I'm breaking this up into two chapters. It works better that way.
(1) To the tune of "Cooking by the Book" from Lazytown.
(2) To the tune of "Swagger Jagger" by Cher Lloyd.
-O-o-O-o-O-
There once lived a man who declared, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."
"Blast you, Murphy," Bakura swore under his breath amidst the flurry of activity that was opening night. The gaggles of actors and actresses running to and fro in their blue and white outfits made the whole backstage area look like an ancient Egyptian themed high school pep rally.
Kaiba was alternately shouting directions to everyone and running off to puke. Apparently, the Kaiba brothers had lunch at Nacho Hell that day. Mokuba and Noah were fine, but Kaiba seemed to have drawn the short straw. Or burrito, in which case "short" meant, "not properly cooked."
Yami, who hadn't gotten much sleep the night before (stage fright, who would've thought?), was nodding off at the drop of a hat. Not even mainlining coffee could help him.
Yugi was writing the one line he always forgot at the top of his wrist. There was no way the audience would see it, and he could always pull his bracelet over it. He just hoped he didn't sweat and smear it all over Kaiba's face when they had their big scene together.
Joey was hacking and coughing into a tissue. The bottom of the trash bin was covered with blood stained tissues.
"Use an understudy," Serenity pleaded. "It'll only be for tonight."
Joey wiped the blood off his mouth. "I can't. Dis is just somethin' I gotta do."
Outside, in the adjacent alley, Tristan peered around a dumpster at the audience entering the theater. He couldn't simply walk into the place, but he didn't see any way he could sneak in without getting caught. The back doors would definitely be locked, maybe even guarded. His deck was safely tucked into his pocket, along with a can of Mace.
"Uh-oh," he thought when he saw Duke and Noah walk toward the front steps. He ducked behind the dumpster and flattened himself against the wall.
The piles of cardboard, Styrofoam, and plastic bottles rattled inside the dumpster. Then Rex Raptor poked his head out of the mess and glared at Tristan. "Hey, get your own dumpster!"
Tristan stared up at him. "I don't even want anything from in there."
"Oh." Rex turned to resume dumpster diving, but paused. "What are you doing out here, anyway? Don't you work for that dice guy now?"
Tristan shook his head. "Just working on his play."
"Hmph. Traitor." Rex dove back into the dumpster.
Tristan never thought he'd get told off by Rex Raptor. Further, he never thought it would actually sting.
Unfortunately, while he contemplated this, he didn't notice the green-haired Kaiba brother looming over him. "Why are you here?"
"Crap," Tristan thought.
"Do you have a death wish? Duke's going to see you!" Noah warned.
Tristan looked back toward the entrance. Duke was nowhere to be found, but even if he was, what could he possibly do to Tristan now? "Then let him."
Noah's mouth hung open for a few seconds before he explained, "You must really not understand what's at stake here. He's literally going to kill you if he finds you here."
Tristan turned back to Noah. "Wait, what?"
"Did no one tell you? Duke told Bakura if he caught you here, he'd have you killed."
"Oh." Tristan tensed when he remembered he was in a secluded alley with Duke's assistant and no witnesses. "Holy shitting bricks."
A tinny midi song blared from in Noah's pants. He took his cell phone from his pocket and answered it. "Hello?"
"What are you doing back there? Is he here or not?" Tristan could hear Duke practically yelling into the phone over the theater's noise. He froze. This was it. He was a goner. He inconspicuously reached for the can of Mace. He realized it was empty.
Noah rolled his eyes. "Of course he's not here. I was going to the dressing rooms."
Tristan couldn't hear Duke's response before Noah hung up.
"He's going to get suspicious, so you need to hide," Noah said. His phone rang again. "Hello?"
It was Téa this time. "Don't use the bathrooms backstage. They're all out of order."
"Nice to know," Noah said, then hung up. He looked back at Tristan. "Hmm. I think I know where you could hide."
Back in the theater, Téa hung up the phone and walked over to Bakura. "The toilets are clogged." She shrugged and went to the storage closet to get a plunger. "Just one more thing to go wrong, huh?"
Bakura seemed to have the mini-meltdown that he'd been trying to suppress all night. "But what will we do if someone needs the toilet?"
"I got it…Grocery bags," Kaiba said weakly. He grabbed a paper supermarket bag from a pile and rushed off to vomit into it.
There was a knock on the back door. "What else could go wrong?" Bakura thought, going to answer it.
Standing on the steps outside the door was Noah and a man wearing green overalls, a matching cap, and a giant handlebar mustache. His cap seemed to not fit very well; there was a large, sharp protrusion at the front.
"I found you a plumber," Noah said. Tristan averted his eyes and hoped the huge mustache was enough of a disguise. For good measure, he held up his red and white spotted plunger.
Bakura stepped aside to let them in. Tristan made a beeline for the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Noah went to the house to find his seat.
In the safety of the bathroom, Tristan took off the itchy fake mustache. He looked through his deck as he sat with his ear to the door. He could hear a flurry of activity outside: Bakura, muttering nervously and pacing; Téa, reassuring him with one of her speeches; Mokuba, warning Kaiba about a Dramamine overdose; Yugi, reciting his lines. Even though everyone was on edge, it was all Tristan could do to keep himself from joining his friends in the wings.
He wondered if Joey was thinking about him, too. He also wondered why Joey never told him that Duke would kill him if he showed up on opening night. Tristan knew Joey could be forgetful, but something like this should be pretty easy to remember, considering its importance.
Maybe, after all these years, Tristan wasn't all that important. Maybe he just wasn't cut out to be the protagonist.
He looked over at the toilet. A giant clump of toilet paper was stuck in the hole. "Might as well get started."
-O-o-O-
Inside one of the many set properties, Joey crouched in silence. The last few rehearsals had been pretty rough. Tristan barely acknowledged his presence. That was to be expected, since even a simple "Hello" would be risking his life. But it still hurt. Especially since his homemade jockstrap was digging into his thighs.
"But ta win a duel, you have ta make some sacrifices. Even if it means pushin' people away ta keep 'em safe." Joey sighed.
Joey tensed his muscles. This was no time to throw a pity party. It was for Tristan's own good. He'd rather Tristan be alive and without him than be reunited only for him to get taken away again.
He went over his lines for the opening song. Though he could recite his whole part without prompting, he had the strangest feeling he was forgetting something.
Back in the bathroom, Tristan flushed the toilet. "Good thing I took those plumbing classes back in college."
He figured since he was here, he might as well watch the show. He made sure nobody was looking and crept into the hall behind the stage to watch from behind a podium.
They'd gone for a somewhat minimalist set-up. They built scaled-down, stylized sets of a pseudo-Egyptian city, the Pharaoh's palace, and the town square. All three settings were on the same stage, but the lighting would tell the audience which one to concentrate on. If a scene took place in one setting, a spotlight would shine only on that set. Additional lighting arrangements would allow the audience to see the actors if they moved from the set.
The players prepared to take the stage as Yami's voice boomed from the speaker system:
"Once upon a time, there was a great Pharaoh who decreed, 'Let there be card games.' But then he had a mysterious accident with an Egyptian laser and died. With his death came the end of card games. For in his place rose a new Pharaoh, and with him rose a new game."
Purple and green strobe lights lit up the sets as Mai and Kaiba, as High Priestess Peacock and High Priest Seahorse respectively, ran onto stage. Around them, giant Styrofoam tablets rose so gracefully, Tristan could almost ignore the strings. Mai was dressed as a cross between a Greek warrior and a mime in a pleated white kilt and blue and gold striped shirt. Her peacock feather headdress fluttered with every movement. Kaiba slightly raised his long blue and white empire-waist robes to keep from tripping. Yugi, dressed as the Dark Magician, twirled his staff like a baton and cart-wheeled across the stage as Mai started the verse:
"Stacking up the tablets can summon any sprite.
But with my caffeine habit, this game seems to take all night!"
Kaiba continued the verse:
"I'm the perfect medium, but even all my wit
Can never ease the tedium, this game is dull as shit!"
The stage was flooded with pink light as Joey popped out of a giant die-cake. He wore a pink bob with gold headband and a blue vertically striped tunic with gold conical protrusions over his pectorals. The rest of the dancers skipped out, twirling neon dice on strings as Joey sang the chorus:
"It's hard as heck ta build a proper deck
When your cards are limestone.
All da heavy stacking's killed my back.
Why don't I stick to dice bones?
Neva get a betta game to play,
Unless da king is dethroned.
But if you do da rollin' by his scroll,
Dere'll be no heartache!" (1)
The beat suddenly sped up into a heavily-autotuned beeping noise. Blue neon lights lit up all over the stage as Bakura made his entrance. Strings of dice rattled against his blue tunic and he wore a gold and blue striped nemes headdress with a white and black die on the forehead. The crowd of dancers parted like the Sea of Reeds to let him through, then proceeded to breakdance and gyrate as he started to rap:
"You shall not duel in the street. Dice is elite; better not cheat.
You shall not duel, Capisce? Or I will break your face!
You shan't be opposing me, dethroning me; I'm a G-O-D.
You can try disrobing me, I'm sexy all day!"
Bakura joined the gyrating dancers.
"Shut the front door. Shut the front door,
And throw out your deck
Bring me my whore."
Joey skipped over to Bakura.
"Bring me my whore.
Let me lick your neck." Bakura dragged his tongue up the side of Joey's neck before singing the chorus:
"Oh, my darling, oh, my darling,
My kawaii courty-san.
Want your body; come here, shawty.
I'm the Cullen to your Swan."
He twirled around the stage as he rest of the players danced around him.
"Magic fragger, magic fragger,
Now we're using dice to duel.
Throw your cards out, play the new game,
And forget your dueling school."
Kaiba picked up the outro:
"High-rollers,
Can't touch my Enemy Controller.
High rollers,
Lose when the players are trollers." (2)
The four chords of pop faded out as the players danced off the stage, leaving Joey as Joe-Hotep and Bakura as Pharaoh Akefia to start the next scene. From his hidden spot, Tristan could see the front row's bewildered expressions.
Tristan chuckled softly. If they thought this was weird, their minds would be blown by the riverdance-off between the penniless duelist and the Notorious Celtic Guardian.
"I'm the King of the Cards and the Lord of the Dance!" Yami, as the Duelist O'Cyrus, shouted as he stepped his way through the duel field. The audience seemed hypnotized by his feet.
"It could be White Lightning!" Priest Seahorse breathed. He swooned into the waiting arms of another priest, who carried him offstage.
O'Cyrus tipped his golden visor. "My trusty Millennium Visor."
The audience tittered nervously. Thankfully, O'Cyrus didn't break into a rap song.
Later, Tristan crossed his fingers during the scene where Joe-Hotep vainly tried to convince Pharaoh Akefia to end the misery in the city. Tristan hoped Duke wouldn't see this as foreshadowing.
The next scene featured Pharaoh Akefia asking Priest Seahorse to infuse the dice with more power. Priest Seahorse was arguing that the monsters don't want to live in the dice when a flash of white light from above interrupted him.
"Is that Ra, defying my will?" Pharaoh Akefia demanded.
"No, it's…" Priest Seahorse squinted at the rafters. "A silver disc."
The stage went dark and the two screamed.
Unearthly beeping and surgical tools jingling provided a beat. The audience could see nothing but several pairs of glowing white orbs.
When the lights came up again, the priest and the Pharaoh were lying in the palace courtyard.
"Why can I see through that wall?" Pharaoh Akefia asked.
"Why do I feel…different?" Priest Seahorse asked.
Further dialogue revealed that the Pharaoh now had X-Ray vision and the priest now had the equipment necessary to bear children. The scene ended with Pharaoh Akefia singing about his plan to sire magical heirs with his priest.
The Secret Song was cut from this part of the production.
The dueling and romantic scenes following the UFO subplot prompted some noises of amusement, but there was dead silence from the audience during the romantic musical scene between Priest Seahorse and the Dark Magician. The stage faded to black right after Priest Seahorse flung off his outer robes. The collective sigh of relief from the audience was deafening.
They couldn't relax for long, because in the next scene, Pharaoh Akefia used his X-Ray vision to foil Joe-Hotep's escape plans. He then discovered that Priest Seahorse was pregnant and he was not the father. The audience seemed half amused, half confused by the king's decision to sing, "Fricking baby isn't mine!" and dance angrily to late 90s pop while the priest fled.
The priest managed to get Joe-Hotep to an obscure inn and a semblance of normalcy returned. It quickly went out the window during the scene in which the Dark Magician had to come to terms with his impending fatherhood. The music in the resulting song sounded more suitable for a song about going out to dance than any kind of heavy topic.
Priestess Peacock, the only reasonable character, had recruited the Pharaoh's army for their revolution. They prepared for mutiny.
The next scene was the wedding scene. The Pharaoh would marry Joe-Hotep in the middle of the plaza so everyone, especially the revolutionaries, could witness his power. Unbeknownst to him, there would be several objections.
Tristan could hardly sit still. Currently, Pharaoh Akefia-Bakura was giving a speech about the superiority of dice games and the foolishness of the revolution. He stood in front of three doors, behind which the Dark Magician, Priest Seahorse, Joe-Hotep, and O'Cyrus would be hiding.
In the audience, Noah shifted nervously. Duke would be most displeased if he saw that the players were going to defy his new ending.
"Shouldn't you go to the bathroom right now?" Noah whispered to Duke.
Duke brushed him off. "We're almost at the best part—the part I wrote."
"But isn't it time for your hourly application of young hot women?" Noah pressed.
"All the hot women are on stage. I'd have to make do with a man," Duke responded.
Noah looked Duke dead in the eye. "I'll volunteer."
Duke stared at Noah, mortified. "Not you, too. What's next, Mokuba's going to serenade me after the curtain call?"
-O-o-O-
Backstage, the cast dealt with some technical difficulties.
In the dressing rooms, Joey hacked and coughed violently while Serenity searched her purse for the medicine vial. The blood from Joey's lungs could not be contained in one tissue. Serenity handed him five more so he wouldn't splatter blood on his white gown and veil. Then she opened the vial and tilted Joey's head back.
The problems continued in the hallway outside the dressing room. "He's out cold." Téa lightly slapped Yami on the cheek. "Where's his understudy?" She dragged Yami to a couch and propped him up on the couch's arm.
"I can go on." Tristan stood up from behind the podium.
Téa looked up, horrified. "You're not supposed to be here." She tried to drag him back to the bathroom, but he wouldn't budge. "What are you doing? You need to hide!"
"I'm done with hiding from the Duke." Tristan whipped off his plumber disguise. Fortunately, he was wearing pants under it.
On stage, Pharaoh Bakura commanded, "Show me what's behind door number one."
Door number one swung open. The Pharaoh's guards attempted to drag Dark Magician-Yugi out, but Yugi put his staff across the door. The guards found a way around this; Yugi was made to limbo out of the door.
"No! Not the limbo!" Yugi yelled as he was dragged out from under the staff.
Backstage, Téa and Tristan heard footsteps behind the dressing room door. "He's going to kill you if he finds you here!" Téa warned.
"I don't care." Tristan said. He turned to the door as it opened to reveal a veiled man in a white gown with gold conical shields on the pectorals.
"What's goin' on—Tristan?" The man lifted his veil.
"Joey." Tristan narrowed his eyes. "You've got some explaining to do."
The action continued onstage. "And what's behind door number two?" Pharaoh Bakura demanded.
Door number two opened. The guards seized Priest Seahorse-Kaiba and restrained his hands.
"Careful with that one. I have plans for him." Pharaoh Bakura punctuated his command with a lecherous grin.
Priest Seahorse-Kaiba gritted his teeth. "Over my dead body!"
Pharaoh Bakura shrugged. "I'm not picky." The audience groaned.
Backstage, Tristan confronted Joey. "How hard is it to tell me someone's trying to kill me?"
"I seriously thought I had. I swear I did," Joey pleaded. He looked back toward the stage. Bakura and Kaiba were finishing their verbal slap fest. "I need ta get back out dere. We can talk about it after da show."
Joey went back out, with Tristan following. "I said, we'll talk later."
"Yami's asleep. I'm filling in," Tristan replied curtly.
"Oh. Wait, what?"
Joey had no time to react properly. Bakura shouted, "What's behind door number three?" The door in front of Joey and Tristan swung open and they were in full view of the audience.
Bakura and Kaiba glanced at each other. Neither seemed prepared for this. Yugi slid his eyes over to the audience to check Duke's reaction, but it was too dark in the house.
Suddenly, Pharaoh Bakura started to laugh. "You think you can fool me with a new haircut and dye job? I see right through you, O'Cyrus. Your attempts are futile."
Joey and Tristan stumbled onto the stage. They couldn't see the audience very well, but they were certain the Duke was stewing in his seat.
"You poor people and your 'love conquers all' attitudes, and your dueling with limestone tablets. When will you realize that heel bones are what makes the world go round and love is just a silly game?" Bakura went on.
"Yeah, well. I'm not sure how strong our love was in the first place," Tristan said. "I thought it was in attack mode, but it's more like 'stab my back' mode."
"Or 'talentless hack' mode," Duke whispered to Noah. "What the hell is this? I didn't write this crap, and Tristan is so dead when this is over."
Noah pretended not to hear him and continued to watch the stage.
"But…I was just tryin' ta protect ya," Joey continued. "You could always duel your way out. Or whateva you do in dat place."
"You know what, forget this. I'm out." Tristan walked to the edge of the stage. "Clearly, I'm not revolutionary material." He jumped off and started walking up the aisle.
The players on stage racked their brains to ad-lib. Yugi wrenched himself away from the guard and ran to the edge of the stage. His cue was never going to come with this new plot twist, but his big line was the one thing that could keep Tristan from walking out on everyone. He didn't even need to glance down at his wrist before yelling after Tristan:
"I used to be a cynic, but then I took cupid's arrow to the heart."
Tristan stopped. Yugi jumped off the stage and ran to him. "He thinks you're just going to the Shadow Realm, not getting killed for real. He forgot to tell you, but he figured you were strong enough to duel your way out. If not, we'd come and help you."
Tristan mulled it over. "Really?"
"Of course. Because we're your friends. And so is Joey," Yugi said.
Tristan was quiet as Yugi climbed back onto the stage. There was complete silence in the house and onstage as Tristan stood in the aisle and examined the floor and Yugi's words.
-O-o-O-o-O-