Hmmmm, for purposes unknown, I will start referring to normal Bakura as
Ryou and Yami Bakura as Bakura? Ok? Ok!
In a few minutes, the cake was all gone, although Kaiba still had yet to stop laughing evilly and eat his last piece, so Bakura stole and ate it for him.
"HAHAHAHA!" finished Kaiba. He looked at his plate, "Hey, where'd my cake go?"
Bakura hastily wiped the crumbs from his mouth and smirked, "Don't look at me."
Malik contently finished his fizzy fruit juice, and glanced at Bakura. "What happens now?"
Bakura shrugged. "I think we're done."
Mokuba shook his head, "No, now I get to open my presents! It's the best part of ANY party. Haven't you ever been to a birthday party before, anyway?" He smiled happily as Yugi and Ryou carried a pile of presents over to him. The presents were arranged by width, height, and length, and also color of wrapping paper.
"Oh, presents, right," Malik said, looking confused. "I want a present."
Bakura shoved a piece of confetti into his hands. "There you go."
"That doesn't count!" Malik said, pulling out his Millennium Rod.
"Hey, don't fight until AFTER he's opened his presents, ok?" Yugi said, giving them all sad puppy eyes, and even Malik couldn't help but say 'Fine.'
Mokuba took his first present, which was wrapped in dark blue paper, and opened it. "Oh," he said, "It's from Bakura!"
"Well, what is it?" Kaiba asked.
"A lock pick set and a book of Do-It-Yourself-Theft."
Kaiba groaned. Yami smirked, "Now you can't hide the sugar from him any more! Better watch out!"
Mokuba's next present was from Yami and Yugi (they got him a present together) and it was, of course, a deck of cards.
"Thank you Yugi!" Mokuba said, hugging the smaller of the two Yugi's.
The next present, wrapped in violet wrapping paper, was obviously from Malik. It was even more obvious as inside it contained three different knifes, a sword and two daggers.
"Malik! Quit trying to get my brother to be evil!" Kaiba said, startling Malik who was trying to put hot pepper into Yami's drink.
"What? Are you afraid he'll become eviler than you?" taunted Malik as Yami saw what he was doing and grabbed his drink.
"Shut up! That has nothing to do with it!" Kaiba turned and his jacket flared out dramatically behind him. "Nothing at all," He repeated stubbornly.
"Ahh, don't worry Seto, I'll ALWAYS think of you as my best evil brother!" Mokuba said, opening a present from Ryou, which was a new sweater.
"You really mean it?" Kaiba asked, his eyes suddenly going all huge and sparkly.
"Ummm, yeah, but not if you keep this up," Mokuba said, trying on the sweater. Ryou was pleased to note that it fit perfectly.
"Oh. Right." Kaiba turned around once again, and his jacket flew out behind him, dramatically of course. He sighed, for emphasis, and then turned back around and pointed at some random peon. "Clean up the wrapping paper."
The peon scurried off to get a bag, and the group decided to return back to the games, seeing as they all had enough money to buy some more tokens anyway.
"Are there any duel machines around here? I could really use a duel right about now. Did anyone else bring their cards? I want to duel! Duel!" Yami said, starting to pace back and forth.
"Ummm, Yami, is something wrong?" Yugi asked.
He didn't get a reply because Mokuba tugged at his arm. "C'mon Yugi, can we go play Air Hockey?"
Yami was now running around in circles.
"I knew I shouldn't have let him have all that sugar," Yugi told himself as he was dragged off to Air Hockey table. "He's never had that much sugar before . . . and, oh crap! Bakura had just as much sugar, so that means . . ."
Indeed Bakura and Yami were running around yelling at each other, on the peak of sugar highs.
"Oh well, not my problem. For now," Yugi thought as he went to one side of the air hockey table. Mokuba went to the other side and Ryou stood on the side, to watch.
'Anything is better than that possessed merry go round.'
Yami glared at Bakura. "So, tomb robber, I have yet to see you attempt a game? Have you given up before you even started? Am I the winner!?"
"Um, no."
"Yes!"
"No!"
Kaiba raised an eyebrow as the two yami's argued with each other. And then a new game caught his eye. It was a very simple game; all you had to do was push a button that said Start, and a pointer would spin around a large circle. Then you pressed Stop and wherever the pointer landed was how many tickets you'd get.
He placed a token into the console and pressed start. A moment later, he pressed stop. "C'mon . . . c'mon . . . I just KNOW it's going to land on the fifty . . . OH SH-"
He covered his mouth slightly since he didn't want Mokuba to hear, and then said it quietly. He glared at the pointer, which had landed on a line. No tickets came out.
After kicking the machine, he pressed start again.
He pressed stop.
No tickets.
And again.
And again.
"I SWEAR THESE MACHINES NEED TO BE CHUCKED OUT THE WINDOW AND TURNED INTO FIRE WOOD!" Kaiba screamed angrily.
Malik popped up out of nowhere with his Millennium rod at the ready. "What can I destroy? What can I destroy? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"Not right now," Kaiba grumbled, and as he and Malik argued over who got to destroy the machine, Yami went up to it, put a token in it, pressed stop, and got fifty tickets.
"I'm GOING to kill that guy," Kaiba muttered and stalked off to buy more tokens.
"Let me help. PLEASE!" Malik said, jabbing the Millennium rod through the machine after Yami had skipped, yes, skipped, off.
Kaiba was just about to find a game to play that was worthy of him playing it when he felt a tug on his sleeve.
"Hey, Seto," Mokuba said, "Guess what! I beat Yugi in air hockey!"
"Good job, Mokuba," Kaiba said smiling.
"And now we wanna go in the tunnels. Will you go in the tunnels with us? Please?" Mokuba said, referring to the network of tunnels above the games that you could go up in and climb around. "C'mon, please?" He gave his saddest puppy eyes ever.
"I. . . don't think I'll fit in there . . ." Kaiba said.
Yami and Bakura skipped by. "We're going in there!"
"I'll get there first!"
"Oh, you just TRY, but don't cry when you lose."
"Winner gets five tickets from the loser."
"Deal."
"Go!"
Yami and Bakura ran up to the tubes, and Kaiba, Mokuba and Malik stared at them.
"Well, I'm not letting Yami have any more sugar," Yugi said as he came up to the group.
"I don't think Bakura is getting any sugar for a week, either," Ryou said, sighing.
"Hey, I heard that!" called Bakura from up in the tunnels. "And I'm going to steal your sugar stash! Yeah, don't think I don't know about that! I'm the MASTER robber here, nothing is safe! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hey, Bakura," Yami's voice came, "I beat you."
Bakura stopped laughing and for the next few minutes, there was silence in the tunnels.
"Ummm, maybe we ought to go see if they're ok?" suggested Yugi.
"Yeah, even thought he DID threaten to steal my sugar . . . " Ryou said, sighing.
They ran up into the tunnels.
Malik looked at the tunnels interestedly. "Hmmmmm, I wonder how hard it would be cut the supports holding those things up?" He grinned as he took out his Millennium rod once again, and took off after Yugi and Bakura.
"C'mon Seto, everyone else is going!" Mokuba said.
"How many times have I told you not to follow the crowd," sighed Kaiba, but he knew he was beat. He sighed and walked towards the tunnels, his jacket flying out behind him in protest.
Up in the tunnels, Yugi and Ryou were looking for their yami's, and having a lot of fun doing so.
"This is fun!" Yugi said as he poked his head around a corner, looking to see whether they should go left or right. "Let's go left."
"Okidoki," agreed Ryou and they went left.
Meanwhile, Malik was busily examining the tunnels for weak points, and poking at random parts with his millennium rod.
He passed by Yami and Bakura, who were currently having a staring contest. They were still on their sugar highs.
He passed by Kaiba and Mokuba, who seemed to be arguing about something. Kaiba was complaining that his coat couldn't fan out behind him in the small enclosed space of the tunnels, and Mokuba was telling him that it would be perfectly fine.
Malik grinned insanely to himself, although for a brief moment he wished he could be with his yami and torturing peasants in Africa. The fresh air was so much more invigorating for mischief than a cheery place like this.
He pushed that thought out of his mind as he finally reached the first place he had been looking for. It was a dead end, but that didn't stop him in the least; using the millennium rod as a screwdriver, he unscrewed the piece that made the wall of the tunnel. Next, he sat on the edge of the tunnel, and began to saw at the rope holding it in place.
"You're going to blink," Bakura said, grinning. "You're going to blink and become a failure! I have found the one game you cannot win!" He would have burst into maniacal laughter, but that would have caused him to blink so he did nothing.
"I am NOT going to blink," Yami said, concentrating on getting his eyes not to water. It wasn't HIS fault he had such huge eyes and they dried out so quickly.
The two were concentrating so hard on not blinking that neither yami noticed as their respective hikari snuck up behind them.
'On the count of three,' mouthed Yugi. 'One, two, THREE!'
He and Ryou both jumped forward and pushed their yami's together. Yami and Bakura were so startled by this that both of them blinked at the exact same time, and fell into a heap on top of each other.
"Alright, there's going to be hell to pay for that," promised Bakura as he finally regained his senses and noticed what had happened.
"Didn't do nothing," said Ryou innocently, with a perfect 'can't you trust me?' face on.
Yugi gave Yami the exact same look.
Whether it was because they were still on the sugar highs, or just didn't care, both Bakura and Yami shrugged.
"Hey, tomb robber," Yami said.
"Yeah, pharaoh?" Bakura replied.
"Catch me if you can!" Yami took off on his hands and knees, crawling through the tunnels.
Bakura immediately followed, yelling, "If I catch you I get ten of your tickets! Five of which are MINE anyway!"
Yugi and Ryou blinked in amazement.
"Definitely no more sugar. Ever." They said in unison.
Suddenly there was a small jolt to the tunnels; barely noticeably, but Malik felt it. "Ahh, yes," he whispered to no one in particular. "Only five or six more ropes to cut, and these will all come crashing down." He closed his eyes and laughed manically.
When he opened them there was a girl in front of him.
"Excuse me, but I am TRYING to have a maniacal moment here," Malik said, "And how'd you get in here anyway? I don't know you, therefore you must not be a friend of Yugi's. Not that I keep track on who Yugi is friends with, of course."
"I'm Kaisa," replied the girl. "I came in through the squirrel hole over there." She pointed to a spot in the tunnels. "How else do you think the squirrels steal all that pizza?"
Malik blinked, and hit himself in the head, before sighing and saying, "That's great, but I have to go unleash my MASTER PLAN! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Ummm, right then," Kaisa said, "I'll be over here by the squirrel hole if you want to talk!" She grinned and sat down.
Malik shook his head in disbelief before starting to crawl through the tunnels again. But then he paused and asked, "Ummm, you know, you're a little bigger than a squirrel, so how did you get through a squirrel hole?"
"There's a ton of squirrels. Duh."
"Oh. Right."
Malik crawled away as fast as he could. 'Squirrels.' The thought of that made him shudder, and he vowed to cut down the tunnels as fast as he could.
He passed by Mokuba and Kaiba again; this time Kaiba was near a vent so that his coat would move slightly, but not much. He was complaining again, and Mokuba was sighing.
"C'mon big brother," Mokuba said, "Just forget about the coat for now. I want to have fun! It's my birthday!"
"But . . .but . . . my jacket," muttered Kaiba.
Mokuba sighed.
Malik had to keep from laughing as he made his way through the tunnels.
"Watch OUT!" Yami called as he crawled through the tunnels as fast as he could. "I've got an angry tomb robber on my tail!"
Malik, of course, sat down in the middle of the tunnel, blocking Yami from getting past.
"Move! If he catches me, I lose ten tickets!"
"I think I happen to like it right here," Malik said, leaning back and blocking the tunnel even more.
"C'mon, please move!" Yami said.
"Only if you say 'Malik Ishtar is the most amazing person in the world and I will be his slave forever!'"
"Ummm, no."
"Do you really want to lose ten tickets?" Malik asked.
Yami could hear Bakura closing in on him. 'Do I really want the ten tickets? Is being Malik's slave for the rest of eternity really that bad when I'm faced with the prospect of losing ten tickets?'
A second later, a second voice in Yami's head screamed, 'HELL YEAH! GET OUT OF HERE!' So Yami scrambled right over Malik as fast as he could.
"Hey, that HURT," complained Malik. He was about to get up to go cut more ropes when Bakura crawled over him too. "Thanks a lot!" he called sarcastically to the tomb robber.
"Welcome," replied Bakura, pocketing the tickets he had grabbed off of Malik while crawling over him. He chased after Yami.
Malik groaned, and set out with a renewed passion to cut down the tunnels. And QUICKLY.
Luckily for him, the next to ropes were both nearby, and they were mostly easy to cut through. Plus, by the time he got to the fourth and fifth ropes, they were already beginning to strain under the weight of the tunnels.
Suddenly, there was a loud snap.
The tunnels came crashing down, just as Bakura was about to catch Yami.
"YOU STUPID PHARAOH! I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"
"PLEASE! LIKE I'M THAT STUPID!"
Yugi sighed. Ryou sighed. Kaiba stood up and grinned; his coat once again able to fan out behind him gracefully. Mokuba sighed. Malik fingered his millennium rod happily. Yami and Bakura argued.
No one noticed the squirrel and Kaisa sneaking out the squirrel hole with pizza.
Finally Yugi said loudly, "Stop shouting Yami or I'm sending you to the puzzle!"
"Same here, Bakura, or it's back to the ring for you."
Instantly, both tomb robber and pharaoh shut up.
Ignoring the pile of rubble that had once been tunnels and games, they all went to the little machines that you fed your tickets to, and it told you how many you had.
"Yay! The best part!" Mokuba said. He jumped up to a machine and started feeding it tickets. He ended up with 298.
Kaiba put his hand in his pockets, and felt to the very bottom of them. He came up with one ticket. He pouted.
Yugi and Ryou put their tickets together and got 333.
Malik threatened the machine with the millennium rod when it said he only had 432 tickets, but the machine didn't do anything, so he destroyed it.
Finally, Bakura and Yami stepped up to the machines. They glared at each other, and yelled at the top of their lungs, "DUEL!" before feeding the machine their tickets as fast as they could.
Everyone sweatdropped as they watched the two feed the machine ticket after ticket.
"Ya know," Mokuba said suddenly, "I never saw Bakura at a single game."
"Neither did I," said Kaiba.
"I was too busy destroying the machines," Malik said.
Yugi and Ryou glanced at each other and sighed.
"I guess that's why Bakura was so friendly to me, and patting me on the back and stuff," sighed Ryou, "He must have taken most of our tickets."
"Oh well, Ryou, we can always come back."
"Yeah, Yugi, you can have your party here," Mokuba said happily.
Yugi nodded. "Although they might not let us back in after what Malik did."
Malik glared, "I didn't do nothing! It's all the squirrel's fault! I blame the squirrels!"
For a minute everything was quiet as Yami and Bakura continued to feed tickets into the machines.
"How many tickets do they have?" Mokuba asked in awe.
Kaiba glared at Yami, "Well, Yami was winning every single game, so I'm not surprised in the least that he has so many tickets." He muttered to himself, "I'll bet he cheated . . . those games were so rigged. . ."
Finally, Yami and Bakura got down to their last string of tickets. They both paused, and glared at each other. It was a tense moment.
"They're tied, 978 to 978," Whispered Ryou quietly, but it seemed incredibly loud in the tense situation.
"You can always give up now, stupid pharaoh," Bakura said, "Just hand your tickets over and I won't gloat at you."
"Never."
They glared at each other a moment more before putting their last tickets in the machine.
979. 980. 981. 982. 983. 984. . . .
"The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife," Malik smirked. He sliced the air a few times with the millennium rod to prove his point.
"What is your final count?" Yami ordered.
"What's yours?" Bakura replied.
The two glared at each other, each refusing to say, until Yugi finally suggested they say it at the exact same time as to make everything fair and whatnot.
Bakura looked at Yami. "998."
Yami looked at Bakura. "998."
"You're KIDDING ME!" Bakura screamed. "Why didn't I steal those two tickets from Mokuba when I had the chance? Why did I have to feel sorry for the kid!? WHY?!?"
Raising an eyebrow, Yami said, "Hold on. I think I might have more tickets." He checked his pockets, and came up with two tickets.
"No way," muttered Bakura, frantically searching his pockets. "NO!"
Yami smirked and put the two tickets up to the machine.
Yugi frowned and said, "Is this the part where Yami does the nice thing and gives Bakura a ticket so that they have an equal amount?"
"It should be," Ryou said, "And even with those two, I wouldn't be surprised . . ."
Yami paused, and glanced at Bakura, who was looking oh-so-sad and pitiful. It would be so easy to just give him one ticket and everything would be alright.
Are you KIDDING?
Yami feed the machine the two tickets, and pressed 'print' getting his receipt proclaiming he had 1000 tickets. With a strangled cry, Bakura pressed 'print' on his machine getting a receipt proclaiming he had 998 tickets.
"You know the bet, Bakura," Yami said. "Hand over your tickets."
Bakura grimaced. "But I worked SO hard to steal them!"
In the end, Yami felt a little sorry for Bakura, and gave him 200 tickets to use. Kaiba sighed; he had gotten the least tickets and he had spent so much money!
As they left the bright, cheerful building, Mokuba grinned and said, "Yugi, when's your birthday? I can have Kaiba throw a party for you here!"
Kaiba groaned, and sighed as the squirrels started throwing pizza crust at him.
In a few minutes, the cake was all gone, although Kaiba still had yet to stop laughing evilly and eat his last piece, so Bakura stole and ate it for him.
"HAHAHAHA!" finished Kaiba. He looked at his plate, "Hey, where'd my cake go?"
Bakura hastily wiped the crumbs from his mouth and smirked, "Don't look at me."
Malik contently finished his fizzy fruit juice, and glanced at Bakura. "What happens now?"
Bakura shrugged. "I think we're done."
Mokuba shook his head, "No, now I get to open my presents! It's the best part of ANY party. Haven't you ever been to a birthday party before, anyway?" He smiled happily as Yugi and Ryou carried a pile of presents over to him. The presents were arranged by width, height, and length, and also color of wrapping paper.
"Oh, presents, right," Malik said, looking confused. "I want a present."
Bakura shoved a piece of confetti into his hands. "There you go."
"That doesn't count!" Malik said, pulling out his Millennium Rod.
"Hey, don't fight until AFTER he's opened his presents, ok?" Yugi said, giving them all sad puppy eyes, and even Malik couldn't help but say 'Fine.'
Mokuba took his first present, which was wrapped in dark blue paper, and opened it. "Oh," he said, "It's from Bakura!"
"Well, what is it?" Kaiba asked.
"A lock pick set and a book of Do-It-Yourself-Theft."
Kaiba groaned. Yami smirked, "Now you can't hide the sugar from him any more! Better watch out!"
Mokuba's next present was from Yami and Yugi (they got him a present together) and it was, of course, a deck of cards.
"Thank you Yugi!" Mokuba said, hugging the smaller of the two Yugi's.
The next present, wrapped in violet wrapping paper, was obviously from Malik. It was even more obvious as inside it contained three different knifes, a sword and two daggers.
"Malik! Quit trying to get my brother to be evil!" Kaiba said, startling Malik who was trying to put hot pepper into Yami's drink.
"What? Are you afraid he'll become eviler than you?" taunted Malik as Yami saw what he was doing and grabbed his drink.
"Shut up! That has nothing to do with it!" Kaiba turned and his jacket flared out dramatically behind him. "Nothing at all," He repeated stubbornly.
"Ahh, don't worry Seto, I'll ALWAYS think of you as my best evil brother!" Mokuba said, opening a present from Ryou, which was a new sweater.
"You really mean it?" Kaiba asked, his eyes suddenly going all huge and sparkly.
"Ummm, yeah, but not if you keep this up," Mokuba said, trying on the sweater. Ryou was pleased to note that it fit perfectly.
"Oh. Right." Kaiba turned around once again, and his jacket flew out behind him, dramatically of course. He sighed, for emphasis, and then turned back around and pointed at some random peon. "Clean up the wrapping paper."
The peon scurried off to get a bag, and the group decided to return back to the games, seeing as they all had enough money to buy some more tokens anyway.
"Are there any duel machines around here? I could really use a duel right about now. Did anyone else bring their cards? I want to duel! Duel!" Yami said, starting to pace back and forth.
"Ummm, Yami, is something wrong?" Yugi asked.
He didn't get a reply because Mokuba tugged at his arm. "C'mon Yugi, can we go play Air Hockey?"
Yami was now running around in circles.
"I knew I shouldn't have let him have all that sugar," Yugi told himself as he was dragged off to Air Hockey table. "He's never had that much sugar before . . . and, oh crap! Bakura had just as much sugar, so that means . . ."
Indeed Bakura and Yami were running around yelling at each other, on the peak of sugar highs.
"Oh well, not my problem. For now," Yugi thought as he went to one side of the air hockey table. Mokuba went to the other side and Ryou stood on the side, to watch.
'Anything is better than that possessed merry go round.'
Yami glared at Bakura. "So, tomb robber, I have yet to see you attempt a game? Have you given up before you even started? Am I the winner!?"
"Um, no."
"Yes!"
"No!"
Kaiba raised an eyebrow as the two yami's argued with each other. And then a new game caught his eye. It was a very simple game; all you had to do was push a button that said Start, and a pointer would spin around a large circle. Then you pressed Stop and wherever the pointer landed was how many tickets you'd get.
He placed a token into the console and pressed start. A moment later, he pressed stop. "C'mon . . . c'mon . . . I just KNOW it's going to land on the fifty . . . OH SH-"
He covered his mouth slightly since he didn't want Mokuba to hear, and then said it quietly. He glared at the pointer, which had landed on a line. No tickets came out.
After kicking the machine, he pressed start again.
He pressed stop.
No tickets.
And again.
And again.
"I SWEAR THESE MACHINES NEED TO BE CHUCKED OUT THE WINDOW AND TURNED INTO FIRE WOOD!" Kaiba screamed angrily.
Malik popped up out of nowhere with his Millennium rod at the ready. "What can I destroy? What can I destroy? Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"Not right now," Kaiba grumbled, and as he and Malik argued over who got to destroy the machine, Yami went up to it, put a token in it, pressed stop, and got fifty tickets.
"I'm GOING to kill that guy," Kaiba muttered and stalked off to buy more tokens.
"Let me help. PLEASE!" Malik said, jabbing the Millennium rod through the machine after Yami had skipped, yes, skipped, off.
Kaiba was just about to find a game to play that was worthy of him playing it when he felt a tug on his sleeve.
"Hey, Seto," Mokuba said, "Guess what! I beat Yugi in air hockey!"
"Good job, Mokuba," Kaiba said smiling.
"And now we wanna go in the tunnels. Will you go in the tunnels with us? Please?" Mokuba said, referring to the network of tunnels above the games that you could go up in and climb around. "C'mon, please?" He gave his saddest puppy eyes ever.
"I. . . don't think I'll fit in there . . ." Kaiba said.
Yami and Bakura skipped by. "We're going in there!"
"I'll get there first!"
"Oh, you just TRY, but don't cry when you lose."
"Winner gets five tickets from the loser."
"Deal."
"Go!"
Yami and Bakura ran up to the tubes, and Kaiba, Mokuba and Malik stared at them.
"Well, I'm not letting Yami have any more sugar," Yugi said as he came up to the group.
"I don't think Bakura is getting any sugar for a week, either," Ryou said, sighing.
"Hey, I heard that!" called Bakura from up in the tunnels. "And I'm going to steal your sugar stash! Yeah, don't think I don't know about that! I'm the MASTER robber here, nothing is safe! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Hey, Bakura," Yami's voice came, "I beat you."
Bakura stopped laughing and for the next few minutes, there was silence in the tunnels.
"Ummm, maybe we ought to go see if they're ok?" suggested Yugi.
"Yeah, even thought he DID threaten to steal my sugar . . . " Ryou said, sighing.
They ran up into the tunnels.
Malik looked at the tunnels interestedly. "Hmmmmm, I wonder how hard it would be cut the supports holding those things up?" He grinned as he took out his Millennium rod once again, and took off after Yugi and Bakura.
"C'mon Seto, everyone else is going!" Mokuba said.
"How many times have I told you not to follow the crowd," sighed Kaiba, but he knew he was beat. He sighed and walked towards the tunnels, his jacket flying out behind him in protest.
Up in the tunnels, Yugi and Ryou were looking for their yami's, and having a lot of fun doing so.
"This is fun!" Yugi said as he poked his head around a corner, looking to see whether they should go left or right. "Let's go left."
"Okidoki," agreed Ryou and they went left.
Meanwhile, Malik was busily examining the tunnels for weak points, and poking at random parts with his millennium rod.
He passed by Yami and Bakura, who were currently having a staring contest. They were still on their sugar highs.
He passed by Kaiba and Mokuba, who seemed to be arguing about something. Kaiba was complaining that his coat couldn't fan out behind him in the small enclosed space of the tunnels, and Mokuba was telling him that it would be perfectly fine.
Malik grinned insanely to himself, although for a brief moment he wished he could be with his yami and torturing peasants in Africa. The fresh air was so much more invigorating for mischief than a cheery place like this.
He pushed that thought out of his mind as he finally reached the first place he had been looking for. It was a dead end, but that didn't stop him in the least; using the millennium rod as a screwdriver, he unscrewed the piece that made the wall of the tunnel. Next, he sat on the edge of the tunnel, and began to saw at the rope holding it in place.
"You're going to blink," Bakura said, grinning. "You're going to blink and become a failure! I have found the one game you cannot win!" He would have burst into maniacal laughter, but that would have caused him to blink so he did nothing.
"I am NOT going to blink," Yami said, concentrating on getting his eyes not to water. It wasn't HIS fault he had such huge eyes and they dried out so quickly.
The two were concentrating so hard on not blinking that neither yami noticed as their respective hikari snuck up behind them.
'On the count of three,' mouthed Yugi. 'One, two, THREE!'
He and Ryou both jumped forward and pushed their yami's together. Yami and Bakura were so startled by this that both of them blinked at the exact same time, and fell into a heap on top of each other.
"Alright, there's going to be hell to pay for that," promised Bakura as he finally regained his senses and noticed what had happened.
"Didn't do nothing," said Ryou innocently, with a perfect 'can't you trust me?' face on.
Yugi gave Yami the exact same look.
Whether it was because they were still on the sugar highs, or just didn't care, both Bakura and Yami shrugged.
"Hey, tomb robber," Yami said.
"Yeah, pharaoh?" Bakura replied.
"Catch me if you can!" Yami took off on his hands and knees, crawling through the tunnels.
Bakura immediately followed, yelling, "If I catch you I get ten of your tickets! Five of which are MINE anyway!"
Yugi and Ryou blinked in amazement.
"Definitely no more sugar. Ever." They said in unison.
Suddenly there was a small jolt to the tunnels; barely noticeably, but Malik felt it. "Ahh, yes," he whispered to no one in particular. "Only five or six more ropes to cut, and these will all come crashing down." He closed his eyes and laughed manically.
When he opened them there was a girl in front of him.
"Excuse me, but I am TRYING to have a maniacal moment here," Malik said, "And how'd you get in here anyway? I don't know you, therefore you must not be a friend of Yugi's. Not that I keep track on who Yugi is friends with, of course."
"I'm Kaisa," replied the girl. "I came in through the squirrel hole over there." She pointed to a spot in the tunnels. "How else do you think the squirrels steal all that pizza?"
Malik blinked, and hit himself in the head, before sighing and saying, "That's great, but I have to go unleash my MASTER PLAN! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"Ummm, right then," Kaisa said, "I'll be over here by the squirrel hole if you want to talk!" She grinned and sat down.
Malik shook his head in disbelief before starting to crawl through the tunnels again. But then he paused and asked, "Ummm, you know, you're a little bigger than a squirrel, so how did you get through a squirrel hole?"
"There's a ton of squirrels. Duh."
"Oh. Right."
Malik crawled away as fast as he could. 'Squirrels.' The thought of that made him shudder, and he vowed to cut down the tunnels as fast as he could.
He passed by Mokuba and Kaiba again; this time Kaiba was near a vent so that his coat would move slightly, but not much. He was complaining again, and Mokuba was sighing.
"C'mon big brother," Mokuba said, "Just forget about the coat for now. I want to have fun! It's my birthday!"
"But . . .but . . . my jacket," muttered Kaiba.
Mokuba sighed.
Malik had to keep from laughing as he made his way through the tunnels.
"Watch OUT!" Yami called as he crawled through the tunnels as fast as he could. "I've got an angry tomb robber on my tail!"
Malik, of course, sat down in the middle of the tunnel, blocking Yami from getting past.
"Move! If he catches me, I lose ten tickets!"
"I think I happen to like it right here," Malik said, leaning back and blocking the tunnel even more.
"C'mon, please move!" Yami said.
"Only if you say 'Malik Ishtar is the most amazing person in the world and I will be his slave forever!'"
"Ummm, no."
"Do you really want to lose ten tickets?" Malik asked.
Yami could hear Bakura closing in on him. 'Do I really want the ten tickets? Is being Malik's slave for the rest of eternity really that bad when I'm faced with the prospect of losing ten tickets?'
A second later, a second voice in Yami's head screamed, 'HELL YEAH! GET OUT OF HERE!' So Yami scrambled right over Malik as fast as he could.
"Hey, that HURT," complained Malik. He was about to get up to go cut more ropes when Bakura crawled over him too. "Thanks a lot!" he called sarcastically to the tomb robber.
"Welcome," replied Bakura, pocketing the tickets he had grabbed off of Malik while crawling over him. He chased after Yami.
Malik groaned, and set out with a renewed passion to cut down the tunnels. And QUICKLY.
Luckily for him, the next to ropes were both nearby, and they were mostly easy to cut through. Plus, by the time he got to the fourth and fifth ropes, they were already beginning to strain under the weight of the tunnels.
Suddenly, there was a loud snap.
The tunnels came crashing down, just as Bakura was about to catch Yami.
"YOU STUPID PHARAOH! I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!"
"PLEASE! LIKE I'M THAT STUPID!"
Yugi sighed. Ryou sighed. Kaiba stood up and grinned; his coat once again able to fan out behind him gracefully. Mokuba sighed. Malik fingered his millennium rod happily. Yami and Bakura argued.
No one noticed the squirrel and Kaisa sneaking out the squirrel hole with pizza.
Finally Yugi said loudly, "Stop shouting Yami or I'm sending you to the puzzle!"
"Same here, Bakura, or it's back to the ring for you."
Instantly, both tomb robber and pharaoh shut up.
Ignoring the pile of rubble that had once been tunnels and games, they all went to the little machines that you fed your tickets to, and it told you how many you had.
"Yay! The best part!" Mokuba said. He jumped up to a machine and started feeding it tickets. He ended up with 298.
Kaiba put his hand in his pockets, and felt to the very bottom of them. He came up with one ticket. He pouted.
Yugi and Ryou put their tickets together and got 333.
Malik threatened the machine with the millennium rod when it said he only had 432 tickets, but the machine didn't do anything, so he destroyed it.
Finally, Bakura and Yami stepped up to the machines. They glared at each other, and yelled at the top of their lungs, "DUEL!" before feeding the machine their tickets as fast as they could.
Everyone sweatdropped as they watched the two feed the machine ticket after ticket.
"Ya know," Mokuba said suddenly, "I never saw Bakura at a single game."
"Neither did I," said Kaiba.
"I was too busy destroying the machines," Malik said.
Yugi and Ryou glanced at each other and sighed.
"I guess that's why Bakura was so friendly to me, and patting me on the back and stuff," sighed Ryou, "He must have taken most of our tickets."
"Oh well, Ryou, we can always come back."
"Yeah, Yugi, you can have your party here," Mokuba said happily.
Yugi nodded. "Although they might not let us back in after what Malik did."
Malik glared, "I didn't do nothing! It's all the squirrel's fault! I blame the squirrels!"
For a minute everything was quiet as Yami and Bakura continued to feed tickets into the machines.
"How many tickets do they have?" Mokuba asked in awe.
Kaiba glared at Yami, "Well, Yami was winning every single game, so I'm not surprised in the least that he has so many tickets." He muttered to himself, "I'll bet he cheated . . . those games were so rigged. . ."
Finally, Yami and Bakura got down to their last string of tickets. They both paused, and glared at each other. It was a tense moment.
"They're tied, 978 to 978," Whispered Ryou quietly, but it seemed incredibly loud in the tense situation.
"You can always give up now, stupid pharaoh," Bakura said, "Just hand your tickets over and I won't gloat at you."
"Never."
They glared at each other a moment more before putting their last tickets in the machine.
979. 980. 981. 982. 983. 984. . . .
"The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife," Malik smirked. He sliced the air a few times with the millennium rod to prove his point.
"What is your final count?" Yami ordered.
"What's yours?" Bakura replied.
The two glared at each other, each refusing to say, until Yugi finally suggested they say it at the exact same time as to make everything fair and whatnot.
Bakura looked at Yami. "998."
Yami looked at Bakura. "998."
"You're KIDDING ME!" Bakura screamed. "Why didn't I steal those two tickets from Mokuba when I had the chance? Why did I have to feel sorry for the kid!? WHY?!?"
Raising an eyebrow, Yami said, "Hold on. I think I might have more tickets." He checked his pockets, and came up with two tickets.
"No way," muttered Bakura, frantically searching his pockets. "NO!"
Yami smirked and put the two tickets up to the machine.
Yugi frowned and said, "Is this the part where Yami does the nice thing and gives Bakura a ticket so that they have an equal amount?"
"It should be," Ryou said, "And even with those two, I wouldn't be surprised . . ."
Yami paused, and glanced at Bakura, who was looking oh-so-sad and pitiful. It would be so easy to just give him one ticket and everything would be alright.
Are you KIDDING?
Yami feed the machine the two tickets, and pressed 'print' getting his receipt proclaiming he had 1000 tickets. With a strangled cry, Bakura pressed 'print' on his machine getting a receipt proclaiming he had 998 tickets.
"You know the bet, Bakura," Yami said. "Hand over your tickets."
Bakura grimaced. "But I worked SO hard to steal them!"
In the end, Yami felt a little sorry for Bakura, and gave him 200 tickets to use. Kaiba sighed; he had gotten the least tickets and he had spent so much money!
As they left the bright, cheerful building, Mokuba grinned and said, "Yugi, when's your birthday? I can have Kaiba throw a party for you here!"
Kaiba groaned, and sighed as the squirrels started throwing pizza crust at him.