Instantly Seto and Bakura snapped to attention. "Who's there?" Seto demanded. "I've got a gun."
Another hand clamped on Seto's shoulder and a familiar voice started to laugh. "What gun, Kaiba?"
"Joey!!" Tea and Bakura exclaimed, while at the same time Seto growled, "Wheeler!!"
The missing Brooklyn boy grinned, stepping out of the shadows. "Miss me?"
"Joey, how long have you been here?!" Tea demanded.
"Just about a minute," Joey replied. "After I climbed up here, the ladder fell back down. Then I leaned on the wall and fell into some kind of secret room. I just managed to open the panel again now." He grinned mischievously. "Did I scare ya?"
Seto raised an eyebrow. "Of course you didn't scare me, Wheeler. I don't scare easily. But now Tea here might be an altogether different story."
Tea crossed her arms and nodded angrily. Joey had utterly terrified her, placing his hand on her shoulder like he had while hiding in the shadows. "Joey, you shouldn't do things like that!" she scolded.
Joey shrugged. "Hey, where's Yugi and the others?" he demanded suddenly, looking around.
"That's what we would like to know," Bakura said. "We all just suddenly were separated!"
"Well, that's not cool," Joey declared.
"It's certainly not," Tea agreed with a nod. "We have to find them!"
"Where did you last see them?" Joey asked.
"In the drawing room," Bakura told him.
"Then let's head for the drawin' room!" Joey said, punching the air with a fist.
"And don't announce our presence, Wheeler," Seto said dryly. "You never know who might be listening in."
****
"Yugi, what are we gonna do?" Mokuba asked worriedly.
"All we can do is stay calm and keep searching, Mokuba," Yugi replied.
"Uh, guys . . . I hate to point this out when you're talking about staying calm, Yugi, but that picture's eyes are following us," Tristan announced.
"I don't see anything," Mokuba said, looking up at the portrait.
"I don't either, Tristan," Yugi remarked. "Perhaps it was just the lighting."
"No guys, I really saw it!" Tristan insisted.
They walked on a little farther. A blood-curdling scream echoed through the hallways.
"That sounded like Tea!" Yugi declared.
"Maybe she's close by!" Tristan said.
They ran towards the sound of the voice. Suddenly a suit of armor came to life and stepped in front of them, blocking their path.
"Hey! What's the big idea?!" Tristan demanded. "We only want to find our friends."
The suit raised the axe it was holding threateningly.
"We mean no harm," Yugi tried, without much success.
"What are we gonna do, Yugi?" Mokuba asked.
The suit was obviously not going to back down. Angrily it raised the axe, preparing to strike Yugi down.
Instantly Yugi retaliated with the power of the Millennium Puzzle and sent the suit flying back against the wall. "Alright," he said, turning to look at Tristan and Mokuba, "let's continue down this hall."
****
"Well, here's the drawing room," Bakura announced.
"But no one's here!" Tea sighed.
"Eh, well, they've gotta be around here somewhere," Joey said, slamming his fist into his palm. "Let's try over this way. There's another door over here."
Everyone followed Joey toward the door. Suddenly Bakura, who was bringing up the rear, cried out in pain.
"Bakura, what's wrong?" Tea gasped, as the silver-haired boy slumped forward, falling against her. She half-turned, trying to steady him, and saw a hand clutching a hypodermic needle disappear into the wall and vanish. "That hand . . . someone just stabbed Bakura in the neck with a syringe and then their hand vanished into the wall!!" Tea exclaimed.
Seto rushed to assist Tea while Joey stared at the wall angrily. "You wanna mess with us?! Come out and fight! Come on, don't be a chicken!! Put 'em up!!" Joey clenched his fists and punched the wall. "Ow!" he exclaimed, shaking his hand wildly to relieve the pain.
"Watch it, Wheeler," Seto snapped. "We don't need two injured people here." He was holding Bakura's limp body in his arms while Tea tried to revive him.
"Bakura? Please, speak to me, Bakura," she pleaded. "What if that horrible thing poisoned him?" she worried.
That's when Yami Bakura came out of the Millennium Ring. "You dolt!!" he screamed at Bakura.
"Bakura couldn't help it!" Tea said angrily. Yami Bakura only growled in reply. "Do you know if that was poison?" Tea asked pointedly.
"It's not," Yami Bakura told her. "But it could have been. What a dolt!! He should have been more careful!"
"If it wasn't poison," Joey said, "then what was it?"
"A napping potion," Yami Bakura growled.
"They obviously did it to make us clear out of here," Seto said grimly.
"Yeah," Joey sighed. "With Bakura out for the count, I don't think we have much of a choice. We should get him outta here."
That's when Yugi, Tristan, and Mokuba showed up, falling out of a secret panel and landing in a heap on the floor. Yugi looked up. "What's happened here?" he exclaimed.
"Someone hurt Bakura," Tea told him. "Where have you guys been?!"
"We were about to ask you the same question," Yugi replied wryly. He and the others with him stood up and came over. "But we can exchange stories later. Is Bakura hurt badly?"
"He'll recover," Yami Bakura growled.
"But we should get him out of here," Seto said. "No more investigating tonight. But we should probably report that intruder to the police."
Yugi nodded. "I'll help you carry Bakura out."
"I don't need any help," Seto retorted.
"Still the same old Kaiba," Joey sighed, rolling his eyes.
****
Since Bakura was hurt, Seto let him and the others ride back in his limo, which he hadn't planned to do otherwise.
"I wonder how long it takes for this to wear off," Tea mused, gently stroking Bakura's hair. The unconscious boy had been laid across the back seat with his head in Tea's lap. "Maybe we should take him to the hospital," she worried.
"No hospitals," Yami Bakura growled. "I told you, Bakura will be fine. Doctors are such inquisitive mortals," he muttered.
Yugi looked thoughtful. "Don't you find it strange that several times now, something has happened to one of us that wasn't really serious? I mean, why haven't the people behind this just killed us? Wouldn't that be the easy way out?"
"Now that you mention it, Yug, it is kinda weird," Joey agreed. "It's almost like maybe someone has a heart and wants to get us off the case without really hurtin' us!"
"Yeah, but what about those dark wraiths? They definitely want us dead," Tristan pointed out. "And I'm sure whoever's controlling them does too."
"Nothing makes sense," Yugi sighed. "How's Bakura now, Tea?" he wondered.
"About the same," Tea sighed, laying a hand on Bakura's forehead to make sure he didn't have a fever. "No . . . wait! His eyes just fluttered," she announced. "Bakura? Are you okay?" she asked.
Bakura groaned, his soft brown eyes opening. "Oh my . . . what happened?" He looked around. "Oh dear . . . I didn't faint, did I?" he asked, his eyes wide. "That would be so embarrassing . . ."
Yugi smiled. "No, Bakura, you didn't faint. Someone drugged you."
"Once again, someone's tryin' to scare us off the case," Joey replied, "or at least, oust us away from that clapboard jungle."
"That's not good," Bakura exclaimed. "There must be something in there that we're not supposed to see!"
"And we're gonna find out what!" Joey slammed his fist into his palm and seemed to startle Seto. "Hey man, you've been pretty quiet," Joey observed. "What's on your mind?"
"My thoughts are of no concern to you, Wheeler," Seto replied, sounding annoyed and grouchy.
"Whoa, touchy!" Joey declared. "Man, you've got a real burr in your saddle today! Not that you usually don't, 'cause you do." He grinned mischievously.
Seto just raised an eyebrow at him. He wasn't in any mood for Joey's off-kilter (yet admittedly, sometimes truthful) remarks.
****
Much later that night, after he'd dropped Yugi and his friends off at the game shop and taken Mokuba back home, Seto snuck out of his mansion, determined to find out what was going on back at that weird house. He wasn't afraid to go alone; he'd prefer it actually, and he'd be careful. Whoever was hanging around would be sorry they'd ever messed with him!
"Uh, Mr. Kaiba, sir, we have a bit of a problem," the chauffeur announced nervously. This was a new chauffeur that Seto had just barely hired a day ago and he wasn't used to the strange things that happened. Not that Seto was. He didn't think he'd ever get used to them.
"What it is now?" Seto asked irritably.
"Well, sir, this is the address of the place where we were earlier, but er . . . Well, sir, see for yourself." The chauffeur gestured out the window.
Seto turned to look. "What in the . . ."
All that was there was an empty field!
"You must have the wrong street," Seto said.
"No, sir, it's definitely the right street, sir," the chauffeur insisted. "See, sir, there's where we parked earlier. That is most definitely where the house was, sir, and now it's gone!"
Seto's eyes narrowed. The chauffeur was right. The place had vanished into thin air. That didn't help his already sour mood any.
****
"An empty field?" Yugi gasped the next morning. "Joey, you're kidding!"
"No, Yug, I tell ya, I walked past the place on my way over here, and it was gone!" Joey gestured dramatically.
"Hey, Joey, are you sure you weren't hallucinating or something?" Tristan asked facetiously.
"No, I wasn't hallucinatin'!" Joey retorted angrily. "Maybe what happened last night was some kinda weird case of group hypnosis!"
"Group hypnosis?" Tea said in disbelief. "Oh Joey . . . that's ridiculous!"
"I was really drugged," Bakura said, wide-eyed.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Joey said impatiently. "But under group hypnosis, we coulda been made to think the circumstances were different than they actually were! Maybe that freaky Madame Fiona did something to us when she went into . . er, pretended to go into that trance!"
"What do you think happened to the house, Yugi?" Tea asked.
"It's hard to say, Tea," Yugi replied slowly. "Maybe on the way back from school, we should all go check it out."
****
The school day went by slowly, and Yugi and the others were relieved when the bell finally rang.
"Shall we go have a look at that place now?" Yugi asked.
"Yeah, man, let's go for it," Joey said, punching the air.
"I wonder where Seto Kaiba is," Bakura said curiously, looking around. "I haven't seen him all day."
"That's true, Bakura, I haven't either," Yugi realized.
"Maybe he got tired of hangin' around with us," Joey suggested mischievously as they started walking.
"I don't doubt that he might be scared away by some of your antics," Tristan grinned teasingly, "but somehow I don't think Kaiba would play hookey from school to get away from you."
When they finally arrived on the street where the house was supposed to be, the sky had clouded over.
"Looks like we're going to be in for a storm," Tea declared. "If it starts raining, I can't help wishing that the house would still be there."
"If it starts pouring, we could always drop by Madame Fiona's and have our fortunes told," Tristan said, and everyone could tell he was joking. "She can tell us how we're all going to die or how the world's gonna end."
"Hey, look!" Bakura gasped. "There's where the house should be, and it's not there!"
"Hey, I told you, man," Joey said as they surveyed the wide field, which looked as though it hadn't been tended to in decades. The Brooklyn-born boy started walking through the tall brown weeds determinedly. "Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this!" he declared.
"Be careful, Joey," Yugi warned as he, Tea, Tristan, and Bakura followed Joey through the field. "We don't know what we might be getting into here."
"Eh, what danger could there possibly be in an old field like this?" Joey replied airily. "There's nothin' here, not even that darn house!"
Yugi gasped suddenly.
"What is it, Yugi?" Everyone turned to look at the violet-eyed boy, who had disappeared into some wild sunflowers that were taller than he was.
"I wouldn't exactly say there's nothing here," Yugi replied grimly from several yards ahead.
"Well, hey, wait up, man!" Joey said as he and the others wandered into the sunflower patch after their friend.
"Yugi, what did you . . ." Tea stopped short and gasped in horror, and Joey, Tristan, and Bakura quickly followed suit. Yugi was kneeling in a bed of milkweed next to an eerily still body, seeming to be checking for a pulse.
Joey gulped. "Oh man, Yugi, who's . . ."
Yugi looked up. "It's Kaiba," he replied softly.
Another hand clamped on Seto's shoulder and a familiar voice started to laugh. "What gun, Kaiba?"
"Joey!!" Tea and Bakura exclaimed, while at the same time Seto growled, "Wheeler!!"
The missing Brooklyn boy grinned, stepping out of the shadows. "Miss me?"
"Joey, how long have you been here?!" Tea demanded.
"Just about a minute," Joey replied. "After I climbed up here, the ladder fell back down. Then I leaned on the wall and fell into some kind of secret room. I just managed to open the panel again now." He grinned mischievously. "Did I scare ya?"
Seto raised an eyebrow. "Of course you didn't scare me, Wheeler. I don't scare easily. But now Tea here might be an altogether different story."
Tea crossed her arms and nodded angrily. Joey had utterly terrified her, placing his hand on her shoulder like he had while hiding in the shadows. "Joey, you shouldn't do things like that!" she scolded.
Joey shrugged. "Hey, where's Yugi and the others?" he demanded suddenly, looking around.
"That's what we would like to know," Bakura said. "We all just suddenly were separated!"
"Well, that's not cool," Joey declared.
"It's certainly not," Tea agreed with a nod. "We have to find them!"
"Where did you last see them?" Joey asked.
"In the drawing room," Bakura told him.
"Then let's head for the drawin' room!" Joey said, punching the air with a fist.
"And don't announce our presence, Wheeler," Seto said dryly. "You never know who might be listening in."
****
"Yugi, what are we gonna do?" Mokuba asked worriedly.
"All we can do is stay calm and keep searching, Mokuba," Yugi replied.
"Uh, guys . . . I hate to point this out when you're talking about staying calm, Yugi, but that picture's eyes are following us," Tristan announced.
"I don't see anything," Mokuba said, looking up at the portrait.
"I don't either, Tristan," Yugi remarked. "Perhaps it was just the lighting."
"No guys, I really saw it!" Tristan insisted.
They walked on a little farther. A blood-curdling scream echoed through the hallways.
"That sounded like Tea!" Yugi declared.
"Maybe she's close by!" Tristan said.
They ran towards the sound of the voice. Suddenly a suit of armor came to life and stepped in front of them, blocking their path.
"Hey! What's the big idea?!" Tristan demanded. "We only want to find our friends."
The suit raised the axe it was holding threateningly.
"We mean no harm," Yugi tried, without much success.
"What are we gonna do, Yugi?" Mokuba asked.
The suit was obviously not going to back down. Angrily it raised the axe, preparing to strike Yugi down.
Instantly Yugi retaliated with the power of the Millennium Puzzle and sent the suit flying back against the wall. "Alright," he said, turning to look at Tristan and Mokuba, "let's continue down this hall."
****
"Well, here's the drawing room," Bakura announced.
"But no one's here!" Tea sighed.
"Eh, well, they've gotta be around here somewhere," Joey said, slamming his fist into his palm. "Let's try over this way. There's another door over here."
Everyone followed Joey toward the door. Suddenly Bakura, who was bringing up the rear, cried out in pain.
"Bakura, what's wrong?" Tea gasped, as the silver-haired boy slumped forward, falling against her. She half-turned, trying to steady him, and saw a hand clutching a hypodermic needle disappear into the wall and vanish. "That hand . . . someone just stabbed Bakura in the neck with a syringe and then their hand vanished into the wall!!" Tea exclaimed.
Seto rushed to assist Tea while Joey stared at the wall angrily. "You wanna mess with us?! Come out and fight! Come on, don't be a chicken!! Put 'em up!!" Joey clenched his fists and punched the wall. "Ow!" he exclaimed, shaking his hand wildly to relieve the pain.
"Watch it, Wheeler," Seto snapped. "We don't need two injured people here." He was holding Bakura's limp body in his arms while Tea tried to revive him.
"Bakura? Please, speak to me, Bakura," she pleaded. "What if that horrible thing poisoned him?" she worried.
That's when Yami Bakura came out of the Millennium Ring. "You dolt!!" he screamed at Bakura.
"Bakura couldn't help it!" Tea said angrily. Yami Bakura only growled in reply. "Do you know if that was poison?" Tea asked pointedly.
"It's not," Yami Bakura told her. "But it could have been. What a dolt!! He should have been more careful!"
"If it wasn't poison," Joey said, "then what was it?"
"A napping potion," Yami Bakura growled.
"They obviously did it to make us clear out of here," Seto said grimly.
"Yeah," Joey sighed. "With Bakura out for the count, I don't think we have much of a choice. We should get him outta here."
That's when Yugi, Tristan, and Mokuba showed up, falling out of a secret panel and landing in a heap on the floor. Yugi looked up. "What's happened here?" he exclaimed.
"Someone hurt Bakura," Tea told him. "Where have you guys been?!"
"We were about to ask you the same question," Yugi replied wryly. He and the others with him stood up and came over. "But we can exchange stories later. Is Bakura hurt badly?"
"He'll recover," Yami Bakura growled.
"But we should get him out of here," Seto said. "No more investigating tonight. But we should probably report that intruder to the police."
Yugi nodded. "I'll help you carry Bakura out."
"I don't need any help," Seto retorted.
"Still the same old Kaiba," Joey sighed, rolling his eyes.
****
Since Bakura was hurt, Seto let him and the others ride back in his limo, which he hadn't planned to do otherwise.
"I wonder how long it takes for this to wear off," Tea mused, gently stroking Bakura's hair. The unconscious boy had been laid across the back seat with his head in Tea's lap. "Maybe we should take him to the hospital," she worried.
"No hospitals," Yami Bakura growled. "I told you, Bakura will be fine. Doctors are such inquisitive mortals," he muttered.
Yugi looked thoughtful. "Don't you find it strange that several times now, something has happened to one of us that wasn't really serious? I mean, why haven't the people behind this just killed us? Wouldn't that be the easy way out?"
"Now that you mention it, Yug, it is kinda weird," Joey agreed. "It's almost like maybe someone has a heart and wants to get us off the case without really hurtin' us!"
"Yeah, but what about those dark wraiths? They definitely want us dead," Tristan pointed out. "And I'm sure whoever's controlling them does too."
"Nothing makes sense," Yugi sighed. "How's Bakura now, Tea?" he wondered.
"About the same," Tea sighed, laying a hand on Bakura's forehead to make sure he didn't have a fever. "No . . . wait! His eyes just fluttered," she announced. "Bakura? Are you okay?" she asked.
Bakura groaned, his soft brown eyes opening. "Oh my . . . what happened?" He looked around. "Oh dear . . . I didn't faint, did I?" he asked, his eyes wide. "That would be so embarrassing . . ."
Yugi smiled. "No, Bakura, you didn't faint. Someone drugged you."
"Once again, someone's tryin' to scare us off the case," Joey replied, "or at least, oust us away from that clapboard jungle."
"That's not good," Bakura exclaimed. "There must be something in there that we're not supposed to see!"
"And we're gonna find out what!" Joey slammed his fist into his palm and seemed to startle Seto. "Hey man, you've been pretty quiet," Joey observed. "What's on your mind?"
"My thoughts are of no concern to you, Wheeler," Seto replied, sounding annoyed and grouchy.
"Whoa, touchy!" Joey declared. "Man, you've got a real burr in your saddle today! Not that you usually don't, 'cause you do." He grinned mischievously.
Seto just raised an eyebrow at him. He wasn't in any mood for Joey's off-kilter (yet admittedly, sometimes truthful) remarks.
****
Much later that night, after he'd dropped Yugi and his friends off at the game shop and taken Mokuba back home, Seto snuck out of his mansion, determined to find out what was going on back at that weird house. He wasn't afraid to go alone; he'd prefer it actually, and he'd be careful. Whoever was hanging around would be sorry they'd ever messed with him!
"Uh, Mr. Kaiba, sir, we have a bit of a problem," the chauffeur announced nervously. This was a new chauffeur that Seto had just barely hired a day ago and he wasn't used to the strange things that happened. Not that Seto was. He didn't think he'd ever get used to them.
"What it is now?" Seto asked irritably.
"Well, sir, this is the address of the place where we were earlier, but er . . . Well, sir, see for yourself." The chauffeur gestured out the window.
Seto turned to look. "What in the . . ."
All that was there was an empty field!
"You must have the wrong street," Seto said.
"No, sir, it's definitely the right street, sir," the chauffeur insisted. "See, sir, there's where we parked earlier. That is most definitely where the house was, sir, and now it's gone!"
Seto's eyes narrowed. The chauffeur was right. The place had vanished into thin air. That didn't help his already sour mood any.
****
"An empty field?" Yugi gasped the next morning. "Joey, you're kidding!"
"No, Yug, I tell ya, I walked past the place on my way over here, and it was gone!" Joey gestured dramatically.
"Hey, Joey, are you sure you weren't hallucinating or something?" Tristan asked facetiously.
"No, I wasn't hallucinatin'!" Joey retorted angrily. "Maybe what happened last night was some kinda weird case of group hypnosis!"
"Group hypnosis?" Tea said in disbelief. "Oh Joey . . . that's ridiculous!"
"I was really drugged," Bakura said, wide-eyed.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Joey said impatiently. "But under group hypnosis, we coulda been made to think the circumstances were different than they actually were! Maybe that freaky Madame Fiona did something to us when she went into . . er, pretended to go into that trance!"
"What do you think happened to the house, Yugi?" Tea asked.
"It's hard to say, Tea," Yugi replied slowly. "Maybe on the way back from school, we should all go check it out."
****
The school day went by slowly, and Yugi and the others were relieved when the bell finally rang.
"Shall we go have a look at that place now?" Yugi asked.
"Yeah, man, let's go for it," Joey said, punching the air.
"I wonder where Seto Kaiba is," Bakura said curiously, looking around. "I haven't seen him all day."
"That's true, Bakura, I haven't either," Yugi realized.
"Maybe he got tired of hangin' around with us," Joey suggested mischievously as they started walking.
"I don't doubt that he might be scared away by some of your antics," Tristan grinned teasingly, "but somehow I don't think Kaiba would play hookey from school to get away from you."
When they finally arrived on the street where the house was supposed to be, the sky had clouded over.
"Looks like we're going to be in for a storm," Tea declared. "If it starts raining, I can't help wishing that the house would still be there."
"If it starts pouring, we could always drop by Madame Fiona's and have our fortunes told," Tristan said, and everyone could tell he was joking. "She can tell us how we're all going to die or how the world's gonna end."
"Hey, look!" Bakura gasped. "There's where the house should be, and it's not there!"
"Hey, I told you, man," Joey said as they surveyed the wide field, which looked as though it hadn't been tended to in decades. The Brooklyn-born boy started walking through the tall brown weeds determinedly. "Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this!" he declared.
"Be careful, Joey," Yugi warned as he, Tea, Tristan, and Bakura followed Joey through the field. "We don't know what we might be getting into here."
"Eh, what danger could there possibly be in an old field like this?" Joey replied airily. "There's nothin' here, not even that darn house!"
Yugi gasped suddenly.
"What is it, Yugi?" Everyone turned to look at the violet-eyed boy, who had disappeared into some wild sunflowers that were taller than he was.
"I wouldn't exactly say there's nothing here," Yugi replied grimly from several yards ahead.
"Well, hey, wait up, man!" Joey said as he and the others wandered into the sunflower patch after their friend.
"Yugi, what did you . . ." Tea stopped short and gasped in horror, and Joey, Tristan, and Bakura quickly followed suit. Yugi was kneeling in a bed of milkweed next to an eerily still body, seeming to be checking for a pulse.
Joey gulped. "Oh man, Yugi, who's . . ."
Yugi looked up. "It's Kaiba," he replied softly.