Notes: Hey guys, remember that I said nothing is as it seems! XD!!
"Marik?!" Téa repeated with a scream, fighting the beast back with a chair.
"Joseph, your imagination is running away with you," Rishid scolded, grabbing the wolf by the tail and pulling it away from Téa. "People do not turn into wolves!!"
"But it's wearing your brother's earrings!!" Joey retorted.
Rishid cried out in pain as the wolf dug its sharp claws into his arm. "It is not Marik, I tell you!!" he roared. "That demon must have stolen my brother's earrings and placed them on this wolf!!"
Tristan grabbed a nearby whip hanging on a hook and cracked it over the wolf's back. "Well, whoever or whatever it is, it's gonna be sorry it messed with us," he vowed coldly.
Now the wolf turned to face him, taking the whip in its teeth and throwing it aside. Abruptly it sprang into the air and Tristan only barely got out of the way in time, knocking a stack of empty boxes over in the process.
"Stay away from my friends!!" Mokuba screamed, jumping on the creature's back and pulling its fur. He didn't believe for one minute that it was Marik.
"MOKUBA!!"
Seto ran forward, snatching his brother away before the wolf could strike. Once they were safely away, he glared daggers at the younger boy.
"What were you thinking?!" the CEO snapped.
"I couldn't let it hurt anyone!" Mokuba retorted. "And I know it's not Marik!! I've just gotta prove it!!"
Joey was now being backed up against the wall. "H-hey, come on, Marik," he gulped. "Don't you remember us??!!"
"Wheeler, stop being an idiot," Seto muttered.
Just as the beast lunged for Joey, he ducked and it slammed into the wall instead. With a howl of pain it fell to the floor and lay still.
"Is it dead?" Téa asked shakily.
"I doubt it," Tristan replied.
Tristan was only too right. Within another moment the wolf was back on its feet, charging at the nearest available target—Ishizu. Soon it had her helplessly pinned to the floor, its horrible claws piercing her flesh. It howled again, preparing to move in for the kill. The others ran forward, but they knew they'd never get to Ishizu in time.
Ishizu gazed up at her certain death, unafraid from the outside but inwardly terrified. As the beast lowered its jaws the woman screamed, trying to desperately to shove it aside.
Abruptly a familiar blur practically flew in through the door, the Millennium Rod bared in his tan-skinned hand. "Leave my sister alone!!!" Marik screamed, plunging the dagger right through the creature's back.
"MARIK!!!" everyone shouted in astonishment. Where had he come from?!
Now the wolf turned to face its assailant, snarling and baring its ugly teeth. Marik gazed at it with steely eyes, refusing to back down.
"Brother, be careful!!" Ishizu pleaded as Rishid pulled her out of the way.
The wolf leaped into the air, intending to pin Marik to the floor as it had done with Ishizu. Before it had the chance, Marik blasted it with the Rod and sent it crashing back to the floor. This time it was very much unconscious, if not dead.
Quickly Marik replaced the Rod in his belt and ran to his siblings, wanting to make certain they were alright. Instantly he was embraced by them both as they whispered their words of gratitude for his help and their relief that he was safe. Mokuba ran over as well, declaring that he'd known all along that his friend wasn't a werewolf.
Joey blinked in confusion, realizing how foolish he was going to look. "So, uh, Marik, if you weren't the wolf—which I can see you aren't—WHERE THE HECK DID YOU GO??!!" he yelled. "DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED WE ALL WERE??!!"
"Calm down, Joey," Yugi said.
Marik turned to face Joey, an amused expression adorning his features. "You thought I was the wolf?" he said incredulously.
Immediately Joey went pink. "Well, uh, that is . . ."
Marik knelt down and removed his earrings from the wolf's lobes. "Apparently that's what someone wanted you to think," he remarked, straightening up. "But no . . . I wasn't the wolf." He continued to smile in amusement as he once again affixed the earrings on himself, but then sobered. "I was laying senseless outside in a van. When I came to I found that my earrings were missing. Whoever hit me over the head found out that I wasn't Bakura and then decided to take advantage of it."
Joey scratched his head. "Eh, I knew all along that you weren't the wolf," he objected.
Marik crossed his arms and gave Joey a sideways glance. "Really."
"Really!" Joey insisted, trying desperately to save face.
Marik started to laugh. As he did so, however, he leaned against the wall and seemed to be trying to conceal a wound in his shoulder.
Rishid came over to him now, eyeing the injury with concern. "How did you sustain that?" he wanted to know.
Marik glanced at it and sighed. "Well, I can assure you that it's not a wolf bite," he said wryly. "The truth of the matter is, I wasn't alone when I woke up in the van. Someone else was in there, disguised as the Wolfman. He took a nearby knife and tried to use me for their target practice. I dodged, but it still grazed my arm."
"This happened in the van?" Ishizu demanded, seeming intensely interested in that particular aspect. Gently she dabbed at the wound with a scarf.
"If it did, then whose blood is that?!" Mokuba exclaimed, turning to point to the pool of blood that had been on the floor.
"What blood?" Marik also turned to look, but he found nothing.
"It's gone!" Téa cried.
"Blood could not vanish just like that," Ishizu said, narrowing her eyes. "Someone would have had to have come and cleaned it up."
"And look!" Tristan burst out. "The dog . . . wolf . . . whatever it is . . . it's gone too!!!"
"But we are the only ones here," Rishid put in, feeling disturbed. "No one could have come without us seeing them!"
"What happened to the man in the vehicle with you, Marik?" Ishizu asked now, becoming very uneasy with all of these happenings.
Marik smiled. "I left him on the floor, out cold. I'd decided to give him some of his own medicine." He glanced around. "It's possible that someone else may be loose here in the station. We're going to have to proceed cautiously." He was actually afraid that perhaps everyone who may have been there before had been killed, but he didn't say so aloud because he didn't want to disturb poor Bakura, who had expressed his thankfulness over and over again that Marik was alright but was very sad that that the Egyptian boy had been mistaken for him.
Yugi led them down the hall, where they checked in every room and found it empty. "Hello?" the violet-eyed boy called now. "Is anyone here? JP? Mandy?"
A strong, burly figure stepped in front of him. "You guys again!" Phil Court growled in irritation.
"Mr. Court!" Yugi exclaimed, ignoring the rude greeting. "Are you alright? We've had a terrible experience in the back hallway!"
"No one uses the back hallway," Phil snapped. "It was hit pretty bad during those heavy rainstorms we had a while back and it still hasn't been repaired."
"Oh, I see," Yugi said thoughtfully.
"Is that why it's deserted?!" Joey broke in.
Phil gave a curt nod. "Why were you guys coming in the back?" he demanded.
"We were trying to be less visible," Bakura said sadly, "but it really didn't work out that way." He couldn't help feeling guilty that someone else had been hurt, no matter how minor, because they had been thought to have been him.
"We were in there for ages, being attacked with gunfire and that terrible dog that escaped from the pound!" Téa said indignantly. "We kept calling for help, but no one ever came!"
"I never heard anything," Phil grunted, "and I've been here since six this evening." He looked them over. "None of you look the worse for wear."
"My brother was harmed," Ishizu replied, "and someone was attempting to make us believe that he had been bitten by a werewolf by placing his earrings on that beast."
Phil just shook his head and started to walk away.
"Hey! What's going on?!" JP called, coming out of a nearby recording studio.
"Oh wow! It's great to see you, man!!" Joey declared, grinning in relief. "We've been talkin' to Johnny Sunshine here and he says he didn't even hear the gunfire or the screams or anything!!"
JP gave him a concerned look. "Were you and your friends in trouble?" he asked now.
"Yes," Seto answered for him. "The security around here is terrible. That rabid beast attacked us again."
"The dog?!" JP cried. "But . . . why would it come back here?!"
"It was a wolf, and that's just another of the mysteries here," Téa said, shaking her head. "And what's even worse, now it's gone again!" Quickly she explained how Marik had fought with it and then left it on the floor. "We were just talking to Marik to find out what had happened to him, and then when we looked again, the wolf wasn't there!"
JP narrowed his eyes. "This is bad. I wish I knew why this was happening!"
"Hey," Joey spoke up, "remember your old theory about Phil bein' a werewolf?" He ignored the looks everyone immediately gave him. "What if he was the guy who attacked us?! Then he could've started to change back to himself while we were talkin' to Marik and snuck away!"
JP sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I don't know," he replied. "Maybe Phil's mixed up in something crooked and he's behind this whole dog/wolf thing, but he isn't actually a werewolf. As I said before, I really don't believe in those." He headed back in the direction the group had come from. "Why don't I go with you back to where you were and we can look for any clues that might have been left behind?"
"Okay," Yugi said slowly. "Then there's also the matter of that van Marik was being held hostage in."
"It's gone too," Marik sighed. "I looked out the window before we came looking for anyone."
"MAN!! Did they pour disappearing ink on everything or somethin'?!" Joey screamed in frustration.
"You know, that's actually a good theory for the vanishing blood," Yami Yugi said, suddenly coming out of the Puzzle.
When they arrived back in the deserted hallway, they found that there were no indications that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Even the bullet holes left by the automatic weapon were gone.
"This doesn't even make sense," Rishid growled in irritation. "There is no logical way that all of this could disappear."
"Unless . . ." Bakura paused now, a new thought coming to him. "What if it was all in our minds?"
Everyone turned to stare at him. "What do you mean, Bakura?" Téa asked finally.
Bakura blushed, seeing everyone looking at him strangely. "I only mean that what if we were, perhaps, put under group hypnosis and made to believe that we were being shot at and that there was a dog attacking?" He sighed again. "Of course . . . I know that doesn't explain how the second dog—the wolf—was here and then vanished, because we all know for a fact that it truly was here and not a hallucination." He nodded to Marik, who nodded back firmly. The wolf had absolutely been there.
"Nothing makes sense on this case!!" Joey screamed in frustration.
"Calm down, Joey," Yami Yugi said now. "We must keep cool heads in order to make sense of any of it."
"Easy for you to say," Joey grumbled.
"There is also the matter of why Marik was abducted," Rishid said now. "Why would an aircraft be in the field behind the station?"
JP just looked perplexed. "I never heard of such a thing," he declared. "There was never an airplane there before."
With nothing to see there, everyone eventually gave up and went back into the main part of the building.
"How is Bruce doing?" Bakura asked. "I tried to find out, but the hospital refused to tell me anything!"
"Well, they won't tell me anything either," JP replied. "These new policies and all. I know they're good in some cases, but in ours it's just frustrating!" He sighed. "I've been trying to get in touch with Bruce's sister up in Washington, but so far I haven't had any luck."
"I didn't know Bruce has a sister," Yugi said with interest. "What does she do?"
"She's a radio personality," JP smiled.
"A real radio family, eh?" Joey commented.
"You could say that," JP nodded, opening the door to his studio. "By the way, Bakura, where's your Yami?"
"Why, I don't know!" Bakura gasped, his eyes wide.
JP narrowed his eyes and gestured inside the room. "Well, look no further."
Yami Bakura looked up from where he sitting in a chair with a headset. Oreo was next to him, purring.
"Yami, have you been on the air again??!!" Bakura gasped.
"I've been threatening whoever's after you that they had best not try to hide from me, because I shall find them and steal their soul," Yami Bakura sneered.
"Oh Yami . . ." Bakura sank down into the soft couch, rubbing his eyes.
Abruptly the telephone rang and JP snapped it up. "Hello? . . . Yes, this is JP Palmer. . . . Oh! You're Grace von Wilkenson?" He listened for a moment, his eyes widening.
"It must be Bruce's sister!" Téa realized.
"What does she say, man?!" Joey asked, coming over closer.
JP put his hand over the phone long enough to answer, "Nothing good. Bruce has disappeared!"
Other note: Whee. More trouble for our friends! @@ Oh well. At least Marik isn't a werewolf XD I swear, the very thought gives me chills. I would never do such an abominable thing to him! ^__~
"Marik?!" Téa repeated with a scream, fighting the beast back with a chair.
"Joseph, your imagination is running away with you," Rishid scolded, grabbing the wolf by the tail and pulling it away from Téa. "People do not turn into wolves!!"
"But it's wearing your brother's earrings!!" Joey retorted.
Rishid cried out in pain as the wolf dug its sharp claws into his arm. "It is not Marik, I tell you!!" he roared. "That demon must have stolen my brother's earrings and placed them on this wolf!!"
Tristan grabbed a nearby whip hanging on a hook and cracked it over the wolf's back. "Well, whoever or whatever it is, it's gonna be sorry it messed with us," he vowed coldly.
Now the wolf turned to face him, taking the whip in its teeth and throwing it aside. Abruptly it sprang into the air and Tristan only barely got out of the way in time, knocking a stack of empty boxes over in the process.
"Stay away from my friends!!" Mokuba screamed, jumping on the creature's back and pulling its fur. He didn't believe for one minute that it was Marik.
"MOKUBA!!"
Seto ran forward, snatching his brother away before the wolf could strike. Once they were safely away, he glared daggers at the younger boy.
"What were you thinking?!" the CEO snapped.
"I couldn't let it hurt anyone!" Mokuba retorted. "And I know it's not Marik!! I've just gotta prove it!!"
Joey was now being backed up against the wall. "H-hey, come on, Marik," he gulped. "Don't you remember us??!!"
"Wheeler, stop being an idiot," Seto muttered.
Just as the beast lunged for Joey, he ducked and it slammed into the wall instead. With a howl of pain it fell to the floor and lay still.
"Is it dead?" Téa asked shakily.
"I doubt it," Tristan replied.
Tristan was only too right. Within another moment the wolf was back on its feet, charging at the nearest available target—Ishizu. Soon it had her helplessly pinned to the floor, its horrible claws piercing her flesh. It howled again, preparing to move in for the kill. The others ran forward, but they knew they'd never get to Ishizu in time.
Ishizu gazed up at her certain death, unafraid from the outside but inwardly terrified. As the beast lowered its jaws the woman screamed, trying to desperately to shove it aside.
Abruptly a familiar blur practically flew in through the door, the Millennium Rod bared in his tan-skinned hand. "Leave my sister alone!!!" Marik screamed, plunging the dagger right through the creature's back.
"MARIK!!!" everyone shouted in astonishment. Where had he come from?!
Now the wolf turned to face its assailant, snarling and baring its ugly teeth. Marik gazed at it with steely eyes, refusing to back down.
"Brother, be careful!!" Ishizu pleaded as Rishid pulled her out of the way.
The wolf leaped into the air, intending to pin Marik to the floor as it had done with Ishizu. Before it had the chance, Marik blasted it with the Rod and sent it crashing back to the floor. This time it was very much unconscious, if not dead.
Quickly Marik replaced the Rod in his belt and ran to his siblings, wanting to make certain they were alright. Instantly he was embraced by them both as they whispered their words of gratitude for his help and their relief that he was safe. Mokuba ran over as well, declaring that he'd known all along that his friend wasn't a werewolf.
Joey blinked in confusion, realizing how foolish he was going to look. "So, uh, Marik, if you weren't the wolf—which I can see you aren't—WHERE THE HECK DID YOU GO??!!" he yelled. "DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED WE ALL WERE??!!"
"Calm down, Joey," Yugi said.
Marik turned to face Joey, an amused expression adorning his features. "You thought I was the wolf?" he said incredulously.
Immediately Joey went pink. "Well, uh, that is . . ."
Marik knelt down and removed his earrings from the wolf's lobes. "Apparently that's what someone wanted you to think," he remarked, straightening up. "But no . . . I wasn't the wolf." He continued to smile in amusement as he once again affixed the earrings on himself, but then sobered. "I was laying senseless outside in a van. When I came to I found that my earrings were missing. Whoever hit me over the head found out that I wasn't Bakura and then decided to take advantage of it."
Joey scratched his head. "Eh, I knew all along that you weren't the wolf," he objected.
Marik crossed his arms and gave Joey a sideways glance. "Really."
"Really!" Joey insisted, trying desperately to save face.
Marik started to laugh. As he did so, however, he leaned against the wall and seemed to be trying to conceal a wound in his shoulder.
Rishid came over to him now, eyeing the injury with concern. "How did you sustain that?" he wanted to know.
Marik glanced at it and sighed. "Well, I can assure you that it's not a wolf bite," he said wryly. "The truth of the matter is, I wasn't alone when I woke up in the van. Someone else was in there, disguised as the Wolfman. He took a nearby knife and tried to use me for their target practice. I dodged, but it still grazed my arm."
"This happened in the van?" Ishizu demanded, seeming intensely interested in that particular aspect. Gently she dabbed at the wound with a scarf.
"If it did, then whose blood is that?!" Mokuba exclaimed, turning to point to the pool of blood that had been on the floor.
"What blood?" Marik also turned to look, but he found nothing.
"It's gone!" Téa cried.
"Blood could not vanish just like that," Ishizu said, narrowing her eyes. "Someone would have had to have come and cleaned it up."
"And look!" Tristan burst out. "The dog . . . wolf . . . whatever it is . . . it's gone too!!!"
"But we are the only ones here," Rishid put in, feeling disturbed. "No one could have come without us seeing them!"
"What happened to the man in the vehicle with you, Marik?" Ishizu asked now, becoming very uneasy with all of these happenings.
Marik smiled. "I left him on the floor, out cold. I'd decided to give him some of his own medicine." He glanced around. "It's possible that someone else may be loose here in the station. We're going to have to proceed cautiously." He was actually afraid that perhaps everyone who may have been there before had been killed, but he didn't say so aloud because he didn't want to disturb poor Bakura, who had expressed his thankfulness over and over again that Marik was alright but was very sad that that the Egyptian boy had been mistaken for him.
Yugi led them down the hall, where they checked in every room and found it empty. "Hello?" the violet-eyed boy called now. "Is anyone here? JP? Mandy?"
A strong, burly figure stepped in front of him. "You guys again!" Phil Court growled in irritation.
"Mr. Court!" Yugi exclaimed, ignoring the rude greeting. "Are you alright? We've had a terrible experience in the back hallway!"
"No one uses the back hallway," Phil snapped. "It was hit pretty bad during those heavy rainstorms we had a while back and it still hasn't been repaired."
"Oh, I see," Yugi said thoughtfully.
"Is that why it's deserted?!" Joey broke in.
Phil gave a curt nod. "Why were you guys coming in the back?" he demanded.
"We were trying to be less visible," Bakura said sadly, "but it really didn't work out that way." He couldn't help feeling guilty that someone else had been hurt, no matter how minor, because they had been thought to have been him.
"We were in there for ages, being attacked with gunfire and that terrible dog that escaped from the pound!" Téa said indignantly. "We kept calling for help, but no one ever came!"
"I never heard anything," Phil grunted, "and I've been here since six this evening." He looked them over. "None of you look the worse for wear."
"My brother was harmed," Ishizu replied, "and someone was attempting to make us believe that he had been bitten by a werewolf by placing his earrings on that beast."
Phil just shook his head and started to walk away.
"Hey! What's going on?!" JP called, coming out of a nearby recording studio.
"Oh wow! It's great to see you, man!!" Joey declared, grinning in relief. "We've been talkin' to Johnny Sunshine here and he says he didn't even hear the gunfire or the screams or anything!!"
JP gave him a concerned look. "Were you and your friends in trouble?" he asked now.
"Yes," Seto answered for him. "The security around here is terrible. That rabid beast attacked us again."
"The dog?!" JP cried. "But . . . why would it come back here?!"
"It was a wolf, and that's just another of the mysteries here," Téa said, shaking her head. "And what's even worse, now it's gone again!" Quickly she explained how Marik had fought with it and then left it on the floor. "We were just talking to Marik to find out what had happened to him, and then when we looked again, the wolf wasn't there!"
JP narrowed his eyes. "This is bad. I wish I knew why this was happening!"
"Hey," Joey spoke up, "remember your old theory about Phil bein' a werewolf?" He ignored the looks everyone immediately gave him. "What if he was the guy who attacked us?! Then he could've started to change back to himself while we were talkin' to Marik and snuck away!"
JP sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I don't know," he replied. "Maybe Phil's mixed up in something crooked and he's behind this whole dog/wolf thing, but he isn't actually a werewolf. As I said before, I really don't believe in those." He headed back in the direction the group had come from. "Why don't I go with you back to where you were and we can look for any clues that might have been left behind?"
"Okay," Yugi said slowly. "Then there's also the matter of that van Marik was being held hostage in."
"It's gone too," Marik sighed. "I looked out the window before we came looking for anyone."
"MAN!! Did they pour disappearing ink on everything or somethin'?!" Joey screamed in frustration.
"You know, that's actually a good theory for the vanishing blood," Yami Yugi said, suddenly coming out of the Puzzle.
When they arrived back in the deserted hallway, they found that there were no indications that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Even the bullet holes left by the automatic weapon were gone.
"This doesn't even make sense," Rishid growled in irritation. "There is no logical way that all of this could disappear."
"Unless . . ." Bakura paused now, a new thought coming to him. "What if it was all in our minds?"
Everyone turned to stare at him. "What do you mean, Bakura?" Téa asked finally.
Bakura blushed, seeing everyone looking at him strangely. "I only mean that what if we were, perhaps, put under group hypnosis and made to believe that we were being shot at and that there was a dog attacking?" He sighed again. "Of course . . . I know that doesn't explain how the second dog—the wolf—was here and then vanished, because we all know for a fact that it truly was here and not a hallucination." He nodded to Marik, who nodded back firmly. The wolf had absolutely been there.
"Nothing makes sense on this case!!" Joey screamed in frustration.
"Calm down, Joey," Yami Yugi said now. "We must keep cool heads in order to make sense of any of it."
"Easy for you to say," Joey grumbled.
"There is also the matter of why Marik was abducted," Rishid said now. "Why would an aircraft be in the field behind the station?"
JP just looked perplexed. "I never heard of such a thing," he declared. "There was never an airplane there before."
With nothing to see there, everyone eventually gave up and went back into the main part of the building.
"How is Bruce doing?" Bakura asked. "I tried to find out, but the hospital refused to tell me anything!"
"Well, they won't tell me anything either," JP replied. "These new policies and all. I know they're good in some cases, but in ours it's just frustrating!" He sighed. "I've been trying to get in touch with Bruce's sister up in Washington, but so far I haven't had any luck."
"I didn't know Bruce has a sister," Yugi said with interest. "What does she do?"
"She's a radio personality," JP smiled.
"A real radio family, eh?" Joey commented.
"You could say that," JP nodded, opening the door to his studio. "By the way, Bakura, where's your Yami?"
"Why, I don't know!" Bakura gasped, his eyes wide.
JP narrowed his eyes and gestured inside the room. "Well, look no further."
Yami Bakura looked up from where he sitting in a chair with a headset. Oreo was next to him, purring.
"Yami, have you been on the air again??!!" Bakura gasped.
"I've been threatening whoever's after you that they had best not try to hide from me, because I shall find them and steal their soul," Yami Bakura sneered.
"Oh Yami . . ." Bakura sank down into the soft couch, rubbing his eyes.
Abruptly the telephone rang and JP snapped it up. "Hello? . . . Yes, this is JP Palmer. . . . Oh! You're Grace von Wilkenson?" He listened for a moment, his eyes widening.
"It must be Bruce's sister!" Téa realized.
"What does she say, man?!" Joey asked, coming over closer.
JP put his hand over the phone long enough to answer, "Nothing good. Bruce has disappeared!"
Other note: Whee. More trouble for our friends! @@ Oh well. At least Marik isn't a werewolf XD I swear, the very thought gives me chills. I would never do such an abominable thing to him! ^__~