Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Gamete Experience ❯ Prologue

Author's Note: The evil summer reading list and history homework are finished! ::cheers:: I'm writing this to (1) annoy my persistent bugger of an inspirational block, which refuses to allow me to write the next chapter of Control for its own sadistic pleasure, and (2) to create chibis. I got this idea when I randomly started sketching chibis of what I thought the Yu-Gi-Oh characters' kids would look like and thought, "What the hell, why not?" So here it is. Tell me if it's crap or not, because if it's lame I don't want it taking up space on FFN...

The Gamete Experience

Prologue

Seto Kaiba was a fairly patient young man, or so he considered himself to be. However, the two product testers from the childproof department who were still in his office despite the businessman's discreet dismissals were testing that patience. Kaiba already knew that the new product would never be affirmed childproof - the circuiting was much too temperamental.

"... So you see, sir, it's so simple that a child could operate it," the rambling man concluded, glancing over at his partner and receiving a reassuring nod. "To demonstrate, I've asked young Mokuba and one of his classmates to assist me."

Kaiba was brought out of his slightly spaced-out mindset when he heard this. "What?!"

The door swung open and in came Mokuba and another boy about his age who peered around the office with curiosity. "Hi, Oniichan!" Mokuba greeted his big brother with a wide grin. "Hi, Tsuriki-san, we came right over like you asked." Before Seto could warn them, the two little boys strapped the contraptions to their wrists and activated them. Needless to say, they backfired and literally blew up in their faces. Mokuba just blinked, not quite sure of what happened, while the other boy ran crying from the room.

No longer able to restrain his annoyance that had developed into fury, Kaiba screamed at the two employees. "If you test any products on Mokuba or his friends EVER AGAIN, you will both be fired faster than you can say Duel Monsters! Now GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!!"

They obliged and scrambled over each other to exit, but once they'd left they walked down the hall in dejected spirits.

"Well, that went well," the woman snorted, about to reach out and press the elevator button when the doors opened to release a group of teenagers who stepped out into the hall.

"Hi," a spiky-haired boy greeted cheerfully. "Could you tell us if Kaiba's in the dueling room or still in his office..." he paused to check her name tag, "... Yuimi-san?"

The woman nodded in the direction she and her co-worker had come from. "He's in the office." The short boy thanked her and dashed down the hall with his friends in tow. This struck her with a sudden idea. "Hey, Uryo," she whispered urgently, though obviously excited.

"What is it, Ajina?" he sighed, not catching the tone in her voice. All he wanted was to go home and forget about what had just happened.

"Well, Kaiba said that we couldn't use his kid brother or his friends as our guinea pigs anymore. But he never said anything about his friends," she insinuated with a devilish smirk.

Uryo shot her an initially disbelieving look that grew even more skeptical. "Just two problems - one, we can't force them into anything without doing anything short of breaking a few laws, and two, we're in the childproof protection department, in case you've forgotten. Teenagers wouldn't quite work."

Ajina shrugged and stepped into the elevator, the smirk still plastered on her face. "An old friend of mine who owes me a favor works in genetic engineering. I'm sure he wouldn't mind lending a hand."

* * *

"You want me to WHAT?! Have you lost your mind?!"

"Please, Arashi-kun?" Ajina asked again, giving her cutest pout which she quickly realized wasn't affecting him as it had in the past. She instantly changed her tone to a much harsher one. "Besides, you owe me."

Arashi's face turned a bright shade of pink at the memory of exactly what his debt was, but he shook it away. "Alright, I'll do it. But if anything goes wrong, I'm not taking the blame for this."

Ajina flashed a quick smile. "Nothing will go wrong," she reassured him as she turned to leave.

"Famous last words," Arashi muttered as he pulled up a new document on his computer and began working on his new project.

* * *

Kaiba and Yami were about to commence their third match when the peanut gallery decided to make a few comments.

"Don't you two EVER get sick of dueling each other?" Bakura whined obnoxiously. He didn't even know why he bothered to tag along, but Ryou had wanted him to come, so he figured he could at least annoy the two obsessive duelists. "You could at least duel other people, just for a little variety, you know."

Yami rolled his eyes, growing tired of the tomb raider's complaining. "Either shut up or you can get up here and duel one of us."

Bakura made a noise that sounded like a cross between a snort and a harrumph. "Don't think I won't," he muttered, but made no move towards either dueling platform. Yugi, Ryou and the others just shook their heads, not wanting to get caught in the middle of an argument between the Pharaoh and the tomb raider. It could prove dangerous to one's health.

Just as Kaiba and Yami called the duel Jou made a strange face, wrinkling his nose and arching an eyebrow. "Do you guys smell that?"

"Smell what?" Ryou asked, not paying much attention to the blonde as he watched the duel.

Jou took another whiff. "There's definitely something weird," he stated, his voiced edged with what could pass for paranoia.

"Don't be ridiculous," Anzu began, but yelped in surprise when Jou suddenly started coughing violently. Before long, everyone in the room seemed to be hacking up their lungs.

"What the hell...?!" Honda vocalized what everyone had been thinking, on the verge of losing consciousness when he saw a pair of masked people looming over him. All he and the others knew after that was darkness.

The taller of the two lowered his mask carefully, checking that the gas had been diluted before removing it completely. "I still don't see why we have to do it, this is what field agents are for," he grumbled.

"For god's sake, Uryo, shut up!" Ajina hissed angrily. The gas wouldn't wear off for about an hour, but precautions should always be taken. "We need to transport them to the basement, Arashi-kun's set up a small lab down there among storage. We don't have time for your whining."

* * *

Arashi had to be honest with himself. He knew that if anyone caught wind of what he was doing he would be in serious trouble with the authorities and lose all of his research, but that only managed to make it more exciting. He thrived on hands-on projects like this one - testing various gamete pairings, observing new life grow... this was what he was about. Arashi didn't view his station in the genetic engineering laboratories of one of KaibaCorp's previous projects as some tedious occupation. Rather, he saw it as an extension of himself.

Then there was the issue with Ajina. God knew he hated that woman, and so did she. But that never stopped her from getting whatever she wanted out of Arashi, so when she requested an "order of test tube babies" as she had so quaintly put it, he couldn't help but give in to her wishes. It wasn't until later that he realized he was also doing it for himself. He deserved to be able to work on a project of this magnitude, but after cloning became such a sensitive issue, KaibaCorp had cut off funding for the lab. That didn't stop the few workers who had dedicated their lives to that line of work and refused to accept being laid off, so Arashi had no doubts about having enough assistance during this project.

Arashi knew Ajina told him that she and Uryo would be bringing donors, but he hadn't expected eight of them or for them to be unconscious. If he hadn't known better, he'd say that one of them looked remarkably like Seto Kaiba, and he voiced that thought.

"This is Kaiba, and the kids he plays Duel Monsters with."

His eyes bugged for a moment, the thousands of things Kaiba could do to them for placing him in this situation reeling through his mind and threatening to overwhelm him, but Arashi fought them and attempted to remain composed. "Um, so... I guess we might as well get started."

"Try to hurry it up, though," Uryo said with a hint of contempt in his voice. "They'll wake up within fifty minutes, and we need to get them back before then." Arashi would have commented and asked what he meant by that, but came to the conclusion that they must have done something that he was sure he wanted no part in.

Extraction went fairly quickly without problems, and two gamete cells were procured from each of the eight teenagers. Ajina wanted the lab workers to instead remove seven from the girl and one from each of the boys, but Arashi wouldn't allow it. He said that alterations could be made, and removing so much from any one subject could prove risky and threaten to expose their work.

Just as they were finishing up, having selected the gamete pairings and returning the "donors" to their previous location, Arashi remembered that he needed to ask Ajina if she wanted any specific genders, but the young woman and her partner were nowhere to be found. A hastily scrawled note revealed that they had to run and would return in nine months to pick up the infants.

Crumpling the note in a fist and developing a slight twitch, Arashi needed to control himself to refrain from screaming.

It only took six months for development.

* * *

The first six months came and went without much occurrence. All eight infants were developing normally and appeared to be perfectly healthy, but something was amiss. A few of the babies began showing strange signs. Physically, they were the same as the other five, but odd things kept happening around the laboratory - beakers exploding, papers catching on fire, and small objects becoming flying projectiles. Most of Arashi's assistants immediately took off in a panic, claiming that the lab was haunted, but the skeptics remained for another two months. That was when one of the female infants developed a habit of glaring at the assistants with a murderous expression. So at approximately eight months, Arashi's pet project went down the proverbial toilet. He was left with only two choices: either take care of the children by himself for one more month, or come forward with the truth and tell Kaiba. To be perfectly honest, Arashi valued his sanity above his job, so he chose the latter.

He didn't bother to check with Kaiba's secretary - he was too set on ridding himself of the infants as quickly as possible. With the aid of four of his former assistants for carrying the babies and multiple diaper bags, Arashi more or less barged into Kaiba's office unannounced.

Seto was torn between shock and rage from the sudden intrusion, but settled on confusion and curiosity when the man placed two infants in his arms.

"Kaiba-san, I can't stand it any longer! Take these brats and leave me in peace!"

"... Excuse me?" Seto couldn't help but laugh just a tiny bit. "What kind of twisted joke is this?"

"This is no joke!" Arashi raged on, nearing his breaking point. "Do you remember two other employees of yours, Yuimi Ajina and Tsuriki Uryo?"

At the mention of those names, Kaiba's eyes narrowed. "They've been fired."

This was news to Arashi. "Since when?!"

"Almost four months ago."

That sent Arashi completely off the deep end, and he would have been cursing had there not been several small children in the room. He managed to calm himself for a moment and explain the recent activities of KaibaCorp's genetic engineering underground labs, without failing to mention Yuimi and Tsuriki's stake in it.

Kaiba sat there in stunned silence for a moment, not quite sure what to make of all this. He was brought back to reality when one of the babies in his arms started sniffling. It wasn't long before all eight joined in and began wailing. Kaiba would have screamed for Arashi to make them stop the horrible noise, but the scientist had taken his leave, leaving him alone to this new dilemma.

"Oniichan?" Mokuba poked his head in the door, curious about the sounds coming from within his brother's office. His face lit up when he saw the infants. "Ooh, whose are they?"

"I'm not sure yet," Seto muttered darkly, though Mokuba didn't appear to catch the tone of his voice. He wasn't sure if he should do what he was thinking of, but it was better than trying to placate the crying babies on his own. "I have to make a phone call. Could you go out in the hall for a minute?"

"Okie doke!"

Sighing as the infants' crying simmered down, he picked up the phone and dialed the game shop.

"Hello?"

"Hi Yugi... Are the others there?"

"Yes. Why?"

He didn't know how to start, so he opted not to mention it until they arrived. "I need you to come over. Now."

"Is something wrong?"

At that moment, the girl in Seto's arms started whimpering again. "Oh no... I'll explain when you get here. Just hurry!" With that he hung up the phone, but not before the wailing commenced and Seto felt a severe headache coming on.