Chapter 9: When the Fish 'n' Chips are Down
Yami and Tristan were perched on a low dune just beyond the reach of the breakers. Ever since Yugi had vanished beneath the waves, Yami had been staring at them and, (proving that a good listener is usually thinking about something else), only partially paying attention to Tristan's rambling attempts at distracting him.
"Sometimes, I ponder important things, you know?" Tristan was saying as Yami listened with half an ear. "Like the meaning of life and the origins of man. And other times, I ponder not-so-important but equally relevant things. Like why my room smells like dog food, though I think that's my nephew's fault, because-"
A few minutes later, Tristan tried to start a debate on the relative merits of fish sticks versus chicken nuggets. (For the record, Yami preferred fish sticks, which had the virtue of being made from parts of the animal in question he'd knowingly put in his mouth, but saying so felt vaguely disloyal to Yugi, for reasons he'd rather not think about. Which negated the whole point of having the argument in the first place.)
Fortunately, Tristan met his lack of rejoinder by shifting topics again. "And we should all think about greener living. I mean, look at the nuclear family, right? Sure, they can operate more cleanly in some respects than, say, a coal-powered family. But, dude, when there's the inevitable Thanksgiving meltdown over whether Aunt Frieda's pumpkin pie is better than Grandma Estelle's, the whole neighborhood's gonna feel the fallout-"
"Look!" Yami interrupted, spying something in the waves. "There's Yugi!"
"Yeah, I can see his hair. Kinda hard to miss."
The two of them hurried down to where sea met sand, just as Yugi body-surfed into shore. And, this time, he wasn't alone. A very disgruntled looking Seto Kaiba dragged himself onto the beach, followed by his exact duplicate. Yugi appeared to have lost the tail, but both Kaibas were sporting... tentacles?
"Oh, great," Tristan said. "Just what this day needs: Seto Kaiba in stereo."
The Kaibas in question glared at him. One of them growled, "Why are you even here, Taylor?"
"Why are you a squid?"
Yugi frowned. "Pretty sure he's an octopus. But that's beside the point-"
"The point is, he's beside himself," Yami corrected, randomly selecting a surplus Seto to indicate with a gesture. "Who is this one?"
"My name's Kiaba," the double chirped, waving up at them from his sprawl, half on the sand, half on Seto. "I'm his hikari!"
"You are not!" Seto yelled, recoiling so hard he fell back into the water. His double dove after him, hauling Seto upright with a worried, "Yami!"
"For the last time, I am not your yami! I am not anyone's yami!" Seto flailed, trying to free himself from Kiaba's grasp. "You have ten seconds to let go of me. After that, any part of you that's still touching me, you're not getting back."
Tristan couldn't decide whether to laugh or shriek in horror. "Is anyone else as disturbed by this as I am?"
"Yes," chorused Yugi and Yami.
Then Yugi stood up, revealing the fact that he was only wearing the seashell bra, and made up Tristan's mind for him. He shrieked in horror. "Oh my god, where are your pants?!"
"I was just a fish," Yugi growled. "Ever seen a fish with pants?"
Both hands clapped over his eyes, Tristan bemoaned, "I can still see it when I close my eyes, dude. I think it's burned into my retinas!"
Hastily, Yami stripped off his jacket and bundled Yugi into it. Fortunately, the jacket's long cut meant it covered the essentials, even if it didn't really make up for the lack of legwear.
"While I am happy to see you restored to your usual self, Yugi," Yami said, "I have to admit that I, too, find your lack of pants disturbing."
"Well, Darth Yami, I found my lack of legs more disturbing, so either give me your pants or shut up about it."
Seto had finally gotten away from his double and clawed his way further up the sand. "You should all shut up and figure out a way to get us all the hell out of here." He considered a second. "Except Kiaba. After all, this is his natural habitat."
Not quite ready to let the pants thing go, Yugi glared at Tristan. "You could stay, too. Since you don't usually get to 'enjoy' the whole 'fic experience' and all."
"Nah, I'd flounder as a fish. My life's porpoise isn't to work for scale."
"Oh, you think you're punny, don't you?"
"I'm not fishing for compliments."
"No, you're doing it for the halibut."
"And having a whale of a time."
Seto snapped. "Both of you idiots clam up!"
"Man, you're crabby. Get up on the wrong side of the sea bed this morning?"
Seto growled at the heavens. "If this day had a face, I would punch it. So. Hard."
Kiaba patted Seto on his pointy shoulder pad and said, "Yami's right. We need to concentrate on figuring out a plan for getting home."
"Huh," said Seto, looking stunned at something sensible coming out of his double's mouth, even if Kiaba was still using the hated "y-word."
"What?" Kiaba looked insulted. "It's as plain as the face on your clock."
And the sensible had left the building. (Beach. Whatever.)
"We could stand here and argue until the cows turn blue, but that'll get us nowhere faster than molasses in January," Kiaba continued, oblivious to the four "wtf" expressions directed his way. "I'm sure it'll be as easy as falling off a piece of cake, if we put our minds to the grind stone."
Tristan hadn't ever heard anyone mangle English idioms that badly, and he'd known Joey Wheeler for most of his life. In an awed voice, he asked, "On a scale of one to Colorado, how high are you right now?"
Deciding that ignoring the insanity was the only reasonable course of action, Seto turned to Yugi. "Please tell me you have a plan for dealing with this."
"Absolutely," Yugi said dryly. "Ever since we got here, I've been furiously clicking my heels together and chanting 'there's no place like home'. Oh, wait. No, I haven't, because for most of this god-forsaken day, I haven't had feet!"
"Speaking of feet," Yami interjected, in the tone of one determined to get an answer if it killed someone. (Not him, of course. Been there, done that, bought the carved stele. (Because they didn't have t-shirts in ancient Egypt.)) "Why do you have them?"
At Yugi's narrowed eyes, Yami added, "I already said I was glad you're back to normal. I would just like to know how you accomplished it."
"Kiaba did it."
"Kiaba?"
"Yeah, kinda surprised me, too. But I guess since he's the one who's supposed to be here, he's the one with the story-appropriate powers."
"Here's my theory, and correct me if I'm wrong-" Kiaba began, only for Seto to cut him off.
"You're wrong."
"I haven't told you my theory, yet!"
"You're still wrong."
Folding his arms and looking like a kicked puppy, (if puppies had tentacles and questionable taste in trench coats), Kiaba pouted.
"Oh, let the guy tell us his theory," Tristan said, frowning at the looks the others shot him. "How bad could it be?"
In Yugi's opinion, their options were "bad," "really bad," or "really, really bad." But, Kiaba's sad puppy eyes were lethal levels of heart-twisting, so what he said was, "Fine. What's your theory, Kiaba?"
Kiaba pointed over Yami's shoulder. "I think we should go through that."
-o0o-
Tristan and Yami lugged Seto and Kiaba up the dune to the glowing spot on the sand that the duplicate had spotted. Once there, all five of them stared at what they'd found.
"Well," said Yugi. "That's something you don't see everyday."
"That" was a patch of rainbow light, as if a beam was passing through a prism to shine on the sand. In the center of the light, floating there with no apparent support, were the words, to be continued...
"I seem to have lost my mind, let me know if you trip over it or anything," Tristan mumbled, gaze fixed on the impossible sight in front of them.
"Yeah, okay," Seto grouched, turning to glare at Kiaba. "You're observant. But pointing out a thing one of us was bound to notice sooner or later is not a theory!"
"Oh, I know that." Kiaba beamed at him. "My theory is that if we go through the light, we'll be sent back to your dimension. Or to another bad-fic."
That sounded like a good idea to absolutely no one else.
"Uh, I don't know about you guys, but I'd really rather not end up with fins, again," Yugi said, grimacing at the thought. "Or worse."
"What makes you think we'll end up in another bad-fic?" Yami asked.
"Well, that's what usually happens with us stand-ins. There's a lot of bad-fic out there, so we stay pretty busy." He looked as thoughtful as he could manage, which wasn't very. (And it appeared to hurt.) "But since you guys are here, we'll probably return to your dimension instead. I mean, that's where I was before Yami and me got sent here. And you said your stand-ins are still there, right?"
"Yeah." Yugi sighed. There was no way this would end well. "Anyone got any better ideas?"
Crickets chirped in the ensuing silence. Both Yugi and Seto spared a moment to feel thankful that they weren't singing.
"Literally any idea ever is a better one than listening to this guy's stupid idea!" Seto said finally, without much hope of anyone listening to him.
Proving him right, Yami said, "If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid."
"So, when this all goes wahoonie-shaped and we end up in some 'Fifty Shades of Bad-Fic' hell, we won't even have 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' as an excuse," Yugi noted. "Awesome."
"Ah, where's your sense of adventure?" asked Tristan.
"At home. In my pants, along with my dignity."
"Speaking of pants, if we do make it home, you can retrieve yours," Yami pointed out.
"Thank you, Pharaoh Bright Side."
Ignoring the sarcasm, Yami said, "We should all go through at the same time. Tristan, you carry Kiaba. Yugi and I will deal with Seto."
"Don't I get any say in this arrangement?" Seto demanded.
"No."
With a huff, Seto acquiesced. It wasn't as if he realistically had much choice in the matter. Tentacles did not lend themselves to shifting the human half of his body on dry land, and he did not intend to further humiliate himself in front of his greatest rivals. (And Tristan, though Tristan Taylor fell below Kiaba on Seto's List of People Whose Opinions I Give a Shit About.)
"Jeez, dude," Tristan complained, as he hefted Kiaba onto his back. "You weigh a ton. I think I sprained my spleen..."
"Shut up and get us through the... portal or whatever the hell it is," Seto commanded, trying to pretend he wasn't draped over Yami's back with Yugi wrangling wayward tentacles like a bride's attendant carrying her train.
"All right," Yami grunted, bent nearly double under the weight of his passenger. "Let's do this!"
Hoping for the best, they stepped into the light.
-o0o-
Only a minute or two after our heroes (and Kiaba) had vanished, two figures appeared on the beach. They walked to the portal, frowning at the footprints that disappeared into the light.
"Well, poo," said the first figure, hands on her curvy hips and a moue of disgust on her Purple Sparkleberry lip-glossed lips. "I told you we were gonna miss 'em if we didn't hurry. But, nooooo, you had to stop for your stupid coffee!"
"You know how I get when I'm under-caffeinated!" wailed the second figure, clutching her venti, half-soy, full fat, extra-whip, pumpkin mocha spice with caramel drizzle and chocolate sprinkles to her chest. She took a long pull at her drink, and then brightened as a thought occurred to her. She gave a giddy hop, setting her pink-tipped blonde curls bouncing. "We'll just have to catch them in the next story!"
"Oh, sure." The first figure rolled her heavily kohl-lined, purple shadowed eyes. "And how do you suggest we find out where they went?"
"Chill the fuck out, Rio," the second girl said. She held up a golden object, adorned with a stylized Egyptian eye, that she'd retrieved from her massive purse. "We'll use this, of course."
Laughing, she and the girl named Rio danced on the sand.
