Chapter Five: The Duelist of Dragon

Saturday night. The Dragon's Palace. It was a large place, with many adjoining rooms, including casual eating, formal dining, a bar, formal dancing, an arcade, and of course, dueling arenas.

Right now, in the last minutes before the 'tournament' was to begin, the four girls were competing on Super Dancer. Mia was losing to Yanza, who had a ballet teacher for a mum.

"Well, we have to get to work now." Serena said. She and Yanza usually were waitresses at the formal dining area.

"We'll go get a seat." Nefertiti dragged Mia away from a racing game. They seated themselves a good distance away from the reserved table, but close enough so they could see the happenings. There was also a network of hidden microphones where they could hear the conversation.

Now they waited.

***
Seto Kaiba arrived first. A young red-haired girl showed him to a table. "Dinner will be served in a while. The tournament comes afterwards."

He waited, rearranging his deck.

"One down, one to go." Mia drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

***
The bar was on the far side of formal dining, by the wall. It was also close to the exit, so the bartender could conveniently throw out those too drunk. Anyways, among the people seated, was Malik. And his drinking buddy, a spirit fested in a human, Bakura.

"So I says to her, 'Sis, gimme back my God Card!' And.. *hic*" Malik fell off his stool.

Bakura, who had a higher tolerance level, ordered another. He turned to see someone arrive. The tomb robber whistled. "I'd like to get her number."

Malik crawled up from the floor. "Wha...?" You could almost see the little God Cards dancing around his head. He looked in the direction Bakura was pointing. "Waitasecond..."

He launched himself at the tomb robber, fists flying. "THAT'S MY SISTER, YOU #^-@$*)!&+%)~_?>!!!"

"All right, break it up." The elderly bartender said. When that failed, he did the only other thing possible.

He threw them out.

Like I said, convenient, eh?

***
Isis followed the waitress, turning heads from people she passed. The Egyptian woman was wearing the figure-pleasing white dress, along with a golden necklace and bracelets. Her hair was loose, not held back with its usual uraeus. (A/N: Was that right? The headpiece she wears?)

The waitress led her to a table, occupied by none other than...

"Seto!" Isis said.

"Ah, Mr and Mrs Kaiba." The waitress said. "Dinner will arrive shortly."

As they watched Serena depart from the table, Nefertiti sighed. "They're taking it pretty well."

"Well what would you expect?" Mia sipped her drink. "Both of them have heck of a lot of pride."

They listened in on the conversation.

"I wasn't expecting to see you here, Ishtar." Kaiba said, as Isis seated herself.

"Ishtar is my brother. It's Isis."

"Isis then."

"But of course, you would be here, Seto."

Food arrived, sparing his answer.

***
Malik and Bakura had snuck back in, as Yami Malik and Ryou, Bakura's human counterpart. But now it was Yami Malik and Bakura drinking, discussing Isis.

"You do know she's sitting with Seto Kaiba. Her husband." Bakura said, the topic always being a touchy one for the Maliks.

"Do not get me started on that, tomb robber." Yami Malik seethed. He gulped down another shot.

"They seem to still be talking in civil tones, that's a very good sign..."

***
"So hows business going?" Isis asked, a bit too nonchalantly. Kaiba eyed her warily. "Never mind... I was only trying to start a friendly conversation..." She muttered.

"I was just wondering..." He said slowly, glancing around the area. "Why I don't recognize any of the other duelists around here. Because with this being an élite event, I should think Yugi or maybe even the dog would be here."

"Good point." Now that she took in her surroundings, there were no familiar faces in sight.

"Look away," Mia advised. Both girls turned away from the other table.

"Did they see us?"

"Don't think so."

They finished eating. As the red-head waitress cleared the table, Kaiba asked, "When will the tournament begin?"

"Well..." She fished for an excuse. "There was a bit of a power shortage in the arenas, as we had a prankster here earlier this evening who thought it would be fun to rewire some of the machinery and disconnect the electricity. It's the first time this has happened, and today of all days... We've got people in there, fixing stuff up, but it should be ready in half an hour."

"Wow," Nefertiti said.
"Yeah, poker face and all, but that story is a bit bogus..."

Isis looked out toward the formal dance floor. Every hour, they would announce a special dance with a kiss for a requested couple. Right now, people were drifting on and off. There was even a group of three people, trying to tango all together.

"Would you like to dance?"

"What?" She snapped back to focus.

"I repeat: Would you like to dance?"

*** *** *** ***

From here down, it's all romance.