Wild-filly: yes, I'm back at last.. along with another late update!

Kaioshin: -_- she's just lazy

Wild-filly: *glares* that's not true - I've just been working on several different original fictions AND I posted a Yu-Gi-Oh! spoof of 'The Real Slim Shady' (Feel free to read, mock and review)

Kaioshin: let's quit the stalling, you're wasting the nice readers' time with your shameless self advertising

Disclaimer: Don't own = don't sue

***Chapter 4***

'RYOU!!!! WHERE ARE YOU? Hey, that rhymes!' came the voice of Joey, jogging through the crowded alleyways , squinting into the stalls flashing past and knocking over the occasional pedestrian.

Tristan gave a groan as he followed close behind. He highly doubted that Bakura was anywhere nearby, especially since the shy hikari didn't like crowds, or people pointing out that his name was very easy to rhyme with.

Joey appeared to reach the same conclusion, slowing to a stop in front of a huge showbag display, staring at the plastic merchandise unseeingly. 'Do you think he may have gone into one of the animal display barns?'

Tristan shrugged, 'it's worth a shot I guess, I think the map said there was a sheep, llama and alpaca barn just up ahead'.

Too late they arrived to have witnessed Kaiba's trample from grace and Ryou wasn't there anyway.

To be honest, Ryou was back in his Soul Room - Yami Bakura had decided that the knife incident was simply a slight slip-up on account that he hadn't been stealing much recently, and in order to reclaim his precious knife, he might as well get back into practise.

Strolling contentedly down the outdoor market facilities, all sorts of jewellery from stalls and passers-by began to relocate itself into one of the thief's many pockets. Ryou had been perplexed to discover that all of his clothes had had new pockets installed virtually overnight, and somewhat amused to find his Yami pouting in his Soul Room because the sewing machine had run over one of his fingers.

As much as the sadistic tomb robber loved pain, he was not so keen on having pain in the form of a running blanket stitch with glittery green thread decorating and connecting three of his fingers. Nor was he keen on the fact Ryou pointed out the thread wasn't thread at all, but in fact balding tinsel that had been stored in coils at the back of his wardrobe.

How was Ryou to know that a psychotic tomb robber would go delving through his belongings in search of thread and discover tinsel instead?

Either way, Yami Bakura was having a wonderful time. These people didn't seem to believe in good old-fashioned paranoia in order to remain in possession of their valuables. He was having so much success in his ventures that he was in fact becoming quite tired due to the combined weight of his new belongings. Time to take a break and maybe see if there was a convenient pawnbroker anywhere nearby.

*

Yugi, Tea and Marik were currently stumbling down sideshow alley, having contrived to lose Mokuba, Kaiba, Ryou/psycho tomb raider, Joey and Tristan with no effort whatsoever. They were searching for the missing cohorts, but didn't hold too much hope of finding them and were contentedly cruising their way through the sights.

Tea eyed a huge construction which appeared to function in much the same way as a deformed sling shot, flinging encapsuled people into the air in a kind of reverse bungy-jump approach.

'Hey Yugi, that looks pretty fun. You want to go on?'

Yugi glanced up at what Tea was pointing at. And up. And up.

'Uh, you're having a shot?'

'Yeah, it looks cool!'

Yugi just stared at the suddenly chirpy Tea in amazement. He had never seen her as a thrill ride person.

'Uh, yeah, I suppose.'

Marik could barely conceal a malicious snicker as he watched the duellist's face take on a profoundly greener hue as Tea bounded off to get tickets for the ride.

'What's the matter, scared of heights?'

Yugi turned to Marik, steeling himself. 'No, I simply don't like ground from great distances in the air. Heights don't bother me at all'.

The blonde Egyptian glared irritably, but cheered up as Tea reappeared, wielding two tickets.

'Come on Yugi! The capsule seats two at a time, we can go now!'

'That's... great'

'Don't worry Yugi, I'll get a picture from the sidelines... Maybe if the ride breaks the picture can go on your tombstone!'

Tea glared at the tomb keeper now rolling on the grass, howling with laughter, 'aren't you missing any Gameboy games?'

Marik's lavender eyes widened in horror, leaping up from the grass and tearing open his hieroglyphic-patterned rucksack and rummaging through its contents. He looked up to see Tea and Yugi hurrying over to where the queue had just finished and were being beckoned onboard.

'YOU STOLE MY SPYRO: SEASON OF ICE GAME!!!'

The ride technician took Tea's ticket and helped her buckle into the safety harness before turning to Yugi, now witnessing a slideshow of his life.

'I'm sorry sir, but you're too short for this ride'

The slideshow ended abruptly as Yugi's ears registered this possibility for his life not to end so soon after all.

'Doesn't hair count?'

The technician smiled, but shook his head. 'You'd have to be another few centimetres in order to ride safely'.

To the technician's surprise, the spiky-haired kid grinned, 'hang on, my friend may want to take my place instead. I'll go get him now'.

Yugi then took off, hurrying behind a line of arcade games, calling out the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle.

'YU -GI-OH!'

Yami blinked, momentarily disorientated by the flashing signs and huge plush animals hanging from hooks on the roofs of the stands. It was like being in some huge, futuristic abattoir.

'Spirit, go over to where Tea is and do what the technician guy tells you to'

'Yugi? What's happening?'

'There's no time Spirit, just go over there and you'll find out'

Oblivious to the danger his scheming hikari had just put his sanity in, the ancient pharaoh strode over to the strange contraption beyond the even stranger stalls full of dead, unrealistic animals.

Tea waved to the dignified King of Games as he gingerly navigated his way through the uncouth masses barring his path.

The technician stared in utter disbelief; this guy could pass for the shorter one's exact double. The only difference between them was stance, height and very slight hair styling arrangements. Apart from that they could be identical.

'Uh, here sir. Just sit down and I'll sort out the harness'

Yami cautiously sat down in the solid plastic chair, 'Tea, what is this?'

Tea smiled widely, 'it's called a thrill ride, Yami. They're great fun, you'll see'.

The technician then stepped backwards, sealing up the spherical cage and entering the operating booth. The ride began to shudder, releasing a pneumatic hiss. The pharaoh noted that the ground was starting to do something strange and he didn't like it.

'Tea, Yugi.... COULD ONE OF YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHAT IN RA'S NAME IS GOING ON?!'

Yugi was blissfully watching the whole ride from the relative safety of his Soul Room, choosing to ignore the panicked bellowing of Yami. Of course, if the ride were to collapse around them, he would still be in trouble, but at least now he felt more relaxed.

And could also use this as blackmail for Yami.

Tea was so busy laughing in excitement that she didn't hear the pharaoh's panic-stricken roar, nor did she see him trying to dig his fingers deeper into the smooth interior, eyes far wider than usual.

From where he was stationed in the operation booth, the technician noted with some amusement that the arrogant double of the first kid now seemed considerably less self-assured. He looked completely terrified.

Finally the gears clicked back into their furthest position. The spiky- haired guy wasn't going to like this one bit. With a slightly evil smirk, the technician hit the release catch and watched as the slingshot fired into the air.

From where Marik was huddled on the lawn gathering up his precious Gameboy adaptors, connector cables, trade links, screen lights, spare batteries and myriad of additional games, he could hear a frenzied scream coming from the stupid pharaoh.

'HIKARI I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

*

Seto Kaiba was still not having a good day. As if the sheep incident hadn't been enough, he now couldn't find his sugar-high younger brother. The situation seemed quite hopeless. He could only hope that the damage bill wouldn't be too dramatic. Or addressed to him.

Kaiba sighed, burrowing his knuckles deep into his forehead, why oh why had he agreed to his ridiculous trip in the first place? Maybe the next time Mokuba appealed to the good nature of his heart he should remember this day.

The CEO was just about to exit the barn stocking the sheep, llamas and alpacas, all in varying stages of sheer boredom and irritation, when he heard a shriek. There was a certain edge to the shriek that struck a chord in his mind. He knew that voice and had a feeling that whatever was making the owner of the voice shriek was worth observing.

Turning towards where the sound was coming from, Kaiba was not disappointed. In fact he was nearly re-trampled by the sheep.

'JOEY YOU MORON!!'

'HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT WAS THE GATE LATCH?'

"HOW ABOUT THE SIGN HANGING OFF IT SAYING "GATE LATCH - DO NOT TOUCH"?!'

Joey was about to respond with his own yell, but the owner of the sheep came galloping out of nowhere, with bloodshot eyes and a pitchfork in one hand.

Tristan and Joey exchanged a glance and took off, the flailing sheep breeder tearing after them, screaming obscenities and assorted curses. Kaiba permitted himself a slight chuckle. Ah... Why was he so against holidays again?

*

Yami Bakura was still looking for a place to sit down for a while. Everywhere he went he was encountered by worthless mortals occupying the only passable seating. Sitting on the grass was beneath such a wonderful thief as he, and besides, there was a high risk of getting trampled by a herd of tourists if you sat down ANYWHERE.

The tomb robber was now desperate. At this rate he would be forced to cast off some of his hard-earned loot and he was most loathed even to contemplate this.

Finally he spotted a place to sit down; it was elevated on a metal stand thing, painted garish neon colours but it was still a chair of some sort. There were even a couple of people already sitting on the chairs, chatting animatedly and generally looking like a crowd of happy dumb mortals. Maybe he could see if they had anything of value with them, but right now he just wanted to collapse and get his bearings to relocate the home of the beloved knife.

Stamping up the brief flight of metal steps to where the glittery chairs were all lined up, the thief king was waylaid by a ticket collector.

'Sir do you have pass for this ride?'

Yami Bakura blinked, surveying the collector as though she were an abnormally stupid mortal; what on earth was a pass? Or a ride for that matter? He couldn't see any camels or horses nearby - obviously this was some maniac with no life whatsoever. The thief couldn't be too sure though, deciding to fork over a fistful of some type of currency he had pilfered from the handbag of a passing old lady.

The ticket collector surveyed the heap of change, then the thief's expression. There was something about that face that reminded her of the homicidal maniac from a horror movie she watched and had nightmares about for months afterwards. Nodding and ushering the white-haired person of debatable sanity, she stepped down off the platform and signalled to the ride operator.

Yami Bakura had just seated himself comfortably down on the hard plastic chair, or at least as comfortably as he could. Pensively he noted the presence of a metal loop that seemed to start at the sides of the chair and then ascend to the top beyond the headrest. Was this some form of primitive decoration? He observed similar ones on the chairs of the people sitting in front of and behind him.

A red siren started to wail and flash at the operator's booth, catching the thief's attention. Suddenly the weird metal loop fell off, or at least it seemed to lose its balance. It was now quite tightly secured around his waist and no amount of pulling or thrashing could dislodge it. Ryou sensed his Yami's frantic scrabbling at the rollarcoaster's securing barrier from where he was peacefully meditating in his Soul Room.

'What's wrong?'

'I'm trapped! I can't get out of this chair decoration!'

'It's not a chair decoration, it's a security harness'

'What kind of incompetent fool would need a safety harness to remain upright in a chair?!'

'It's not a chair, it's a rollarcoaster'.

'A what?!'

Ryou had no chance to answer, for the thief suddenly found out for himself as the "chair" took off down the track, plunging down the steep drops and whirling upside down through the tight vertical loops.

The screams of terror issuing from the dauntless thief's mouth were drowned out though by the screams of pain, surprise and delight as the stash of jewellery concealed in the countless pockets in the thief's clothes were shaken out of their hiding places and onto the crowd below.

Screams of terror turned to rage as Yami Bakura realised he had just lost all of his beloved thievings, however they reverted back to terror as the rollarcoaster started up the track again and then dove towards the ground at breakneck speed.

In the wonderful serenity of his Soul Room, Ryou smiled as the fearless king of thieves finally disembarked from the perfectly innocent ride and made his way towards the exit in a peculiar swaying gait.

'hikari, you can take over for a while'

Ryou's eyes focussed on the crowd, taking in the assorted people groping around on the floor after the jewellery that had fallen from the coaster like confetti. Now would probably be a good time to leave before someone recognized a necklace that at the start of the day was around their neck but was now in the grip of a stranger.

Off in the near distance, Ryou could have sworn he heard Yami's voice.... slightly high-pitched, but definitely Yugi's darker half. The hikari was somewhat perplexed as to just what had driven the pharaoh into this strange turn of events, but either way, it was time he rejoined the group and maybe had some fun himself. Not that witnessing the humiliation of the tomb robber hadn't been entertaining.

*

wild-filly: Royal Show Part III will be out soon, but for the moment my fingers are starting to protest and I'm now also in the mood to write something else tonight ^_^ yay! Death to writer's block at last!

Kaioshin: wild-filly would now like to thank the following reviewers AND give Prantis (Darkness Eternal) and ani05tersrVIP a little light blue and red paper umbrella respectively because the title of the fic lead them into a false promise of there being rain -_-;;

Yami Lover

TigerTerror

Saliorstarlight4

Ten-kih Ho-shih

Ani05tersrVIP

In fact... everyone who reviews gets their own little paper umbrella in the colour of their choice ^_^