Chapter Two - - Preparations


The blimp of Kaiba's was an odd thing, to be certain. While having flown in her fair share of jets and planes (first class, of course,) a blimp was definitely a first. And naturally, Kaiba wouldn't have anything but the very best, in any respect. The rooms were all fairly simple, but the furnishings were of excellent quality. What surprised Mai most of all was how quiet - almost to the point of being eerie - her room was, prompting her to sink into one of the overstuffed armchairs nearby and reflect for a few minutes.

This incredibly odd dueling arena was one of many surprises thrown her way that evening. Primarily, an old flame had shown up only hours before and demanded the right to duel her for her hand in marriage. The pompous jerk wasn't much of a match for her, and it was almost as satisfying for her to trample him as it had been to get the upper hand in her duel with Kaiba.

What was surprising, though, was how Joey had reacted to the whole thing. It was odd how she'd never really noticed that before. Sure, she'd been very conscious of her inclinations toward him, as chaste and almost sisterly as they had started out, but she'd never really considered that he might reciprocate. After all, he'd actually had to ASK if they were friends after she'd given him her Glory of the King's Hand card back in duelist kingdom. When he'd done that, she took it as a not-so-subtle hint that he would only ever see her as a companion. For a while afterward, she'd been intentionally distant. They didn't see each-other much anyway so it wasn't like that had been particularly hard, but she did it anyway. She sought out other guys to occupy her time (which might have explained how she ended up with psychos like the one who just tried to duel her for a chance to be her husband - if that wasn't weird, she didn't know what was - ) until she realized that she wasn't really punishing him if he didn't even know about her motives.

It was possible that he was honestly just oblivious to her. Joey wasn't the kind of guy that girls swarmed, making it very probable that he'd genuinely misread her intentions. It wasn't like he was a cold person or anything. After the way he'd sent his red-eyes to protect Mokuba from the dragon's blast at the cost of his own life-points during Kaiba's virtual reality free-for-all, she thought he deserved a little more faith than that. At the time, they'd all thought he'd really died.

That really wasn't the oddest turn of events thus far, which was unsettling in its own right. Who would have thought that Bakura's arrival would have been a bigger deal than all of these social disasters they'd been facing lately? Even still, the fact that Bakura had somehow happened upon six locator cards was definitely something of a surprise. Mai didn't even know that he was a serious duelist. He'd been beaten fairly early in the Duelist Kingdom tournament, which led her to believe that he was a little too soft to take the game to the professional level.

But then, sometimes these situations could be outright confusing. Joey's personality didn't scream first-class duelist' either, but he was doing alright. There were definite issues he was going to have to face, the foremost being his frustrating habit of constantly falling for the bait in every situation. It was kind of fascinating to watch him fight - sort of like driving by the scene of a terrible car accident - but more often than not, she found herself wondering how he managed to get himself into these situations. He'd be much better if he could just develop a little objectivity...

Blinking twice, Mai got up out of the chair. Why were all of her thoughts suddenly spiraling around Joey? She was an independent woman with the strength to prove it, not some love-lorn little girl.

She started rummaging through the small fridge on the corner of the room more out of a need to be distracted than because of any legitimate hunger. As she'd expected, Kaiba stocked it with only the best of everything, most of it bearing the conspicuous K' of Kaiba-Corps. She sniffed as she took out a fancy, gourmet sandwich and a bottle of soda, wrenching off the sharp metal cap on the edge of the fridge. She hadn't been aware that Kaiba was branching out into grub, but somehow she wasn't surprised. Within a few years, he'd probably start buying up islands just because he could.

Taking a large bite of her acquisition, she panicked and immediately followed it with most of the soda. There was enough horse-radish on the bread to power a small city. Her second bite was a bit more conservative. Maybe Kaiba ought to stick with duel monsters products.

Sinking back into the chair again, she let herself muse while she idly drank the rest of the soda. It was honestly hard for Mai to understand why anybody with all that money would have such a hard time smiling once and awhile. She had plenty of money herself, by the way, and she didn't run around hurling petty threats and scheming to regain her title as champion duelist. Then again, there was really no comparing herself to Kaiba in any respect. He and Pegasus actually had much more in common, which made her sad. She didn't think he really meant to be cruel and cold, but if he wanted attention, there were other ways of getting it.

But to be totally fair, attention was basically at the root of duel monsters anyway. She didn't deny that the applause, recognition, and cheering fans definately weren't drawbacks. The only person who seemed to be in it solely for the game was Yugi, but... well, Yugi was different anyway. He was playing with a different deck in every meaning of the phrase. If she was particularly lucky, something would happen beforehand and she wouldn't have to fight him again. Yugi wasn't someone to be taken lightly.

It would be interesting to see how everything played out. She was anxious to see who ended up going against who first off, especially since the arena and premise to the duels would be so different. If she was lucky, it would be someone else this time through. There were definate advantages to watching this sort of thing play out once or twice before jumping right in.

All duelists report to the main lounge. I repeat, all duelists report to the main lounge. Selection for the first duel of the battle city finals will begin promptly.

It was as if the probably underpaid man on the other end of the intercom had read her mind. Setting down the rest of the sandwich and her empty bottle, she made for the doorway. Things were interesting already. They could only go up from here.



Ollen70: Not a very action-filled chapter, but I'm getting some direction back into this story. I just recently saw some of the battle city finals episodes, and I'm using this as an opportunity to fill out Mai's character a little. Don't worry - things should pick up soon. Comments and suggestions are always greatly appreciated. Thank you to Litena greywords for her e-mail, and to Matt Morwell for his review.