange energy signature.”
Kaiba
began to sweat in his discomfort. He couldn’t let Rattrap know who he really
was. It would seem too awkward and somewhat unbelievable. “Ya know,”
Rattrap said thoughtfully. “You remind me an awful lot like someone I used
to know.”
“L-like
who?” he stuttered as he rubbed the back of his neck.
“An
old friend…Anyway, why don’t ya stand up and I’ll take ya back ta
base?”
Kaiba nodded and stood to his full height. Rattrap let out a frustrated sigh. “Man, even humans are taller den me,” he grumbled. The brunette smiled somewhat and allowed his old teammate to take him back home.
End of Chapter 1 (I'll get Chapter 2 up soon!)