Disclaimer: I own nothin but the plot, and most likely not even that. I'm just writing, man.
Boot Camp
Chapter Two
Attack! Attack! Help!
Bakura lit a small candle that had been given to him by Yugi once he came back from the mirror-life. Joey, Pegasus, and Kaiba were in the dark recreation room, glaring at each other.
'Whoa,' Bakura thought. 'Great night vision.'
"Um, hey, you guys?" Bakura asked timidly. "I swiped some cards from the front desk when the Magician wasn't looking...wanna play poker?"
"Nah, can't play poker," Joey grunted, still glaring at Kaiba.
"Humph, figures," Kaiba snickered. "A dog like you? Poker?" He laughed a bit. All was silent for a moment, and then Kaiba muttered, "I can't either."
Joey burst out laughing. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen!"
"Shut up, you puppy!"
"Computer brain!"
"Well at least I can figure out simple equations!"
"Why I-"
"Boys, why don't we just settle down and play Go Fish?" Pegasus suggested, stepping in the middle of the two.
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Fine."
So, the four settled in for a game of cards.
"We don't have a problem!"
Mary and Jo, the two Change of Heartses, tossed the green stuffed donkey back to Yami.
"Yes, you do. That's why you're here. Now, take the jabberdonkey and talk!" Yami yelled, forcing the stuffed animal into their hands.
Jo stuck her half of the tongue out at him, a half of a snake's tongue that writhed with a life of its own. Mary just rolled her eye and sighed.
"Okay," she complied. "First off, we're a magic card and not a monster card. Jo always wanted to be a monster card."
"That's right, stupid Pegasus. We weren't even monsters in the original game, Yami."
Ryou settled in for what looked to be a good Pharaoh tongue-lashing. According to Bakura, the Pharaoh had had this coming for a long time.
"Hah! I won again! In your face, Kaiba!" a triumphant Joey yelled, dancing around the room. "I won, I won, yeah, yeah, I won..."
"Oh, drat," Pegasus complained. "I lost."
With that, he huffed into a dark corner and flopped onto his bed.
"Oh, stop looking so happy, mutt. Since you went and beat the tomb-robber, he'll likely kill you in your sleep anyw-"
"Actually, I would much rather kill you," Bakura stated calmly from his new position, hands around the billionaire's neck. "If I kill Wheeler, I won't get much. With you, on the other hand, think of all the Millennium Items I could buy..."
Kaiba gulped and shut up. All was silent for a moment, just quiet enough to hear footsteps down the hall.
"Hide the cards!" Bakura whispered harshly, blowing out the candle, sending the room into darkness and stuffing everyone else's food into his pocket.
"Joey? Peggy?" came the call from outside. Then a light came on. Bakura froze in the act of stuffing a cornbread muffin into his mouth.
Mai stood in the bright doorway with a large purple shopping bag in one hand, and a Safeway bag in the other. "Why didn't you guys just turn on the light? The switch was right here."
"Mai!" Pegasus and Joey said in unison. They glared at each other. "What did you bring me?"
Mai tossed the shopping bag to Pegasus, and the Safeway bag to Joey. "Thought it might make you happy."
Pegasus pulled out a large glass bottle. He gasped. "Purple-green-shimmeresqe-fruitopia-mango nail polish! Mai, thank you so much!" He squealed and started painting his toenails.
Joey opened his bag and found, to his great delight, a box of unopened candy bars. His eyes glimmered with happy tears. "Mai, you're the best."
"I know," Mai said, flouncing out the door. When she left, the lights went back out, and another candle was lit.
"You guys just get all the visitors. My sister hasn't come to see me once," whined (if it was possible for him to whine) Ishtar.
All the other occupants stared at the newcomer in shocked fright before Kaiba said, "And, gee, we wonder why."
The Heartses were done chewing Yami out by the time Ryou's newly discovered clock read 9:15.
"Well, friends, time for the Happy Song, and then we'll go to bed," grinned Yami.
"Sing with me now!"
"We are all happy, so happy,
That we all want to give each other hugs.
Our partners and enemies,
Are locked in boot camp,
And are learning happy lessons from Yugi.
We are all happy, so happy,
That we all love the world and every bug.
We must sleep now,
Lay your heads down,
And have nice dreams away from scary things!"
"That is one bizarre song," Tristan muttered. Serenity nodded.
Ryou and his odd assortment of companions curled up on their beanbags, most falling asleep in minutes, a weird mist settling over them. Ryou, on the other hand, was kept awake by a nagging voice at the back of his head.
'What about Bakura?' it asked, biting at the last sense of sanity in his brain.
'Who cares about Bakura?' he yelled back. 'I certainly don't.'
'That's what you think,' it sneered back at him. But the voice was silent after that. Ryou smiled, and burrowed his head into the beanbag. Just when he was almost asleep, the door burst open. Ryou sat up, violently hitting his head against the ceiling.
"Pharaoh Yami!" cried a familiar voice. "Pharaoh! The boot camp's guards have been captured and the security here's been breeched! We'll be killed in minutes!"
Ryou looked at the shadowed speaker in shock as the other occupants slowly came to, all except the pharaoh. The speaker gestured hopefully to Ryou.
"You can at least help me bar the door."
A thump sounded at the door; Bakura jumped up quickly to get it. As soon as he opened it, light fell into the room, as did the body of one of the magician guards.
Bakura cast a wide-eyed glance to the corpse of a quickly dissolving magician, to Ishtar and back again. All the other eyes in the room did the same, before a scream filled the room.
"Ishtar, you naughty, naughty boy! That was quite rude to kill those magicians!" screamed Pegasus from his corner.
"Yeah, you bastard! You tryin' to kill us or somethin'?" Joey cried passionately.
"I didn't do it, I swear!" Ishtar promised with a smirk. "But I'd be highly surprised if my hikari didn't have something to do with it..."
But the war cry from the outside sounded nothing like Malik. Ishtar's face went blank. "Not good," he said.
"Duh."
All the men in the room gathered all the weapons they could pilfer from the unoccupied rooms, and rushed into the fray.
Next: Battle scene, more therapy, prisoners, and a snoring pharaoh. Who is the mysterious messenger? Who is attacking the not-so-innocent occupants of Boot Camp? What happened to Bakura in the alternate reality? All those questionss will be answered next chapter.
And...so...review. All of you. I know I've had close to fifty hits so far, so the least you guys can do is give me five or ten reviews. Please? You would make a poor, old author very, very happy...
Love much!