Author's Note: A big sorry to everyone for not getting a chapter up last week, but my computer had a virus and I was stuck doing a huge project assigned Friday, due Monday with the worst partner in the world. I mean, WORST. But anyway, here we go with another fun-filled chapter! Also, I'm contemplating another Yu-Gi-Oh comedy, so be on the lookout…
Chapter Eleven: The Good, The Bad, and The Stuck In An Elevator
"HHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" screamed Mai as she wrestled Joey into a headlock and slammed his skull against the elevator floor repeatedly. "DIE, FOOL!" She held the sharp point of her nail file [and you didn't believe them when they told you nail files were really weapons!] against Joey's throat and dragged him into a corner, the way a large and dangerous animal will drag its prey into its territory and defend it with its life. She growled fiercely and bared her teeth at Ryou and Yami, who approached her very, very slowly, hands help up in a gesture of peace.
"Let go of Joey, Mai," coaxed Yami, slowly lowering himself to his knees as he got closer. "Give me the nail file, Mai," he pleaded, slowly extending his right arm to take the nail file from the madwoman. Mai growled as he got closer, the way a big dog does when he or she has something that you want that he or she is not willing to give back, they way they do right before they attack, which is very obvious to anyone who has ever had a dog.
Unfortunately, Yami had never had a dog. He stupidly continued to extend his hand as Joey whimpered in the headlock. Mai squeezed her arm tighter around Joey's neck and Yami's arm continued to inch forward, and forward, and…
"YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!" howled Yami, tearing his arm to his chest and throwing himself backward with from the force. [Backward into Bakura, in case you were wondering.]
"Hey, watch it, Pharaoh!" snapped Bakura, quickly shoving Yami back onto the floor. Yami sat up and glared ferociously at Mai, who glared ferociously back. "Jeez, woman! You nearly took my arm off!" he wheezed, his eyes wild as he shakily showed his arm to everyone in the elevator. A terrible red bite mark throbbed on his skin. Everyone winced, secretly laughing inside, glad that they were safe.
"Hey, you think that maybe on full moons you'll turn into a were-Mai?" inquired Tristan interestedly.
Ryou took one look at Yami's bite mark and abandoned the mission. "Sorry, Joey," he apologized, quickly fleeing away from Mai to the other side of the elevator.
Joey gasped and Mai began to laugh evilly. She had a really good evil laugh too, complete with throwing her head back and really heaving her shoulders. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" she crowed, pressing her nail file closer to Joey's throat when she suddenly froze.
Everyone in the elevator had been watching this little escapade with growing interest, apart from Yami, who was grumbling about his bite getting infected, and Kaiba, who was currently enjoying his favorite yoga position. Joey HAD been pretty annoying, and here was the perfect way to get rid of him without getting any blame! Mai's sudden stop, however, had signaled that something was definitely wrong.
Mai didn't move a muscle; her eyes bulged and she held her breath. Suddenly, she whirled around (dragging Joey with her) and wildly eyed the walls of the elevator. She dropped her nail file and shoved Joey's face into the floor as she continued to turn around, now breathing extremely heavily.
Joey quickly crawled away to the other side of the elevator, whimpering like a puppy.
Mai did not stop turning around, glaring at the walls in fear. "Stop laughing at me!" she demanded from the wall. "Stop laughing at me, I say!" She began to pound the wall with her fists. With her back to the remainder of the (semi-)sane, the large rip in the seat of her skirt was extremely visible. Tristan let out a little giggle, and, a second later, Mai held him by the neck, bashing him against the wall as she continued to scream at the wall to stop laughing at her.
She finally dropped Tristan and focused all her attention on the wall. "YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY?! WELL, IT'S NOT! STOP LAUGHING AT ME! STOP LAUGHING AT MEEEEEE!!!" She began to bash her own head against the wall until she knocked herself out and fell on top of Tristan.
Nobody said anything. [I mean, jeez, what are you supposed to say after this kind of thing happens? "Curiosity killed the cat"? "What time is it"? "I find your lack of pants disturbing"? I mean, jeez.]
"Hmm," Yami said finally, summing it up pretty well. Everyone nodded.
Nobody really had anything to say after that, so nobody said anything. [Of course, having nothing to say had never stopped anyone from saying anything before, so why should it now?] Yami continued to examine his bite grumpily, and Joey lay panting heavily in the corner farthest from Mai, who was still knocked out on top of Tristan, who was also unconscious.
Yami turned to show and complain to Yugi about his bite, but Yugi didn't seem to be sitting next to him, as he usually did. Puzzled, [Get it? Yami's spirit of the Millennium Puzzle? Puzzled, confused? Get it? Ha ha ha ha! I crack myself up!] Yami looked all around the elevator before remembering that Yugi had gone through the escape hatch at the top of the elevator.
Cursing under his breath, Yami quickly stood and squinted up through the dark opening of the escape hatch. Catching on to what Yami had remembered, Tea, Ryou, and Bakura also stood to glance up through the hatch. "I can't believe we forgot about him," whispered Tea, and Ryou nodded grimly.
"Yugi? Yugi, are you okay up there?" called Yami hesitantly. "Yugi?"
"Just a moment!" squealed Yugi from on top of the elevator. He had been thankful that everyone had been distracted from him for a few moments, as he had used the time to replace and secure his wig, which had come off when he had been shoved through the small escape hatch. It was almost back on properly, and Yugi knew Yami would die if he saw Yugi without any hair. He put on the finishing touches, which was pretty hard in the pitch black darkness, and sighed heavily in relief.
"Yugi!" Yami called again from inside the elevator. "I'm coming up!" Motioning for Ryou and Bakura to give him a boost, Yami quickly pulled his hair in, they way you gather an umbrella when you're trying to put it away. As he was lifted toward the ceiling, he easily managed to put his head through the escape hatch without messing up his hair. Blinking in the darkness, he managed to pull himself up and sit on the top of the elevator.
"Yugi?" he called, extending his arm (the one without the lethal Mai-bite).
"Right here!" Yugi answered, grabbing onto Yami's arm. Yugi helped Yami to stand on top of the elevator, supporting himself by holding onto the elevator cables.
His eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, Yami examined the elevator cables. "Everything seems all right up here," he noted, "but something could be jamming the cables under the elevator."
Yugi nodded. "So what do you think we should do to un-jam it?"
"Hey, what's going on up there?" demanded Bakura from inside the elevator. "We don't have all day! Stop wasting time!"
"We're doing the best we can," Yami snapped in reply. "Make yourself comfortable, grave robber."
Bakura snorted and plopped back on the floor of the elevator. "With him on the job, we might as well give up now," he complained. "The pharaoh isn't used to getting his hands dirty." He suddenly paused, as in thought. "Hey," he said suddenly, eyeing Ryou suspiciously. "You didn't get new hair and contacts to look like me, did you?" he demanded.
Ryou snorted. "You think I'd look like you because I wanted to?" he asked.
"Heck no!" put in Joey, who had finally regained enough of his courage to start talking like the idiot he was again.
"Shut up, or I'll wake up Mai," Tea threatened.
Joey shut up. [But we all know THAT won't last for long!]
Silence resumed in the elevator as everyone rested his or her eyes. It was actually peaceful [Gasp! No!] in the elevator, and Ryou and Tea started to drift off to sleep…
Suddenly, Bakura started to laugh. It wasn't an evil laugh, more of an insane laugh, really. Actually, it was really more…could it be…happy??
Everyone conscious in the elevator (except Kaiba) turned to stare at Bakura, who was now laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his face from his closed eyes. He was clutching his stomach and was actually smiling.
Ryou edged away from Bakura. "I'm scared," he whispered. "I think he's lost it." [Sorry, wrong answer, Ryou dear. Bakura has definitely been insane since the story began!]
Bakura continued to laugh. "Hey, stop tickling my foot," he managed to gasp between giggles.
Tea and Ryou exchanged glances.
"Um…I'm not tickling your foot, Bakura," Ryou said quietly as Bakura continued to laugh.
"Ha ha, just stop it," Bakura said, his eyes still closed. "It's getting kind of old now."
"I said, I'm not tickling your foot!" Ryou said in a strained voice, edging farther away from Bakura.
Bakura slowly opened his eye and glanced down at his right foot. He was wearing shoes, although he had thought that Ryou had taken one off to tickle his foot. Looking up slowly, he could clearly see Ryou, Tea, and every other conscious person in the elevator far away from him, out of reach of his foot, yet it still tickled, though he wasn't laughing anymore. He whimpered and slowly pushed his shoe off with his other foot.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!" screamed Bakura, who began to shake his foot wildly as soon as he saw the spider on it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!" screamed Tea and Ryou simultaneously from across the elevator.
"GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF!!!" Bakura shrieked, jerking his foot frantically in attempt to remove the spider. He finally succeeded in flinging the spider into the air, where it stayed in slow motion for several seconds—
[Remember that little science lesson we had earlier about "what goes up must go down"? Two words, baby: oooohhh, yeah.]
— before it landed directly on top of Kaiba's head.
Kaiba had been doing some serious meditating, and hadn't heard the screams of his fellow elevator prisoners because he had learned to block out all other sounds and noises when clearing the mind for meditation. However, not even yoga could block out the feeling of something crawling on your head. He opened his eyes very, very wide, bringing his meditation to a very sudden stop. His very, very wide eyes met the very, very wide eyes of Tea and Ryou, whose mouths were open in horror. In the same way that Yugi had discovered his missing tooth, Kaiba slowly put his hand to his head…and felt the spider.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" shrieked Kaiba, who frantically got up and jumped up and down, shaking his head like his hair was on fire. He ran around the elevator (not very far, obviously), stepping on everyone in his way, trying to get whatever he had felt off his head. He finally stopped and slammed his head against the elevator, much in the same way that Mai had done earlier. After about five minutes of doing this, he hyperventilated and also knocked himself out and fell backward onto the floor.
"Must be something in the water," offered Ryou. Tea and Joey nodded.
But everyone shut up when they saw the spider, which had evidently survived its little exercise with Kaiba. It calmly crawled off of Kaiba and over towards Tristan and Mai.
Back on top of the elevator, Yugi and Yami were debating over how make the elevator move. Despite the incredible loudness of screams from the elevator, they had figured nothing especially serious had happened, and had therefore decided not to check it out.
Remember the stuck-in-elevator I.Q. drop? It was particularly evident in Yami. As a spirit, he was used to being stuck inside his Millennium Puzzle, but that was nothing compared to being trapped in an elevator. At least he was alone in his Puzzle. Actually, he was probably one of the most desperate detainees.
This was kinda obvious, as you'll soon see.
"Hey," Yami suddenly suggested. "Why don't we jump up and down on the top of this to kind of un-jam the elevator?"
["Hey, Yugi. Why don't we also light couple sticks of dynamite for some light? It's kind of dark up here!"
"Okay! Let's also try and chew through these cables with our teeth so the elevator plummets to the bottom!"]
"Uh…I don't know, Yami," Yugi said doubtfully. "That seems kinda dangerous." [You think?]
"That wasn't a request!" snapped Yami, and Yugi gulped. Yami began to jump, and Yugi hesitantly followed suit.
Meanwhile, back inside the elevator, Joey, Tea, and Ryou were absorbed in watching the spider begin to climb on Mai, over to her face. They didn't really notice the sound of Yami and Yugi jumping on top of the elevator. Bakura, definitely scarred for life, sat huddled in his corner.
…And the elevator didn't move! [But will it stay that way for long? Heh heh heh…]
