Joey stared in disbelief. "What the heck?! Alright, who wants a beatin'?!" He poised for attack, heading in the direction the machete had come from.
"Joey, wait!!" Tea cried, but the Brooklyn boy was already running into the shadows, followed closely by Seto.
"Go get the police," Seto ordered.
"Be careful, you two!!" Tea cried, her blue eyes shining with worry.
****
Bruce, in the meantime, seemed much more concerned with KETY's ratings than talking about JP.
"Look, why don't you kids go talk to some of the other personnel?" he suggested. "Right now I have to find someone to do Mandy's show for today! She's gone off wandering around the studio in one of her foolish moods! I don't know why I don't fire her . . ."
Yugi blinked. "Um, who do we talk to?" he asked.
"Anyone!" Bruce cried with a wild gesture. "Talk to everyone!" He paused. "But first, have any of you had radio experience?!"
The teens looked at each other, shaking their heads. "None of us have," Bakura spoke up finally.
Bruce's eyes lighted on the silver-haired boy. "You!" he exclaimed. "I want you!"
Bakura gasped. "Me, sir? But why?!"
"Weren't you listening, boy? I need a deejay!!" Bruce grabbed Bakura by the arm.
"But I don't want to!" Bakura cried, his brown eyes wide.
"You're just perfect!" Bruce declared.
Bakura looked to the others for help.
"Hey," Tristan whispered, "this could be a good thing. You can look for clues undercover, you know?"
Bakura gulped. "Well, I suppose I could . . ." he said slowly.
"Wonderful!" Bruce hauled the boy off down the corridor. "Just come into this studio here and warm up!" He opened a door and shoved Bakura in. "You're on in fifteen minutes!"
Bakura got up, staring around at the room. If all the studios were built somewhat the same, he supposed that maybe by studying this one, he'd get some clues as to what happened in the other one. He only wished he didn't have to go on the air to do it.
"How did I ever get into this mess?" he sighed to himself, watching the fill-in deejay wrapping up JP's show.
"Hey there," the man grinned as a song started playing. "I guess you're the new deejay for today, huh?"
Bakura blinked in surprise. "Come again? You don't mean to say that there are lots like me?!"
The deejay laughed. "Well, this is a strange station. It seems that we get a fill-in for someone every day. For some reason, we seem to be kinda accident-prone around here. Just to warn you."
Bakura gasped. "What do you mean?!" he cried.
The deejay paused while he started another song playing. "Well . . . Bruce tries to keep these things under his hat, but everyone here knows how often something happens to one of us deejays. Last week, Mike—the early afternoon guy, right before JP—fell down the stairs and twisted his ankle. Yesterday, the fill-in guy for Mike nearly got knocked out the window by a janitor racing past with his broom. And now, this thing with JP!" He shook his head. "Man oh man . . . things are crazy around here!"
Bakura sank into a chair, his heart pounding. What was he getting into?
"And that's not even mentioning what happened to me this morning," the deejay went on. "I nearly got run over by a truck when I was coming over!"
"Oh my!" Bakura burst out.
The song ended and the deejay turned his attention to the microphone. "Well, that's it for me, ladies and germs! Next up is . . ." He turned to Bakura. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Bakura," the boy replied softly, feeling extremely nervous now.
"That's right!" the deejay crowed. "Bakura will be filling in for Mandy on her show. He promises three hours of fun, fun, fun, so stick around!! This is Darin' Dave, signing off!" He turned off the microphone and grinned broadly at Bakura. "You're on in five," he said, handing the headset to the brown-eyed boy.
****
Tea, meanwhile, was on her way back to the damaged studio when she ran right into someone coming out of a storage room. Both of them went to the floor, and the box the other person had been carrying overturned, spilling tapes and CDs everywhere.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!!" the man grumped, reaching for the fallen audio equipment.
"I'm sorry," Tea apologized, standing up. "I'd stay and help you, but I have to find the police immediately! Someone just threw a machete at me and two of the boys who were with me!"
The man grunted, not impressed. "Yeah, so what else is new? That kinda stuff happens all the time around here."
"WHAT?!!?" Tea shrieked. "Why hasn't the station been shut down?!"
The man shrugged. "Von Wilkenson won't let the news of these kinda things leak out to the public. Heck, he didn't even want to call the police in on JP's disappearance!"
Tea was fuming. "That's outrageous!" she declared. "And I guess it's all because he doesn't want bad publicity, right?"
"Guess so." The man scooped up the rest of the CDs and prepared to take off again. "But I have work to do, girlie, so go bug someone else!"
Tea watched him leave, and then hurried on her way, praying that Joey and Seto were alright.
****
Joey and Seto, as a matter of fact, were not having much luck finding their attacker.
"Man, he's gotta be here somewhere!" Joey cried, glancing around frantically.
At that moment, something kicked out and knocked Joey to the floor, pinning him down.
"Hey!!!!" the blonde boy screamed, struggling. "Let me up!!!"
Seto rolled his eyes and grabbed the assailant's arm, raising him up. "What are you doing, Bernard?" he demanded, recognizing the younger boy from earlier.
Bernard pulled free. "I'm looking for the criminals around here, and I'm going to find them!" he declared.
"Yeah? Well, I ain't one of them!!" Joey cried hotly. "I nearly got sliced and diced by that machete someone threw!!"
Seto folded his arms over his chest. "Wasn't there a girl with you before?" he demanded of Bernard.
"Elsa," the boy said in disgust. "She's around here somewhere."
"Did you see anyone else in here?" Seto wanted to know.
Bernard shook his head. "Just you and this guy," he said, indicating Joey.
"The name's Joey Wheeler!" Joey cried, frustrated about this whole experience. "And you better not have been the guy who threw that machete!!"
"What?! That's ridiculous!!" Bernard yelled.
Seto looked from one to the other. "While you two engage in your childish argument, I have a criminal to find," he remarked, turning to go.
****
Bakura stared at the microphone nervously. "Why did I ever agree to do this?!" he muttered, looking over a stack of nearby CDs.
A flash of light glowed briefly and Yami Bakura appeared, smirking. "Foolish mortal," he remarked.
"Ten seconds," the sound engineer called, seeming to not have noticed the tomb raider's sudden appearance.
Bakura gave the thief a warning look, telling him not to make any embarrassing cracks.
"And we're live!" the engineer announced.
Bakura gulped, adjusting the headset. "Um . . . hello," he said, speaking a bit too close to the microphone.
"Idiot," Yami Bakura muttered, pushing it further away.
Bakura blushed. "Hello," he tried again. "I . . . I have some pleasant songs for you today, from artists such as Huey Lewis, the Police, and . . ."
"Enough of this monotony!" Yami Bakura growled, finding a hard rock song and blasting it out through the loudspeakers. "I *will* rule the world!!" he cried, leaning over into the microphone.
"YAMI!!!" Bakura scolded in horror, leaping out of his chair and taking the microphone with him. "I . . . I'm sorry about this!" he cried over the noise of the music, trying to find the button on the computer that would make it stop playing. Instead he hit a button that played farm sounds. "Oh my!" he gasped as a cow mooed loudly.
The sound engineer stared at him in disbelief, signaling for him to go to a commercial break.
Bakura gulped, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. "Um, we'll . . . we'll be right back after these messages," he tried to say, but upon pressing another button a horrible foghorn tore through the air.
Even Yami Bakura looked ruffled. "What kind of message is that?!"
"Yami, please go back in the Ring," Bakura said in despair.
The phone rang and the boy snatched it up. "Hello, K-80's radio," he said distractedly, still trying to find the buttons that would play the commercials.
"Your show is hilarious, but what happened to the music?!" the caller exclaimed.
Bakura winced as a Halloween scream echoed through the studio. "Don't worry, I'll find it," he promised.
Yami Bakura leaned over again. "You dolt! Let me take over!!"
"No!" Bakura insisted, afraid of what his Yami might say on the air. Pressing another button activated the jingle for JP's show, and the poor boy slapped his forehead in despair.
The phone rang again. "Hello, Bakura speaking," the boy announced, forgetting to give the radio station's name as he frantically looked through the computer commands for something to stop all the racket.
"Hey, who is that guy doing the show with you?" the caller asked.
Yami Bakura grabbed the phone before Bakura could stop him. "Your worst nightmare," he hissed.
"Yami!!" Bakura said in disbelief, hurrying to pull the phone's cord out of the socket. Instead he only wound up becoming entangled in it. The boy leaned on the table, shaking his head in despair amidst scolding from his Yami, the snorting of pigs, and JP's jingle playing blissfully.
****
Meanwhile, Yugi, Tristan, and Marik had all split up to speak with the others at the station. They knew it wasn't likely that they'd glean any more clues from the wrecked studio, but Tristan was still planning to stick around until Gabrielle and her partner had finished gathering evidence.
Marik wandered down the hall uneasily. The whole mystery-solving thing was new to him, but after all the calamities that had happened during his own mystery, he wasn't especially looking forward to what might happen during this one.
"Hello?" he called slowly, finding the deserted hallway more than a little eerie. Of course, Marik was no coward, and he inched forward determinedly. He could sense that he wasn't alone. "Who is here?" he demanded, but he received no answer. "I mean you no harm, unless you mean harm to me." He stood in a commanding manner in the middle of the corridor, brandishing his Millennium Rod, but again was met with only silence.
****
When Tea finally arrived back at the studio, she was surprised and a bit concerned to find only Tristan there with the police officers.
"Tristan, where's Yugi and the others?!" she exclaimed.
Tristan looked up. "Well, Bakura's doing a radio show, and Yugi and Marik went to question some more people. I decided to stay here and lend my expertise to these lovely ladies," he said, gesturing to the policewomen.
Tea blinked. "Bakura's doing a radio show?!" she said incredulously.
"It's a long story." Tristan stared at her. "So where's Joey and Kaiba?" he wanted to know.
Quickly Tea explained about the machete thrower. Gabrielle's eyes narrowed.
"This is serious," she said, straightening up. "You'd best take me to where they were."
Tea nodded shakily. "Do you . . . do you think they're . . . hurt?"
Gabrielle pursed her lips. "Well, let's just say we shouldn't waste any time getting down there."
****
Yugi was wandering down a very different corridor. ~It's strange that things are so deserted around here,~ he commented to his Yami. ~And I have this creepy feeling that something else terrible is about to happen . . .~
**I have sensed that as well,** Yami Yugi said grimly.
Suddenly a blood-curdling shriek echoed down the halls!
"Joey, wait!!" Tea cried, but the Brooklyn boy was already running into the shadows, followed closely by Seto.
"Go get the police," Seto ordered.
"Be careful, you two!!" Tea cried, her blue eyes shining with worry.
****
Bruce, in the meantime, seemed much more concerned with KETY's ratings than talking about JP.
"Look, why don't you kids go talk to some of the other personnel?" he suggested. "Right now I have to find someone to do Mandy's show for today! She's gone off wandering around the studio in one of her foolish moods! I don't know why I don't fire her . . ."
Yugi blinked. "Um, who do we talk to?" he asked.
"Anyone!" Bruce cried with a wild gesture. "Talk to everyone!" He paused. "But first, have any of you had radio experience?!"
The teens looked at each other, shaking their heads. "None of us have," Bakura spoke up finally.
Bruce's eyes lighted on the silver-haired boy. "You!" he exclaimed. "I want you!"
Bakura gasped. "Me, sir? But why?!"
"Weren't you listening, boy? I need a deejay!!" Bruce grabbed Bakura by the arm.
"But I don't want to!" Bakura cried, his brown eyes wide.
"You're just perfect!" Bruce declared.
Bakura looked to the others for help.
"Hey," Tristan whispered, "this could be a good thing. You can look for clues undercover, you know?"
Bakura gulped. "Well, I suppose I could . . ." he said slowly.
"Wonderful!" Bruce hauled the boy off down the corridor. "Just come into this studio here and warm up!" He opened a door and shoved Bakura in. "You're on in fifteen minutes!"
Bakura got up, staring around at the room. If all the studios were built somewhat the same, he supposed that maybe by studying this one, he'd get some clues as to what happened in the other one. He only wished he didn't have to go on the air to do it.
"How did I ever get into this mess?" he sighed to himself, watching the fill-in deejay wrapping up JP's show.
"Hey there," the man grinned as a song started playing. "I guess you're the new deejay for today, huh?"
Bakura blinked in surprise. "Come again? You don't mean to say that there are lots like me?!"
The deejay laughed. "Well, this is a strange station. It seems that we get a fill-in for someone every day. For some reason, we seem to be kinda accident-prone around here. Just to warn you."
Bakura gasped. "What do you mean?!" he cried.
The deejay paused while he started another song playing. "Well . . . Bruce tries to keep these things under his hat, but everyone here knows how often something happens to one of us deejays. Last week, Mike—the early afternoon guy, right before JP—fell down the stairs and twisted his ankle. Yesterday, the fill-in guy for Mike nearly got knocked out the window by a janitor racing past with his broom. And now, this thing with JP!" He shook his head. "Man oh man . . . things are crazy around here!"
Bakura sank into a chair, his heart pounding. What was he getting into?
"And that's not even mentioning what happened to me this morning," the deejay went on. "I nearly got run over by a truck when I was coming over!"
"Oh my!" Bakura burst out.
The song ended and the deejay turned his attention to the microphone. "Well, that's it for me, ladies and germs! Next up is . . ." He turned to Bakura. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Bakura," the boy replied softly, feeling extremely nervous now.
"That's right!" the deejay crowed. "Bakura will be filling in for Mandy on her show. He promises three hours of fun, fun, fun, so stick around!! This is Darin' Dave, signing off!" He turned off the microphone and grinned broadly at Bakura. "You're on in five," he said, handing the headset to the brown-eyed boy.
****
Tea, meanwhile, was on her way back to the damaged studio when she ran right into someone coming out of a storage room. Both of them went to the floor, and the box the other person had been carrying overturned, spilling tapes and CDs everywhere.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!!" the man grumped, reaching for the fallen audio equipment.
"I'm sorry," Tea apologized, standing up. "I'd stay and help you, but I have to find the police immediately! Someone just threw a machete at me and two of the boys who were with me!"
The man grunted, not impressed. "Yeah, so what else is new? That kinda stuff happens all the time around here."
"WHAT?!!?" Tea shrieked. "Why hasn't the station been shut down?!"
The man shrugged. "Von Wilkenson won't let the news of these kinda things leak out to the public. Heck, he didn't even want to call the police in on JP's disappearance!"
Tea was fuming. "That's outrageous!" she declared. "And I guess it's all because he doesn't want bad publicity, right?"
"Guess so." The man scooped up the rest of the CDs and prepared to take off again. "But I have work to do, girlie, so go bug someone else!"
Tea watched him leave, and then hurried on her way, praying that Joey and Seto were alright.
****
Joey and Seto, as a matter of fact, were not having much luck finding their attacker.
"Man, he's gotta be here somewhere!" Joey cried, glancing around frantically.
At that moment, something kicked out and knocked Joey to the floor, pinning him down.
"Hey!!!!" the blonde boy screamed, struggling. "Let me up!!!"
Seto rolled his eyes and grabbed the assailant's arm, raising him up. "What are you doing, Bernard?" he demanded, recognizing the younger boy from earlier.
Bernard pulled free. "I'm looking for the criminals around here, and I'm going to find them!" he declared.
"Yeah? Well, I ain't one of them!!" Joey cried hotly. "I nearly got sliced and diced by that machete someone threw!!"
Seto folded his arms over his chest. "Wasn't there a girl with you before?" he demanded of Bernard.
"Elsa," the boy said in disgust. "She's around here somewhere."
"Did you see anyone else in here?" Seto wanted to know.
Bernard shook his head. "Just you and this guy," he said, indicating Joey.
"The name's Joey Wheeler!" Joey cried, frustrated about this whole experience. "And you better not have been the guy who threw that machete!!"
"What?! That's ridiculous!!" Bernard yelled.
Seto looked from one to the other. "While you two engage in your childish argument, I have a criminal to find," he remarked, turning to go.
****
Bakura stared at the microphone nervously. "Why did I ever agree to do this?!" he muttered, looking over a stack of nearby CDs.
A flash of light glowed briefly and Yami Bakura appeared, smirking. "Foolish mortal," he remarked.
"Ten seconds," the sound engineer called, seeming to not have noticed the tomb raider's sudden appearance.
Bakura gave the thief a warning look, telling him not to make any embarrassing cracks.
"And we're live!" the engineer announced.
Bakura gulped, adjusting the headset. "Um . . . hello," he said, speaking a bit too close to the microphone.
"Idiot," Yami Bakura muttered, pushing it further away.
Bakura blushed. "Hello," he tried again. "I . . . I have some pleasant songs for you today, from artists such as Huey Lewis, the Police, and . . ."
"Enough of this monotony!" Yami Bakura growled, finding a hard rock song and blasting it out through the loudspeakers. "I *will* rule the world!!" he cried, leaning over into the microphone.
"YAMI!!!" Bakura scolded in horror, leaping out of his chair and taking the microphone with him. "I . . . I'm sorry about this!" he cried over the noise of the music, trying to find the button on the computer that would make it stop playing. Instead he hit a button that played farm sounds. "Oh my!" he gasped as a cow mooed loudly.
The sound engineer stared at him in disbelief, signaling for him to go to a commercial break.
Bakura gulped, beads of sweat appearing on his brow. "Um, we'll . . . we'll be right back after these messages," he tried to say, but upon pressing another button a horrible foghorn tore through the air.
Even Yami Bakura looked ruffled. "What kind of message is that?!"
"Yami, please go back in the Ring," Bakura said in despair.
The phone rang and the boy snatched it up. "Hello, K-80's radio," he said distractedly, still trying to find the buttons that would play the commercials.
"Your show is hilarious, but what happened to the music?!" the caller exclaimed.
Bakura winced as a Halloween scream echoed through the studio. "Don't worry, I'll find it," he promised.
Yami Bakura leaned over again. "You dolt! Let me take over!!"
"No!" Bakura insisted, afraid of what his Yami might say on the air. Pressing another button activated the jingle for JP's show, and the poor boy slapped his forehead in despair.
The phone rang again. "Hello, Bakura speaking," the boy announced, forgetting to give the radio station's name as he frantically looked through the computer commands for something to stop all the racket.
"Hey, who is that guy doing the show with you?" the caller asked.
Yami Bakura grabbed the phone before Bakura could stop him. "Your worst nightmare," he hissed.
"Yami!!" Bakura said in disbelief, hurrying to pull the phone's cord out of the socket. Instead he only wound up becoming entangled in it. The boy leaned on the table, shaking his head in despair amidst scolding from his Yami, the snorting of pigs, and JP's jingle playing blissfully.
****
Meanwhile, Yugi, Tristan, and Marik had all split up to speak with the others at the station. They knew it wasn't likely that they'd glean any more clues from the wrecked studio, but Tristan was still planning to stick around until Gabrielle and her partner had finished gathering evidence.
Marik wandered down the hall uneasily. The whole mystery-solving thing was new to him, but after all the calamities that had happened during his own mystery, he wasn't especially looking forward to what might happen during this one.
"Hello?" he called slowly, finding the deserted hallway more than a little eerie. Of course, Marik was no coward, and he inched forward determinedly. He could sense that he wasn't alone. "Who is here?" he demanded, but he received no answer. "I mean you no harm, unless you mean harm to me." He stood in a commanding manner in the middle of the corridor, brandishing his Millennium Rod, but again was met with only silence.
****
When Tea finally arrived back at the studio, she was surprised and a bit concerned to find only Tristan there with the police officers.
"Tristan, where's Yugi and the others?!" she exclaimed.
Tristan looked up. "Well, Bakura's doing a radio show, and Yugi and Marik went to question some more people. I decided to stay here and lend my expertise to these lovely ladies," he said, gesturing to the policewomen.
Tea blinked. "Bakura's doing a radio show?!" she said incredulously.
"It's a long story." Tristan stared at her. "So where's Joey and Kaiba?" he wanted to know.
Quickly Tea explained about the machete thrower. Gabrielle's eyes narrowed.
"This is serious," she said, straightening up. "You'd best take me to where they were."
Tea nodded shakily. "Do you . . . do you think they're . . . hurt?"
Gabrielle pursed her lips. "Well, let's just say we shouldn't waste any time getting down there."
****
Yugi was wandering down a very different corridor. ~It's strange that things are so deserted around here,~ he commented to his Yami. ~And I have this creepy feeling that something else terrible is about to happen . . .~
**I have sensed that as well,** Yami Yugi said grimly.
Suddenly a blood-curdling shriek echoed down the halls!