Chapter Three: The Ringmaster

The seven heroes made their way out of the tent, through the crowd of children and parents outside, and back into the woods of the park. They stepped off of the dirt path and into the shade of the trees so that no one could see them.

Kaiba folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at the newcomer, King Spencer of the Dimension of the Gods. "Okay, Spencer, what's the name of this psychopathic freak who managed to escape from your world and make his way into ours?!" he snapped.

Spencer sighed. "His name is Ringmaster Yingya. Once upon a time, he owned the largest, most popular circus in the entirety of our world, and people would come from miles around to watch his show. He had tons of exotic animals, incredible performers, the best food you could ask for…to put it simply, his place rocked. But about five thousand years ago, he created a new sideshow for his circus which he simply referred to as a Freak Show. Tiny children the size of thimbles, kids with multiple appendages, contortionists, kids with skin of every sorts of colors-everyone thought it was the coolest thing in the world...until the Kingrah police became flooded with reports from parents about how their children were missing and began making a connection that all of them had mysteriously 'vanished' when Yingya's circus was in town. They started following him around and eventually found out that the nut was kidnapping some kids who came to his place and transforming them into his own personal attraction."

"And dey just let demselves become freaks?!" Joey cried in disbelief.

"They didn't know any better; he also completely wiped their memories clean in the transformation process and fed them some sappy story about how he 'saved' them from dying terribly tragic deaths and would let them stay with him on the condition that he let them just be shown to the public once in a while so people could feast their eyes on them and adore them in all of their 'fantastical glory'." He snorted. "Real sweetheart. Anyway, once he was found out, they arrested him and locked him up for five thousand years. He apparently didn't learn a single lesson from his jail stay, however, because soon afterwards he got out from underneath police watch and managed to escape to your dimension. And now, apparently, the freakin' sonuva baka has zapped himself up an entire circus of his own, just so he can kidnap a couple of mortal kids, turn them into his personal freak show, and ensure that he can go back and start his circus up in our world without worry of being thrown back in jail for kidnapping kids of the Dimension of the Gods."

The other six stared at him in sheer horror. "Oh no…" Yugi murmured. "This must be why all of those kids were trying to get over there when they heard the circus music…"

"Probably some sort of mind control embedded within the tune," Spencer said. "Wouldn't affect anyone from our world, but definitely could work on younger kids from yours."

"We've gotta get over there and stop him before he can take any other kids," Tristan cried, turning to dash out of the woods.

Spencer grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar, stopping him in his dash. "Not so fast," he said. "There are way too many people around here at the moment for us to successfully get them out without drawing out a heckuva lotta attention to ourselves. We've gotta wait and come back much, much later, when everyone's gone and we can just face Yingya all on our own."

"You want us to just wait?" Kaiba cried. "That freak has transformed my little brother into some sea beast and you expect us to just wait?! WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO MOKUBA BY THE TIME WE GET TO HIM?!"

His entire outline started sparking with large amounts of white lightning, illuminating the dark forest and threatening to set the nearby trees on fire. Everyone quickly jumped away from him to avoid getting hit by the bolts.

"Kai, calm down!" Spencer yelled, shielding his eyes from the bright light. "Yingya won't do a thing to your brother-he…" He paused to consider his words. "He sees your brother, unfortunately, as some nice investment of his. He'd never attempt to just 'get rid of him' or something; the sicko values him too highly for that. Trust me, he'll be all right come nightfall."

Kaiba slowly let his sparks fade away. "Fine, I'll wait," he snapped, "but come nighttime, what you say about Mokuba won't be able to be said as well for that insane ringmaster."

He turned, walked out of the wooded area, and made his way back down the path. The others stared after him, still in slight shock, as he left.

"Geez, I've never seen Kaiba dat ticked off before," Joey commented. "An for him, dat's a big achievement."

"Well, it's not all that surprising," Yugi said. "Kaiba would do anything to keep Mokuba safe-he even tried risking his life for him back in Duelist Kingdom."

"We, um, might wanna try to steer clear of him for the time being, though." Spencer said. "When somebody with our kinds of powers gets really, really ticked off, who knows what can happen."

"Oh, c'mon, this is Kaiba we're talking about," Tristan rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I mean, him just usin' his magic widdout even hesitatin'?" Joey snorted. "De day dat happens is de day he goes widdout ever havin' dat scowl on his face even for one sec."

"Guys, this is also magic we're talking about," Spencer said. "When that's around, then anything is possible…"