Author's Note: A big ME TOO to High Crystal Guardian, who professed a fear for spiders. I HATE spiders, along with cockroaches, bees/wasps/hornets, ants, and having someone knock on the door when I'm in the shower. It's like, I'm in the shower, can it possibly wait TWO MINUTES until I get out? That bothers the heck out of me. It's even worse when you have to get out of the shower, turn the water off (and you can never get it back to just the right temperature), and press your head against the door to try and hear them, and then the person knocking says something like "Someone in there?" or "I like cheese!" or something equally useless and time-wasting. *Breathes*

Ah, yes: I believe that there will be two chapters after this one…

Chapter Twelve: It Was The…(Well, It Certainly Wasn't The Best Of Times), It Was The Worst Of Times

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The seconds dragged on inside KaibaCorp's "top-of-the-line" elevator. Everyone had been trapped inside the elevator for nearly eight hours, and it was really starting to show on the faces of Joey, Tea, and Ryou (the current conscious and semi-sane ones inside the elevator). They lounged against the elevator walls, eyes opened halfway, rubbing their sore noses, heads, legs, and other body parts as the seconds tore at their brains. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

TICK. TOCK. TICK. TOCK. TICK. TOCK. TICK. TOCK. TICK. TOCK.

"@#$(!*& it, Tristan, shut up that stupid watch!" snapped Tea. Tristan's amazing(ly stupid) watch had been tick/tock-ing the seconds away in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible for every second of the near eight hours. Tea was trying to return to her happy place, but she couldn't sing her happy song with that LOUD, OBNOXIOUS TICKING ECHOING THROUGHOUT THE _&@^$@$ ELEVATOR!

Just thinking about the sound enraged Tea. She had just had the worst day of her life: being stuck in an elevator, a broken nose, missing her shows, "As Told By Ginger" and "The Powerpuff Girls" (she idolized Blossom), and now this TERRIBLE TICKING OF DOOM!

[Most of you probably don't think that eight hours is a long enough time to drastically change someone, but, then again, most of you probably haven't been stuck in an elevator for eight hours. (Also, most of you probably don't idolize Blossom from "The Powerpuff Girls." I hope.) So, in Tea's case, this wasn't really surprising.]

The old Tea would have tried to tune out the TICK TOCK TICK TOCKTICKTOCKTICKTOCK-ing, but the old Tea was dead. However, the New and Improved Tea got up, walked over to Tristan (who had been lying unconscious underneath the unconscious Mai since he had giggled when she was having her…um…nervous breakdown?), and raised her foot to stomp his forsaken watch into the next chapter. Unfortunately, Tea was not very good at aiming her foot.

Instead of slamming down on Tristan's loud and annoying watch, she slammed her foot down on…Tristan's head.

And broke some of it off.

"AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!" shrieked Tea, jumping backwards away from Tristan, who was still lying on the floor, and the piece of his head(?) that was no longer attached to…well, the rest of his head. It was a large brown chunk of, Tea noticed after staring at it in horror for a few seconds, what was his "hair," not his head. Ryou and Joey, sitting at the opposite end of the elevator, only watched in interest.

"I knew it," whispered Joey, storing this information in his head for later sharing with Serenity.

"My word," said Ryou, amazed. "Do you think it's a Styrofoam wig or something?"

"Naw," replied Tea dubiously, who had recovered somewhat. "Who would get a wig like that?"

"Hmm, good point," Ryou agreed.

"Actually, it's a fungus," Tristan suddenly offered, now apparently conscious again.

"AAAAAGGGGHHH!" shrieked Tea, startled, suddenly lashing out with her foot and kicking Tristan in the face (As a reflex, of course. Right? It was a reflex, wasn't it?).

"UMPH!" Tristan said, biting the dust again. Joey turned and began to pound the floor of the elevator in silent laughter. Ryou raised an eyebrow and edged away from Joey. [Smart move.]

Tea bit her lip worriedly. "Uh, Tristan?" she asked hesitantly, bending over the prone boy.

Tristan raised his head and smiled jauntily. "I'm fine, don't worry about me. Anyway, it's a fungus."

Tea, Ryou, and Joey stared at him blankly. "What is?" Ryou inquired.

"My hair. It's not really hair, it's just a fungus that grows on the top of my head. See, I can't grow hair naturally, but if I don't bathe, I can grow this great fungus on top of my head! It even looks real!" Tristan bragged, gently smoothing his ha— um, fungus.

Everyone only stared at him, then at the piece of h— fungus on the floor. "See, I can just grow some more to cover up the part you broke off, so don't feel bad or anything, Tea," he said, smiling up at Tea.

Tea went back to the other side of the elevator and sat. She put her head down and went back to her happy place.

Tristan shrugged, a smile still on his face. "Some people are just, weird," he said.

[I'm sure that Joey and Ryou would have responded if they hadn't been completely absorbed in this, like, totally fascinating mark on the ceiling.]

During this whole little "adventure," Bakura, who had been quietly recovering from an extremely traumatizing incident with a spider, had taken a piece of white chalk from his pocket and was drawing a line enclosing himself in his corner. Joey caught sight of this immediately (after just, TEARING his eyes away from the fabulous ceiling) and just had to open his big, ugly, stupid, fat mouth.

"Hey Bakura, whatcha doin?" Joey asked. [Big surprise.]

Bakura looked up, startled, eyes wide open. "Who said that?" he demanded, looking around wildly.

"Uh, I did," said Joey, confused. [Course, it's not that hard to confuse someone like Joey.] "I think."

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" shrieked Bakura, huddling into his corner. "STAY BACK, I TELL YOU!"

"I don't know about you, but this is starting to remind me of Mai," whispered Joey through clenched teeth. Tristan whimpered and hid his head. Of course, this was not an easy task for Tristan because of his large ha— FUNGUS, that is.

"What's the matter, Bakura?" asked Ryou concernedly. He moved closer to his Yami, but Bakura flailed his arms "threateningly." He closed his eyes and patted the air around him, the way mimes do when they're indicating an invisible box.

[You know what? A lot of people really hate mimes. I did, too, until I read this one book. I can't remember what it was called, but there was a mime in it, and she was cool. It really changed my whole outlook on mimes. Why do people hate them so much, anyway? Maybe they don't speak because they really can't. Like in fifth grade, I did this book report and in the book was a kid who was mute. He was in charge of this famous horse, which was really what the book was about, but that's not the point. I didn't really want to do that book in the first place, I wanted to do this other one about a famous dog, but my loser teacher wouldn't let me just because she was a witch. We actually called her "The Witch," but not to her face, anyway. She always assigned the worst…um…moving right along…]

"I'm in a bubble," Bakura was telling himself. "Nothing can touch me in here." He breathed deeply and smiled to himself.

"Hey Bakura!"

Bakura whirled around just in time for Joey to tap him on the nose.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" screamed Bakura, throwing himself as far into the corner as humanly (or…eh, spiritually, I guess, since he's not really a person) possible.

Joey fell backward laughing hysterically. "Ha ha ha ha ha!" Joey crowed.

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!" sobbed Bakura.

"Aw, what's wrong?" asked Ryou concernedly, stepping forward.

"I don't wanna talk about it!" cried Bakura, turning his face into the corner.

"Why are you always pushing me away?" demanded Ryou.

"I'm not pushing you away!"

"Yes you are!"

"Just leave me alone!"

"Look! You just did it!"

"I did not!"

"You did too! You JUST did it!"

"Did not!"

"You so did!"

"Let's talk about this later!"

"I wanna talk about it right now!"

"Shut up," Tea complained. She was lying against the elevator with her eyes closed, trying to go to sleep, but the arguing was driving her crazy.

"Why do you always wanna talk about it?"

"Why do you never wanna talk about it?"

"Stop turning the conversation around!"

"I'm not turning the conversation around!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm not!"

"Shut up!" Tea reiterated, pulling her arms over her ears in a futile attempt to block out the noise. "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!"

"So everything is my fault? Is that what you're saying?"

"I didn't say that!"

"But you implied it!"

"Stop twisting my words around!"

"I'm not— "

WHAM. The argument stopped as a brown unidentified flying object collided with Bakura's head. [No, it's not a phone this time. Sorry.] Looking down slowly, Bakura saw the object lying on the floor. It was like a piece of wood, only the color was so familiar…but it couldn't be…

It just couldn't be a piece of Tristan's head!

"Hey, that's MY fungus you're throwing around!" complained Tristan angrily from across the elevator. "I don't really appreciate that, Tea."

"Ewww!" squealed Bakura, kicking the fungus away from him. "YOU THREW HAIR FUNGUS AT ME?!"

"It wasn't me! I was just sitting here!"

"YOU DON'T GO AROUND THROWING FUNGUS AT ANYONE! IT'S OVER!" Bakura turned around and faced his corner furiously.

Ryou burst into tears as Tristan angrily snatched his piece of…fungus. Tea laughed evilly to herself. [But you know what they say about evil things happening to evil people. What is it, "what comes around goes around?" Ooh, the intrigue!]

As the party continues inside the elevator, let's return to Yugi and Yami, who were, when we last left them in the previous chapter, standing on top of the elevator. Yami had suggested that they jump up and down to help the elevator move, although Yugi wasn't too keen on the idea. Yami, however, had been very…um…persuading…

"Yami!" Yugi pleaded, out of breath. "Can…we…take…a break? I'm…really tired!" he gasped between jumps.

"Shut up, you whiner, and jump faster!" ordered Yami sharply. He jumped in a steady rhythm, never missing a beat, while Yugi jumped slower and less frequently.

"But…nothing's happening. Nothing's…happened for…twenty minutes…this isn't working," Yugi breathed.

"You aren't going to get anywhere with that kind of negative attitude!" snapped Yami. "More jumping, less talking!"

Yugi whimpered, but tried to jump faster.

[Now, one might ask, why on earth would a sensible person (or spirit, I guess, if you really want to be politically correct) like Yami insist upon jumping up and down for twenty minutes to try and move an elevator that obviously wasn't moving? That's a pretty good question. The answer, of course, would be the Social Learning Theory, which clearly states that children quickly learn behavior from television.

What? That doesn't make sense? Well who asked YOU for an opinion? Be quiet, you whiner! Less complaining, more reading!]

As Yami and Yugi jumped up and were falling back down, they noticed that it took an extended amount of time for them to again hit the elevator. "We're doing it, Yugi!" said Yami excitedly. "We're moving the elevator! Let's jump again!"

["Let's set ourselves on fire and jump into a pool filled with gasoline!"]

Suddenly, whatever had been jamming the elevator became un-jammed (or something like that). When Yugi and Yami hit the top of the elevator again, it went down. Pretty far down, actually.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" screamed Yami, Yugi, Tristan, Tea, Joey, Bakura, Ryou, Kaiba, and Mai (who had evidently woken up). The elevator plunged down the cable at breakneck speed, causing everyone to nearly hit the ceiling as they hung on to whatever they could grab.

Finally, with no more cable to burn through, the elevator crashed into what was evidently the floor. Everyone was thrown to the bottom of the elevator on top of each other; Yami and Yugi hit the top of the elevator with a loud crash.

Everyone was silent for a minute, wondering if they had died in the crash. Finally, Kaiba (being such the gentleman he is) shoved aside Tea, who had ended up on top of him ("Hey!") and made his way to stand under the escape hatch. He managed to pull himself up enough to stick his head out and peer around the elevator shaft.

Finally, it dawned on everyone at about that moment, this being the first thing that came to their minds, that the elevator had crashed into the floor. They were on the floor. They were on the floor!

In a mad rush, everyone scrambled to get out of the escape hatch, despite the fact that three-fourths of Kaiba's body was still hanging out of it. "Hey!" Kaiba yelped, kicking out with his legs as everyone pushed, pull, and shoved his lower in an attempt to get out. "Lemme get out! Stop!" People began to scratch, kick, and bite each other (and Kaiba) in an attempt to get out of the escape hatch as Kaiba struggled to get himself out.

…And the elevator didn't move! (…because it was smashed into the bottom of the elevator shaft, that is, but who really cares about all those little details?)