Silence. Bakura could hear nothing except his wildly beating heart.
"Who are you?" he called again, grabbing a nearby statue to use as defense.
Still no reply. Quickly Bakura searched the room, turning up nothing. Maybe it had all been in his head. He idly wondered why the room seemed so quiet. Why wasn't anyone around? Shouldn't Betty be preparing to fix dinner about now?
Shakily he sank into the depths of the couch cushions. He was afraid, very afraid, mostly for the safety of his friends. Where were they? Were they alright? Had they found out what he had—the identity of the criminals?
He took a deep breath. He needed to stay calm and concentrate on rousing his Yami.
As he knelt next to the tomb robber once again, he couldn't shake the feeling that he *was* being watched.
****
"Kevin! What are you doing with that thing?" Tea gasped.
Kevin looked momentarily startled. "How do you know my name? I don't remember ever . . ." He trailed off, staring at the answering machine. "Never mind. Why did you break into my house?"
"What makes you think we broke in?" Seto asked.
"Maybe we saw someone else break in and we came in to catch him," Mokuba chimed in.
Kevin laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Nice try, but my neighbor said she saw you picking the lock," he said, pointing the gun in Seto's direction. "I don't like trespassers. What were you looking for?"
"Actually, we were looking for evidence to tie you in with the hazardous goings-on at Mr. Swanson's ski lodge," Seto admitted boldly.
"That's right," Tea agreed.
"Shouldn't you leave that up to the police?" Kevin said dryly, raising an eyebrow. "You're just kids! Teenage kids!" He looked at Mokuba. "And you . . . you're even younger than them!"
"My brother's the CEO of KaibaCorp!" Mokuba said defensively. "Nothing scares him!"
"Can we put our hands down now?" Tea asked impatiently. "We're not armed."
"Certainly. Go ahead." Kevin leaned the gun against the end table. "In my line of work, one can't be too careful."
"If you don't mind our asking, what is your line of work?" Tea queried.
"Ah, so you weren't investigating long enough to find out?" Kevin said sarcastically. "I'm Special Agent Kevin Tanner, FBI." He held out his badge for them to look at.
"So I was right, you are an agent!" Mokuba said triumphantly.
"But what are you doing at the lodge?" Tea asked. "Or is it confidential?"
"I can't reveal all the details, but I'm chasing a ring of smugglers," Kevin replied.
"You mean they're holed up at the lodge?" Tea exclaimed.
"I believe so," Kevin said, "and the ringleader is the ski instructor Rocco Hardey!"
"Rocco?" Tea repeated.
"We thought it might be him," Mokuba said after a brief silence.
"Your other friends are at DeeDee Banks' place, aren't they?" Kevin went on.
Tea was about to reply when Seto laid a hand on her shoulder, sending her a strong warning with his intense blue eyes. "I . . . don't know," she said at last, which was technically true, since Yugi, Joey, and Tristan might have left DeeDee's by now, she thought to herself.
"They're in danger," Kevin said gravely. "Come with me. We have to find them."
"What kind of danger?" Tea asked suspiciously. Something didn't seem quite right.
"No time for questions," Kevin said coldly. "Come on!"
"We're not going with you," Seto replied, equally coldly. "You're not really an FBI agent."
Kevin's eyes flashed. "Insolent boy. All your power has gone to your head. Of course I'm an agent!"
"Oh, you're an agent alright," Seto agreed. "More than likely, you're a hit man hired to take us all out!" He protectively laid his hands on Mokuba's shoulders.
Tea gasped, a new thought occurring to her. "Maybe you've already hurt Yugi and the others, and now you're here to get rid of us, too!" she said angrily. She didn't entirely understand how Kaiba had reached the conclusion that Kevin was a hit man, but she had the awful feeling that it was true, and that they were right now in serious danger.
Kevin sneered. "You're right. I'm not FBI. Hey, I'm not even Kevin . . . not that you'll be around to tell anyone." He raised the firearm again.
He wasn't counting on the swift action of his three prisoners. Mokuba suddenly darted between the tall man's legs, startling him, and leaving Seto free to karate-kick the gun out of his hand. Tea then hit the would-be assassin on the head with a vase, and he collapsed to the floor.
"Good work," Seto congratulated. "He's down for the count. Let's tie him up and get the police here on the double!"
"I sure hope Yugi and the others are okay," Tea said worriedly as she went to the phone.
****
Meanwhile, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan were having an encounter of their own.
"What are you insolent shrimps doing in my house?!" DeeDee exploded, coming in and finding them all gathered around her desk.
"Whoa, whoa, settle down," Joey said, waving his hands in protest. "Don't get so testy. Remember, Yugi here saved your life."
DeeDee looked at Yugi, blinking rapidly. Almost as if she doesn't remember, Yugi thought, summoning his Yami.
"Oh. Of course," DeeDee said finally. "Well, I'm sure you have a perfectly good explanation for roaming through my house."
"Yeah, we were just passin' by and thought we'd drop in," Joey said grandly. "We noticed your place wasn't locked up tight and we wondered if someone had decided to break in or something." What he was saying was actually the truth, since they had found the open window.
DeeDee paled. "Break in? But who would . . ."
Yugi decided to go a step further. "DeeDee, we found this here." He held out the floppy red hat. "Does it look familiar?"
DeeDee's eyes went wide, but then a confused look came over her face and she shook her head. "No, should I?"
She definitely recognized it, Yugi thought grimly. "DeeDee, I'm going to be honest with you," he said finally. "It implicates you in the disasters that have been going on at the ski lodge. We have new information that one of the criminals has such a hat."
"What? You're kidding." DeeDee grabbed the hat and turned it over and over in her hands. "This dinky thing makes me a criminal? Come on, Yugi, I almost died in that incident with my skis."
"Hey, maybe you faked it," Joey piped up.
"Do I look like the kind of girl who would abduct and tranquilize that poor kid Bakura?" DeeDee threw her hands out as if to say "Look at me!"
"Hey, looks can be deceiving," Tristan returned.
"Tristan's right," Yugi said. "DeeDee, if you're not guilty, you'll have to help me prove it."
"Of course I'm not guilty!" DeeDee exclaimed. She paused. "How is Bakura doing, anyway?"
Yugi paused, staring deeply into DeeDee's eyes.
"What are you doing?" DeeDee demanded, confused.
"What *is* he doing?" Joey wondered.
"It looks like something with the Millennium Puzzle," Tristan replied.
And sure enough, he was. After another moment, Yugi relaxed and finally spoke. "DeeDee, I don't remember telling you that Bakura was drugged."
DeeDee suddenly looked extremely flustered. "Didn't you? I . . . could've sworn that you did . . . I'm sure I remember . . ."
"Hey, give it up, sister," Joey interrupted. "I think you did what all criminals do eventually—you slipped up."
DeeDee's eyes flashed. "And what if I did? Our plan was picture perfect! We're not beat yet." She grabbed a fire poker and pointed it right at Yugi. "I don't intend to lose."
"Whoa! Take it easy!" Tristan said, starting to get worried.
"DeeDee, let's talk this over," Yugi said. "If you tell us everything, you might get a reduced sentence."
"I'm not going to get any sentence!" DeeDee snapped, thrusting the poker forward right at Yugi's heart.
In a split-second, Yugi snapped his arm up and grabbed the poker with his hand, pulling it out of DeeDee's reach.
"Alright!" Tristan cheered.
"Way to go, Yugi!" Joey chimed in.
"Let's talk this over rationally, DeeDee," Yugi said sternly, pointing the poker at her.
DeeDee looked ready to bite through metal and backed up against the desk.
"You're trapped now," Joey said gleefully.
"Oh yeah? Think again, you obnoxious kid!" With an evil grin, DeeDee whipped out a gun from a hollow book that had been sitting on the desk. "Now you are all my prisoners. Put the poker down," she ordered Yugi, who slowly complied. "And in case you try pulling any stunts . . ." She jabbed Joey between the shoulder blades with the barrel of the gun. "This should make you stop and think before you do. Now . . . everybody out the back door!"
"What do we do, Yugi?" Tristan asked.
"We'll go along with her for now," Yugi replied quietly. "We don't seem to have a choice, and maybe she'll take us to her hideout."
DeeDee herded them out the door and into a waiting van. "Lie down in the back and don't try anything funny," she ordered them, tying their hands together. Laughing wickedly, she climbed into the driver's seat and revved the engine. "And I hope you don't harbor any illusions about your friends rescuing you."
"What have you done to them?" Yugi demanded.
"Oh, *I* haven't done anything to them," DeeDee replied flippantly. "My partner-in-crime will take care of them for me. And your other poor friend, Bakura . . . he's already been taken care of."
"What are you talkin' about?" Joey asked.
DeeDee only laughed.
"I don't like the sound of that," Yugi said grimly.
"Yugi, do you think she did something else to Bakura?" Tristan asked.
"I wouldn't put it past her," Yugi replied softly. "We'll have to pray that he, Tea, and the others are all okay, and that we'll be able to escape." With a smile, he slowly revealed that his hands were free. Joey's and Tristan's eyes went wide, and Yugi indicated for them not to say anything about it aloud.
If that had surprised them, what Yugi did next absolutely floored them—or would have, had they not already been on the floor.
"Evil never wins," he said sternly to DeeDee as she stopped the van several hours later. "And you will pay for all the people you've hurt, Karen."
Joey and Tristan gasped.
DeeDee was so startled that she honked the van's horn by accident. "What did you just call me?" she demanded.
"I know who you really are," Yugi said. "You are Karen Flemming, and DeeDee is your twin sister."
"That's ridiculous! There's no way you could possibly . . ." DeeDee/Karen trailed off, getting out of the van. "We're here. Come on out, and no funny business." She opened the back door of the van and roughly pulled the three outside, the gun tightly held in one hand.
"Yugi, this must be where she and that guy took Bakura," Tristan whispered, seeing a lighted shack.
"I think you're right, Tristan," Yugi agreed grimly as they were shoved inside at gunpoint.
"Oh man," Joey groaned. "How are we gonna get outta this one?"
****
Bakura was at a total loss on how to deal with this new problem. "If only Yugi were here," he said aloud to himself, shaking his Yami gently, with no results, "he would know what to do."
Suddenly the door flew open and Tea, Seto, and Mokuba burst in. "Bakura!" Tea exclaimed, stopping short in surprise. "You're awake!"
"You gave us quite a scare," Seto remarked.
Bakura brightened. "Oh, it's so good to see you guys," he declared. He sighed. "There's a bit of a problem here."
"What is it?" Tea asked, concerned.
"Someone threw a dart," Bakura replied grimly. "They must have been aiming for me, but they hit my Yami instead."
Tea blinked in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that one.
"I don't think he could die from it," Bakura added hurriedly, "since he hasn't exactly been alive for 5,000 years, but I can't seem to wake him up, and I just don't know what to do . . ." He trailed off. "Where's Yugi, Joey, and Tristan?" he exclaimed.
"I wish we knew," Tea sighed. "We were hoping they were here. They weren't at either of the places they were supposed to be at."
Bakura paled. "Oh no . . . oh no . . ."
"What're we going to do now?" Mokuba wondered.
"That's a good question, Mokuba," Tea replied, sinking into the soft couch cushions. "I wish I knew the answer."
"Who are you?" he called again, grabbing a nearby statue to use as defense.
Still no reply. Quickly Bakura searched the room, turning up nothing. Maybe it had all been in his head. He idly wondered why the room seemed so quiet. Why wasn't anyone around? Shouldn't Betty be preparing to fix dinner about now?
Shakily he sank into the depths of the couch cushions. He was afraid, very afraid, mostly for the safety of his friends. Where were they? Were they alright? Had they found out what he had—the identity of the criminals?
He took a deep breath. He needed to stay calm and concentrate on rousing his Yami.
As he knelt next to the tomb robber once again, he couldn't shake the feeling that he *was* being watched.
****
"Kevin! What are you doing with that thing?" Tea gasped.
Kevin looked momentarily startled. "How do you know my name? I don't remember ever . . ." He trailed off, staring at the answering machine. "Never mind. Why did you break into my house?"
"What makes you think we broke in?" Seto asked.
"Maybe we saw someone else break in and we came in to catch him," Mokuba chimed in.
Kevin laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "Nice try, but my neighbor said she saw you picking the lock," he said, pointing the gun in Seto's direction. "I don't like trespassers. What were you looking for?"
"Actually, we were looking for evidence to tie you in with the hazardous goings-on at Mr. Swanson's ski lodge," Seto admitted boldly.
"That's right," Tea agreed.
"Shouldn't you leave that up to the police?" Kevin said dryly, raising an eyebrow. "You're just kids! Teenage kids!" He looked at Mokuba. "And you . . . you're even younger than them!"
"My brother's the CEO of KaibaCorp!" Mokuba said defensively. "Nothing scares him!"
"Can we put our hands down now?" Tea asked impatiently. "We're not armed."
"Certainly. Go ahead." Kevin leaned the gun against the end table. "In my line of work, one can't be too careful."
"If you don't mind our asking, what is your line of work?" Tea queried.
"Ah, so you weren't investigating long enough to find out?" Kevin said sarcastically. "I'm Special Agent Kevin Tanner, FBI." He held out his badge for them to look at.
"So I was right, you are an agent!" Mokuba said triumphantly.
"But what are you doing at the lodge?" Tea asked. "Or is it confidential?"
"I can't reveal all the details, but I'm chasing a ring of smugglers," Kevin replied.
"You mean they're holed up at the lodge?" Tea exclaimed.
"I believe so," Kevin said, "and the ringleader is the ski instructor Rocco Hardey!"
"Rocco?" Tea repeated.
"We thought it might be him," Mokuba said after a brief silence.
"Your other friends are at DeeDee Banks' place, aren't they?" Kevin went on.
Tea was about to reply when Seto laid a hand on her shoulder, sending her a strong warning with his intense blue eyes. "I . . . don't know," she said at last, which was technically true, since Yugi, Joey, and Tristan might have left DeeDee's by now, she thought to herself.
"They're in danger," Kevin said gravely. "Come with me. We have to find them."
"What kind of danger?" Tea asked suspiciously. Something didn't seem quite right.
"No time for questions," Kevin said coldly. "Come on!"
"We're not going with you," Seto replied, equally coldly. "You're not really an FBI agent."
Kevin's eyes flashed. "Insolent boy. All your power has gone to your head. Of course I'm an agent!"
"Oh, you're an agent alright," Seto agreed. "More than likely, you're a hit man hired to take us all out!" He protectively laid his hands on Mokuba's shoulders.
Tea gasped, a new thought occurring to her. "Maybe you've already hurt Yugi and the others, and now you're here to get rid of us, too!" she said angrily. She didn't entirely understand how Kaiba had reached the conclusion that Kevin was a hit man, but she had the awful feeling that it was true, and that they were right now in serious danger.
Kevin sneered. "You're right. I'm not FBI. Hey, I'm not even Kevin . . . not that you'll be around to tell anyone." He raised the firearm again.
He wasn't counting on the swift action of his three prisoners. Mokuba suddenly darted between the tall man's legs, startling him, and leaving Seto free to karate-kick the gun out of his hand. Tea then hit the would-be assassin on the head with a vase, and he collapsed to the floor.
"Good work," Seto congratulated. "He's down for the count. Let's tie him up and get the police here on the double!"
"I sure hope Yugi and the others are okay," Tea said worriedly as she went to the phone.
****
Meanwhile, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan were having an encounter of their own.
"What are you insolent shrimps doing in my house?!" DeeDee exploded, coming in and finding them all gathered around her desk.
"Whoa, whoa, settle down," Joey said, waving his hands in protest. "Don't get so testy. Remember, Yugi here saved your life."
DeeDee looked at Yugi, blinking rapidly. Almost as if she doesn't remember, Yugi thought, summoning his Yami.
"Oh. Of course," DeeDee said finally. "Well, I'm sure you have a perfectly good explanation for roaming through my house."
"Yeah, we were just passin' by and thought we'd drop in," Joey said grandly. "We noticed your place wasn't locked up tight and we wondered if someone had decided to break in or something." What he was saying was actually the truth, since they had found the open window.
DeeDee paled. "Break in? But who would . . ."
Yugi decided to go a step further. "DeeDee, we found this here." He held out the floppy red hat. "Does it look familiar?"
DeeDee's eyes went wide, but then a confused look came over her face and she shook her head. "No, should I?"
She definitely recognized it, Yugi thought grimly. "DeeDee, I'm going to be honest with you," he said finally. "It implicates you in the disasters that have been going on at the ski lodge. We have new information that one of the criminals has such a hat."
"What? You're kidding." DeeDee grabbed the hat and turned it over and over in her hands. "This dinky thing makes me a criminal? Come on, Yugi, I almost died in that incident with my skis."
"Hey, maybe you faked it," Joey piped up.
"Do I look like the kind of girl who would abduct and tranquilize that poor kid Bakura?" DeeDee threw her hands out as if to say "Look at me!"
"Hey, looks can be deceiving," Tristan returned.
"Tristan's right," Yugi said. "DeeDee, if you're not guilty, you'll have to help me prove it."
"Of course I'm not guilty!" DeeDee exclaimed. She paused. "How is Bakura doing, anyway?"
Yugi paused, staring deeply into DeeDee's eyes.
"What are you doing?" DeeDee demanded, confused.
"What *is* he doing?" Joey wondered.
"It looks like something with the Millennium Puzzle," Tristan replied.
And sure enough, he was. After another moment, Yugi relaxed and finally spoke. "DeeDee, I don't remember telling you that Bakura was drugged."
DeeDee suddenly looked extremely flustered. "Didn't you? I . . . could've sworn that you did . . . I'm sure I remember . . ."
"Hey, give it up, sister," Joey interrupted. "I think you did what all criminals do eventually—you slipped up."
DeeDee's eyes flashed. "And what if I did? Our plan was picture perfect! We're not beat yet." She grabbed a fire poker and pointed it right at Yugi. "I don't intend to lose."
"Whoa! Take it easy!" Tristan said, starting to get worried.
"DeeDee, let's talk this over," Yugi said. "If you tell us everything, you might get a reduced sentence."
"I'm not going to get any sentence!" DeeDee snapped, thrusting the poker forward right at Yugi's heart.
In a split-second, Yugi snapped his arm up and grabbed the poker with his hand, pulling it out of DeeDee's reach.
"Alright!" Tristan cheered.
"Way to go, Yugi!" Joey chimed in.
"Let's talk this over rationally, DeeDee," Yugi said sternly, pointing the poker at her.
DeeDee looked ready to bite through metal and backed up against the desk.
"You're trapped now," Joey said gleefully.
"Oh yeah? Think again, you obnoxious kid!" With an evil grin, DeeDee whipped out a gun from a hollow book that had been sitting on the desk. "Now you are all my prisoners. Put the poker down," she ordered Yugi, who slowly complied. "And in case you try pulling any stunts . . ." She jabbed Joey between the shoulder blades with the barrel of the gun. "This should make you stop and think before you do. Now . . . everybody out the back door!"
"What do we do, Yugi?" Tristan asked.
"We'll go along with her for now," Yugi replied quietly. "We don't seem to have a choice, and maybe she'll take us to her hideout."
DeeDee herded them out the door and into a waiting van. "Lie down in the back and don't try anything funny," she ordered them, tying their hands together. Laughing wickedly, she climbed into the driver's seat and revved the engine. "And I hope you don't harbor any illusions about your friends rescuing you."
"What have you done to them?" Yugi demanded.
"Oh, *I* haven't done anything to them," DeeDee replied flippantly. "My partner-in-crime will take care of them for me. And your other poor friend, Bakura . . . he's already been taken care of."
"What are you talkin' about?" Joey asked.
DeeDee only laughed.
"I don't like the sound of that," Yugi said grimly.
"Yugi, do you think she did something else to Bakura?" Tristan asked.
"I wouldn't put it past her," Yugi replied softly. "We'll have to pray that he, Tea, and the others are all okay, and that we'll be able to escape." With a smile, he slowly revealed that his hands were free. Joey's and Tristan's eyes went wide, and Yugi indicated for them not to say anything about it aloud.
If that had surprised them, what Yugi did next absolutely floored them—or would have, had they not already been on the floor.
"Evil never wins," he said sternly to DeeDee as she stopped the van several hours later. "And you will pay for all the people you've hurt, Karen."
Joey and Tristan gasped.
DeeDee was so startled that she honked the van's horn by accident. "What did you just call me?" she demanded.
"I know who you really are," Yugi said. "You are Karen Flemming, and DeeDee is your twin sister."
"That's ridiculous! There's no way you could possibly . . ." DeeDee/Karen trailed off, getting out of the van. "We're here. Come on out, and no funny business." She opened the back door of the van and roughly pulled the three outside, the gun tightly held in one hand.
"Yugi, this must be where she and that guy took Bakura," Tristan whispered, seeing a lighted shack.
"I think you're right, Tristan," Yugi agreed grimly as they were shoved inside at gunpoint.
"Oh man," Joey groaned. "How are we gonna get outta this one?"
****
Bakura was at a total loss on how to deal with this new problem. "If only Yugi were here," he said aloud to himself, shaking his Yami gently, with no results, "he would know what to do."
Suddenly the door flew open and Tea, Seto, and Mokuba burst in. "Bakura!" Tea exclaimed, stopping short in surprise. "You're awake!"
"You gave us quite a scare," Seto remarked.
Bakura brightened. "Oh, it's so good to see you guys," he declared. He sighed. "There's a bit of a problem here."
"What is it?" Tea asked, concerned.
"Someone threw a dart," Bakura replied grimly. "They must have been aiming for me, but they hit my Yami instead."
Tea blinked in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that one.
"I don't think he could die from it," Bakura added hurriedly, "since he hasn't exactly been alive for 5,000 years, but I can't seem to wake him up, and I just don't know what to do . . ." He trailed off. "Where's Yugi, Joey, and Tristan?" he exclaimed.
"I wish we knew," Tea sighed. "We were hoping they were here. They weren't at either of the places they were supposed to be at."
Bakura paled. "Oh no . . . oh no . . ."
"What're we going to do now?" Mokuba wondered.
"That's a good question, Mokuba," Tea replied, sinking into the soft couch cushions. "I wish I knew the answer."