AUTHOR'S NOTES: My reviews go on to three pages! Yayyy!
I'm not quite sure about the rules of the card game regarding Flip Effects, but I'm pretty sure it says you can't switch a monster's position twice in one turn. I swear sometimes I think it was written in Japanese and then translated into English by someone who only spoke Chinese.
A deus ex machina is someone or something popping in at the last minute when all seems lost to switch everything around; it's called that because, apparently, a lot of old Greek plays ended with the gods coming down and solving all the problems. A deus ex machina is death to good fiction, so I've heard.
So far nobody's responded on the Mai vs. Keith question, so I'm going with Mai, 'cause Keith's annoying.

Chapter Nine: Magic Tricks
16 August

Mokuba Kaiba sat cross-legged on the grass near the tree and carefully peeled the orange he had gotten from said tree, stuffing the peels into his pocket. When he had finished the procedure, he pulled the orange into segments and popped one into his mouth, balancing the rest on his legs. He remained in this position for a time; only after the segment was sucked dry did he chew, swallow, and reach for another one. "How's yours?"
Gabriel looked at him with wide eyes and held out his own orange. It was completely intact. "How am I to…"
Mokuba sighed. "All right…"
One hour, four oranges, and much exasperation on Mokuba's part later, Gabriel had finally eaten an entire orange without forgetting to peel it or accidentally spitting it out. He promptly had two more, then stretched out under the tree. He was thoroughly enjoying the feeling of no emptiness-
(I think this way I can do it for Jewel sooner)
-when Mokuba shouted, "Hey! Who're you?" And as he got up he heard the response.
"Someone who is going to teach you why it's not such a good idea to tamper with Millennium Items."

***

Yami Bakura smiled grimly as he noted the somewhat outrageous situation before him. The ground was strewed with orange peels, and the Dark Magician had remains of oranges down the front of his robes. He looked somewhat like a human child. Mokuba Kaiba was standing beside him, looking at Yami Bakura with wide eyes-
(does he think I'm the deus ex machina or something?)
-and then he shouted, "What are you talking about? What do you mean Millennium Items?"
"I'll tell you." He had arranged his deck beforehand, the moment he became aware of the presence, so he could get the card he wanted without any awkward flipping through. Yami Bakura held it up so that they could see (he already knew) and his grin widened. "No, wait, I'll show you." He felt the power of the Ring backing him once more, and began to laugh. It still had the exact same power he needed, when he needed it. When he reached for this power he did not find himself trying to hold nothingness; it was there, as strong as it always was. "I summon Man-Eater Bug!"

***

He had stood there with his eyes shut, holding the deck, for a considerable amount of time, only once opening those eyes and asking Seto if he had anything to ask them. Seto had replied with the first thing that came to mind; when he thought about it, it was quite a reasonable question considering Pegasus was currently down where the creep had locked up Mokuba.
(what goes around comes around huh)
For the rest of the hour he stood there as if his soul had been zapped and watched Celtic Guardian communicating with the other cards.
At last the deck was placed back on the table, and he turned back to Seto. "Chihiro thinks you should stuff him in a jar and make him listen to annoying music."
Seto understood and laughed for just a moment; then the laughter died as he remembered being pinned against the wall and the anger sealed in Celtic Guardian's voice and eyes. He took another look at those eyes and supposed there was something to letting things out after all, since Celtic Guardian now looked much less inclined to kill him.
Pegasus had left on the table a very large, intact breakfast, which, while it had cooled off, hadn't gone bad yet. Seto looked at it and felt completely disgusted with himself as he felt saliva make its presence in his mouth very known. Out of the corner of the eye that wasn't focused on the food he saw Celtic Guardian looking at it as well, with an expression balancing between misgiving and a frantic wanting-needing that was probably much like Seto's own expression.
"You have it." Seto bet he had jumped at least a foot out of sheer surprise at both the speaking and the words that were spoken. "I'll find my own."
(so if Pegasus poisoned it I get the poison huh)
He laughed at that thought, then as the door shut he sat down, seized a fork and jammed it into the scrambled eggs. After the first bite he'd had for who-knew-how-many days all control that remained immediately fled for cover. For the next ten minutes Seto Kaiba ate like a dog and didn't care in the least.
Shortly after he had done and discomfiture had begun to set in, Celtic Guardian entered with a bizarre assortment of foods (everything from grain cereals to hamburgers to candy bars) and threw it down on the table. Seto heard his voice ask, "You didn't have any trouble?"
"Some." Whereupon he attacked the food-
(guess it has zero attack points)
-and Seto Kaiba engaged himself with getting some of the stains out of his coat, comforting himself with the fact that there was no way his table manners had been as bad as those being currently displayed by Celtic Guardian.

***

Mokuba Kaiba at first thought and hoped that their hoped-for "rescuer" was merely a lunatic. One look at the Man-Eater Bug convinced him otherwise. All of a sudden he remembered looking through the cards in his birthday pack-
"Seto, is this a good one?"
"No. It's not."
"Really? But what about the effect?"
"It destroys one monster on the field, true. And what happens after this effect has been carried out? The opponent summons another monster, destroys this one, and in all likelihood nearly obliterates your Life Points because this one has such a rotten attack power. It's not worth it, Mokuba. Not worth it."
-and then he called himself back to present time, and the current situation.
And there was absolutely no way he could just summon another monster. How was he supposed to? He had no idea how to get cards to be real, and he didn't think Gabriel had enough time to give him a lesson before the Man-Eater Bug went for the only other Duel Monster in sight.
But this one was not as substantial as Gabriel was. Mokuba could look through Man-Eater Bug and see a green-tinted version of what was behind it. Not quite as real as Gabriel. That, at least, could help in some way… now if only he knew how.
He jerked, blinked and rubbed his eyes, staring at the position the Bug been placed in. Mokuba had never actually seen a Man-Eater Bug dueling before, but he knew defense mode when he saw it.
Of course. The effect activated when it was switched to attack mode. Which would be next turn.
(bet he doesn't play by turns anyway)
And Mokuba's suspicions were confirmed when he saw the one with the strange eyes holding the card horizontally. Within moments he flipped it upright. "Now, Man-Eater Bug…"
Gabriel had gone all pale and stiff and staring. Mokuba had to kick him the shin to get his attention. Then he looked up and shouted, "He was supposed to wait until next turn to change position! He doesn't have to play by the rules, neither do you!"
Gabriel understood. He swung his staff so it pointed toward Man-Eater Bug; no words announcing the attack were necessary as for a moment the world seemed to be thrown into photographic negatives. Then it was screaming and stumbling back; there was no tactful little dissolve like with the dueling machines. Mokuba was spared the majority of the disgusting sight by the dark that obscured his vision, but he could see enough to feel queasy. Enough to feel justified in screaming, too. And behind his scream he could hear, "Bakura! Bakura, what's going on? What happened?"
Afterwards all time seemed to scramble into a big lump and the last clear images were Gabriel collapsed on the grass and Yugi Motou running towards them looking like a late deus ex machina.

***

This was the first meal Ailill had had for a time; either over a thousand years or a single day, depending on how you counted it. Either way, he was hungry.
Hunger- he hadn't thought of it as something physical for quite a while. Morgan could be hungry to duel; he himself could be hungry to win a duel; he'd never thought of himself as simply hungry for a long time. Now he did.
He'd run into little trouble. Most of the guards had backed off as soon as he began for his sword; Ailill hadn't even had to draw it. There were some that tried further; Ailill asked them if they knew where their Master was, and that trouble, too, had gone very quickly. He'd simply gone in, picked up a little of everything that looked interesting (which was most of it), then returned to the chamber. At least he had kept enough self-control to keep from devouring it right in the hallway.
Those of Ailill's memories that were relatively clear did not include memories of eating, but some of his more obscure ones did, and he guessed he remembered more than he had thought from those. But what he didn't remember was how good it felt to eat when he was hungry.
Ailill began with a thing that had brown and green and red (he couldn't remember the exact words, if he'd ever known them) between white and soft. He took a large bite. He took another bite before he was even half through with the first, then another. And another.
It was finished shortly, whereupon he attacked the next one that caught his eye. Ailill went on like this until there was nothing left but inedible things and crumbs. As he departed the frenzy he turned and saw Seto Kaiba using a computer. After a few seconds Seto Kaiba turned and looked at him. "Well," he said, "someone should tell this 'Mai Valentine' why Pegasus can't duel her today."

***

"Christ, just because he's the maker of Duel Monsters isn't an excuse to keep me waiting half an hour!" Mai Valentine pulled out a magazine and began to skim it. "I think even Joey Wheeler's more punctual." She yawned and began to read an article for the thirtieth time; she was interrupted by footsteps. She looked up and blinked. No way. This was some kind of hallucination induced by too much magazine reading.
But none of the magazines she subscribed to, though they definitely spoke of the adolescent CEO/Duel Monsters World Champion, talking about any duelists who dressed as the Celtic Guardian. Hell, she couldn't remember them mentioning the Celtic Guardian at all.
She asked the first thing that came to mind. "Where's Pegasus? Watching cartoons?"
Kaiba grinned; it was strange to see him grinning. "He wishes." The grin, if it was possible, widened. "Pegasus is unavailable for dueling."
"And who the hell-" she indicated the figure next to Kaiba- "are you?" Those brown eyes and those pointed ears unnerved Mai; she found herself fingering her deck as if to reassure herself that it was still there.
"My name is Ailill."
Mai arranged herself, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. "So, he doesn't show up, he loses by default. When do I get the three million?"
"Sorry," said Kaiba, "but I haven't been able to get into his bank account yet. And like I said, he's unavailable for dueling. I think he's available, though."
Ailill's eyes were wide for a moment, then he spun to face Kaiba. "There's no way," he growled, "that I'm going to use that stupid deck with the stupid Dragon Piper at all. And not in a seeing duel."
"Then use mine." Kaiba's mouth had returned more or less to normal after the lengthening of his grin; otherwise it would have popped out of his face and landed on the floor. "Maybe then you'll see how hard it is to keep from losing monsters." He held out a deck.
Ailill glared at him and took it. "Maybe you'll see how easy it is to win without threatening to jump to your death." He turned to Mai. "Master of the Harpies, do you want to duel?"