BookDragon: "I started writing this on paper in directed study, why I didn't start it on a computer I have no clue, it was a spur of the moment type of thing."
Bill: *looks at her confused* "Why the hell are you telling them this?"
BookDragon: "To keep my mind off of other things that I'm keeping myself from writing on this…"
Bill: "Right…"
BookDragon: "I'm having one of those WTF moments…something from the past… don't worry it'll past… um…on with the fic!"
Chapter 9: Love notes
"Are you nuts?" She asked him, wondering if he really was crazy, "I can't do that!"
"Sure you can…"
"_NO_ I can't… it doesn't like to work for me." She told him slowly, embarrassed as she glanced at the light flickering on the wall from the fire, her toes digging into the carpet to warm them. Kaiba crossed his arms aggravated by this constant stop, go, stop, talk, go. He was getting pretty pissed off at this whole charade, tapping his jet black boot, like a disgruntled mother. Ann ignored him the best she could, keeping her eyes off him, staring straight at Yami, painfully taking in his curious look flickering in his eyes as he held out her peach colored palm, telling her to fork the bracelet over.
Sighing, she unclasped it from her arm and pulled it out of her sleeve, noticing it glitter at her in the heat of the flame licking her checks as she let it fall into his hand. He studied it a moment, expanding his eyes fully to take in every detail as he shook it with a jerk of his wrist, kept gawking wonderously, and gave it back to her mystified.
"It should work. I don't know why it wouldn't…"
"Because it is just a bracelet you idiot! Let us move on and place this magic bull behind us." Kaiba spat at him, striding away at Yami's steady glare, protesting after him loudly in that deep angry voice. Ann didn't move from her spot, wondering to break up the fight or not, when she saw something quiet large move in the corner of her eye. A flick of a wing maybe? She stood motionless, feeling a few short periods of wind that shouldn't have existed in the enclosed space. Yami finally realized she was missing from their side and turned back to her, and stopped dead in his tracks, quickly tugging at Kaiba's shirt furiously until he spun on his heel enraged and gaped at what he was seeing, making Ann turn her head enough to see it through the corner of her eye, extremely nervous. And with good reason.
A black figure loomed motionless in the middle of the hall, taking up most of the space, acting like a wall it's self, casting a large blacker shadow around them. It's coal colored wings ruffled a slight wind, combined with it's own rasping strong breaths through it's huge hooked beak, as a cruel shinning black claw about the size of a sickle dug into the carpeting, making some sort of tarring sound that made Ann quiver with fear, not at the sound but at the eyes. Fierce vibrant orange eyes, the color of bonfire flames, glared menacingly at them through the shadows it called home, burning glare piercing through their skin almost with silted pupils. Through the stormy gusts of breath they stood dead, gawking at the large beast.
"Don't move…" Yami told them in a calm voice, staying still as his tone echoed commandingly down the corridor, causing the huge bird type like monster to twitch and regrip that cruel beak. Kaiba kept the same cool posture, his hands in his pockets and completely still and silent, his jaw clenched nervously at the thing. Ann kept twitching and shaking under the steady watch of those flaming eyes of the shadow creature, flicking to each of the three bodies, thoughts flashing behind those eyes. Probably thoughts of which of them to kill first. Yami took a step back gingerly, still watching the fiery orbs sternly, to escape the creature through the door behind them. It was the only they had a chance of opening.
"On three…run." He growled out of the corner of his mouth two feet in front of Ann, now taking a step back with wide eyes, noticing the thing seeping a few talons into the rug closer to them. The step was large, making Ann panicky as her eyes darted wildly from its feet to its feathered bird like head, her eyes seeing more into the darkness, a pair of cat like hind-quarters of extra speed.
"One." God they were dealing with a griffin. Its tail flicked, curled on the left paw, it remained her of a cat tail flick when they were about to pounce when hunting. Ann started to wonder if it was hungry. This was getting worse and worse.
"Two." Kaiba quietly started fiddling with something in his trench coat pockets; she knew he was trying to find a logical reason for this thing to be stalking them, as Yami almost backed into him, his right shoe next to Kaiba's left boot, both keeping their composure in this tense situation. Ann was failing.
"THREE!" The sudden grip on her made her assume the thing had got her in its clutches and was about to rip her apart to dine on her screaming carcass, but found it instead to be Yami's hand clamped down on her shoulder dragging her away from the enraged monster, bounding after them swiftly. The candles were dropped and somehow put out not to cause a fire by them selves as they sprinted away from the thing that just leaped after them quickly. Her legs started working when the loudest high pitched shriek she had ever had the misfortune to hear echoed painfully around them, as Kaiba flung himself onto the door and stuck his fingers on the brass knob in a frenzy, keeping his stern face as he gave it a powerful tug. And found it locked. His eyes went wide on the edge of panic as Yami shortly slammed into him with Ann in pursuit. All of them collided with the door with a loud bang, scrabbling over it, as the creature bounded closer.
"We're gonna die." Ann founded herself saying, her head swinging back in the direction of the dangerous gaze of the orange orbs afraid as her fingers meet the surface of the knob quickly. With a sudden click the door flew open with the force of their weight, sending them tumbling onto the ground in a mess. Somehow, Yami got up through the muddled chaos and slammed his full weight down on the door, in time to catch the six black talons, cutting the side of the door frame as a loud squawking commenced. Kaiba scrambled upward to help him when Yami started to loose, the door jerking open enough to smack the surprised pharaoh and it would've opened if Kaiba hadn't slammed his foot down on the door, and then his shoulder. Ann sat on the floor, dumbfounded and almost curled into a ball with terror, gawking at them as the frantic battle of human strength versed the griffin's, the boys shouting curses (that would only be able to be written out in a R rated fic.) and the constant furious bird toned roaring, muddled with the cracking wood. They were loosing. The dark nails prying the door open wider and wider as their strength failed and both pairs of feet slipped back. By now Yami's palms were fully stretched out and applying full force on the door, his face covered in sweat like Kaiba, grunting things like "Bastard" and such as Yami's head swung to her, almost frantic.
"DO SOMETHING!"
"L-like what?!"
"ANYTHING!!!" His voice was tensely horse as Ann's eyes darted about; trying to clear her head enough to concocted a plan to save their lives. But the terror had too strong of a hold on her, creating the space in her mind that she couldn't push out, and instead started rocking on the floor uneasily, succumbing to the panic that had eaten away at her.
[Calm down, child… Use the bracelet.] Ann listened to it immediately and pounced on the door with her own weight, rolling her sleeves up as her back held the vibrating door closed a few more precious seconds and the bracelet was whipped out to full view. Looking at it quickly she hoped it would work and touched the door, for some reason doing waving arm patterns that came to mind, like symbols, why she had no flipping clue, it was more of a just do it. It glowed wavy thick painted light onto the door frame, making her eyes hurt at looking at it, splattering on the door and seeping into the fine wood like ink through fabric. Gawking wildly at it Kaiba literally jumped off the door away from it as the edges grew brighter and the nails were suddenly being squeezed, and started to break under the pressure. The claws retreated at one Talon clearly snapping off, shrieks of pain and angry sweeping to their eyes as Ann fell down to the floor, exhausted. Kaiba was looking from her, to the door, to Yami's smirk lining his face. That kind of face that said 'I told you this so called Bullshit was real.' Yami's thin smile said one thing, but his eyes reflected the more matter of 'how the hell did you do that?' Ann just looked at him, not be able to talk at how fast her heart was still beating, almost ripping her chest apart, as her arms seemed to lay dead at her sides. It had taken a lot out of her, looking as if she had held the door down the whole time now that she was dripping with sweat, her fingers numb and twitching badly. What ever the hell she did, it worked, at least there was that.
"How did you know that enchantment would work?" She blinked at Yami confused, but finally pulled herself to at least talk to him.
"…That was…a spell…?" Her voice was a soft and hoarse. It felt like she had swallowed glass it hurt so bad, making her hang her head to stop the sudden throbbing because she couldn't hold her throat her arms were so tired. Everything was throbbing from a piercing pain.
"That… was a powerful spell…do you think you can get up?" His voice sounded a bit distant from her ears, but definitely concerned, her hair tickling the bridge of her nose annoyingly, trying to ignore it and lift her arms or even his legs. They wouldn't respond. For a scared moment she thought that she might have broken her neck or something, the signals from her Brian wouldn't register to her limps then, why did she have to do that? She slowly shook her head no, and swallowed fluid up her throat in case she needed speech. Which she did.
"I don't expect you to be able to. For a beginner, that should've killed you." He made a slow move to pick her up when she protested.
"Don't." He looked at her a bit annoyed.
"What else I am I suppose to do? We can't leave you hear, and you wouldn't be able to move for a while…" She glared at him, irritated at the thought someone carrying her; she didn't have a choice. He picked her up slowly, her arms going into a bit of a jerking fit but relaxing once he had settled her down enough to carry her like a baby, against his chest. She was pissed, personally she wanted to kick him or punch him, but it was like her body went to sleep was wasn't working except from the neck up. It sucked majorly.
"This…sucks." She told him angrily as they started off up a flight of stairs, feeling stupid as he struggled to carry her up, Kaiba leading, not turning around at all to help him. Haft of Ann rejoiced and the other part was sad. One Yami was doing all this work to carry her up the long dark flight of stairs on his own after tiring himself out at holding the beast out, but she would've killed if Kaiba had to carry her. That would be so incredibly embarrassing. Then again, this was embarrassing. She was glad it was so dark, her checking flaming red, feeling stupider and more nervous by the second. Never in her life had she ever thought anyone would go to all the trouble of carrying her out side the family, she had never really wanted to be carried, this was becoming incredibly odd. It was one of those things that goes through a girl's mind, which she would often try hard to elude at all costs she hated it so much. But now she couldn't do anything to run away from it in her state.
"This really bites…er…thanks…" she told him gratefully, feeling odd when he didn't answer her but kept up the long flight of stairs. She partly wished she had died.
Finally at the top of the stairs he put her down and took a breather, Kaiba standing calmly, actually patient for once as Yami clutched his knees and breathed deeply. No words were exchanged, but she had a creepy feeling that her worse fear would occur. Kaiba picked her up. She was slung on his shoulder, carrying her with one strong arm, as she protested and told them just to leave her there, but ignored her totally until she finally shut up, straining her neck to look forward to look ahead then at his feet, and was quiet enough for them to talk.
"There is one question that bother's me." Kaiba told Yami, vibrating under her slightly, feeling all the more humiliated.
"Yes?"
"I don't know what the hell that thing what you did to get rid of it, maybe I don't want to know how, but how do you believe it even got here?" It was unlike Kaiba to ask questions about such topics, it was another of the most surprising things that had happened today.
"Magic of course." Ann told him, feeling a bit better, and slowly regaining control of her toes, curling them very slowly back and forth. Kaiba glared at her.
"There is no such thing."
"Oh come on Kaiba, it can't all be smoke and mirrors, it can't all be by chance. Actually it would be a bit more logical to have a tiny bit of magic existing in the world; it's really a force of energy, which controls many things. I feel like it couldn't be made up, somewhere it is real, it could be here." She coughed a bit and swallowed after her small speech, feeling strangely like Tea when Kaiba snorted at it.
"Magic? A force of energy is logical, but it is the stuff of fairy tales…you need to grow up."
"Many people thought the giant squid a myth, a fairy tale among frightened sailors, until a corpse was found on a beach some where and it was proven to really exist. Come one Kaiba, wake up. There are still things beyond our comprehension, forces at work." Kaiba started laughing.
"FORCES AT WORK?! God, you're just as insane as him! You wouldn't survive two seconds in the real world with those ideas swimming your head. Look at you now; this was at the work of _magic_? Some forces…"
"I would slap you if I could." She told him angrily.
"Yes but you can't, to the work of your magic. Looks to be more trouble than it's worth, you'd die in the real world with those thoughts and silly dreams."
"We're still alive aren't we? That's to my _magic_... I'd rather live in my own world anyway…I'm not even in the real world now…why does it matter?" Kaiba was silent, making Ann blink with a bit of surprised that he wasn't giving her a better retort to out smart her or something, but he didn't. And at that twisted moment, she pitied him. He had never own the things that came from people's imagination, the things of fantasy books, only the cold hard facts; he must have had the worse child hood. She didn't take it a step further but silently stopped the argument there, not wishing to take her victory and rub it in his face.
"…tell me. Why did you come looking around up here?" She finally asked him, calmly, trying to be nice about it. He looked at her a troubled glance, then to Yami looking at him confused, as he set his hard stare back to them like he wouldn't tell ever, making Ann's spirits sink until his voice mumbled something.
"…I was looking for something to help me figure out…who was leaving me notes under my door every night."
"Notes? What kind of notes?" Yami asked him confused; looking at Kaiba's face…staring to notice that he of all people was blushing. Ann's eyes widened surprised as all hell.
"_Love_ notes?! You got to be freaking' kidding me?!" Ann whispered to herself astonished as Yami started laughing at how red his face was going.
"Some one is sending you, of all people, love notes?!" He asked him with booming laughs, getting Kaiba a bit pissed off. Ann looked at Yami plainly.
"Actually, a lot of people adore him in my world." Yami fell to the floor cackling, holding his stomach as he rolled around on the floor uncontrollably, his face going rose-colored, as Kaiba started to glare at him helplessly, processing what Ann had just said.
"What!?"
"It's true. People write love fictions about every one of you guys, mostly Bakura, but there are a lot of Love fics about you and Yami." Yami stopped rolling around.
"Some of them are like…really…you don't want to know." She said troubled.
"Like what?"
"…Disturbing. Like sometimes you guys like…love each other in them." Yami made the worst disgusted face she had ever seen him make in his life and stepped a full foot away from Kaiba, as he too, did the same thing.
"That's sick." He told her plainly.
"Hey, I didn't write them…I usually write…never mind." She was glad when they didn't go after where she had left off, and instead came to another problem. The hall ended abruptly into a circular room, housing six very large doors, and a large dragon symbol sown into the rug. Taking a step into the room, a bunch of candles went a light above their heads and around them, two on the side of each door, creating a lot of light from them to see more clearly. The dragon was immense and was done by someone with enough artistic experience to boggle the mind, for the dragon looked so real, it could've been alive, a reason why everyone didn't take another step into the room, actually being carefully not to run into another beast. A loud clapping started around them, made by one person, but booming as Kaiba and Yami jumped away to something coming forth from over their heads, and landed lightly onto the ground. It was Ammon. And he was pissed.
Clapping his hands sternly he glared at the three of them, but somehow wore a grin on his face, making him even scarier. Like a mad man.
"Good job. You've made it through this maze alive. You've past your first lesson, but not with flying colors as they call it." He was looking directing at her, making her look at him surprised.
"Me? You're talking to me?"
"Yes. You are my student, aren't you?" Her jaw fell open.
"No I'm not, I can't, I-" Ammon put a hand up to silence her.
"Quiet. It's not my choice. Shadi told me to teach you, I intent to do that, whether you or I like it or not." He bowed to the Yami quickly at the sight of him, giving him respect.
"My Pharaoh, I am sorry I was forbaded to tell you. You weren't even supposed to be here at this time." Yami crossed his arms a bit cross.
"I said I would help, and I intent to." Ammon bowed lower, a slight furious action rippling to her eyes.
"As you wish." Ammon was clearly unhappy with Yami; Yami clearly didn't care. Ammon stood tall again and looked at Kaiba.
"You too Seto Kaiba? I expected you least of all people…" Kaiba snorted irritably, and didn't reply to that statement, which was probably a good thing. Nodding Ammon turned his tanned face back to Ann a bit annoyed.
"You frightened me before, when you wouldn't help your friends…at the door; I almost gave up on you until you flew up and stopped the creature I had planted, all on your own."
"My own? What the hell are you talking about?" Ann asked him bitterly. Ammon blinked at her confused. Ann groaned.
"You told me to calm down, and to use the bracelet…remember?" Her voice became wishful at the end, becoming convinced that it wasn't him by the look he was showing.
"That was not I. Who showed you that spell?"
"…No one…I just sort of…did it." She felt totally insane from the blinking look Ammon was giving her, turning her eyes away to the ceiling showing she'd rather not talk about it. Okay, hearing voices was bad, she guessed for even here. Great. Now she was crazy.
"…I believe this was enough for one day." Ammon finally continued, disregarding the problem as small.
"We should return to the others and you," His attention was directed to her in a flash, making her flinch. "Of all people, should most definitely regain your strength." His fingers snapped and an odd rippling ticked at Ann's eyes for a brief moment, a strange feeling that made her quiver a little as Ammon walked past them and opened the door they had entered, revealing the first bright shinning corridor Ann had entered a few hours ago.
"Come." He left the room at a steady pace as Yami and Kaiba followed, Ann left hopelessly on Kaiba's shoulder a bit baffled and confused, but mostly hurt. He lead them to her room and let Kaiba throw her on the bed a bit like a suit case and left the room to let her lay there, alone and practically dazed on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"Well thank you very much guys…" She muttered to herself, annoyed, starting to count the paint brush lines on the ceiling. After a while of counting, when she was at the number 2314 someone opened the door to her room. She looked over with the corner of her eye and saw Brian standing there with what looked like a bowl of soup from the light stream waving up into his face.
"Jeez. What the hell did he do to you?" Were the first words out of his mouth when he pulled up a chair to the side of her bed, wanting to talk about it. She sighed, not sure if she could move her limps yet or anything for that matter, her neck hurt now; she felt like a lump of flesh instead of a body.
"I decided to do some weird spell that took everything out of me, god you have no idea how much this sucks, I can't even move my arms!" She told him incredibly irritated as he lifted the purple bowl into his hands and turned it, making more stream and a delicious scent waft into her nose.
"…What is that stuff?" Brian shrugged.
"I don't know some kind of soup they told me to give you." She lifted her neck up and looked at him puzzled.
"Soup? Like healing soup?" He stirred it again, a quick stir, and scoped a bit into the spoon.
"I don't know, Ammon made it with Bill's help. I think it's supposed to… hurry up and eat this." He forced the reddish liquid into her mouth quickly before she could protest to the soup or the fact he had to feed her like a little baby. It was defiantly sour, making her squint her eyes as they watered slightly at the extreme taste flowing down her throat.
"YUCK! What the hell is in this?!"
"How the hell should I know? I think Bill said something about onions and peanut butter earlier, and some other stuff Ammon added…like grass…maybe."
"Do I look like cow?"
"No…" He shoved another mouth full into her, and she swallowed it quickly to avoid the taste. It went down slowly, but already seemed to be working on her. A tingling sensation started in the tips of her fingers and was starting to trickle up into her palm; she found she could move her fingers at least a centimeter, that at least was good.
"Well…what ever the hell it is, it works." She took a couple of more spoon fulls and was able to flex her fingers on her right hand very slowly, while she talked to him.
"Do you think my mom is worried yet?"
"Probably. You should go home as soon as you're able to…that or call her." Ann shook her head.
"I could barely talk earlier, she'll know something's up. I don't need her finding out about this whole other world business. It would freak her out." Brian shrugged.
"It would scare anybody's parents."
"I guess your right… how's everybody else?" Brian stirred the crimson liquid a moment, thinking.
"Well…Yami and Kaiba are like interrogating Kyle to show them that fan fiction site, poor dude. I haven't seen Yugi or Tea all day... Bakura said something about getting some air about an hour ago after Yami told him what had happened this morning. I kind of just sat around and played some video games while Bill called your sister and told her what happened-"
"HE DID WHAT?!" Ann shouted at him surprised, wishing she could strangle him that very moment, but continued.
"Oh damn it! Now I got to worry about her going all 'I got to save my little sister' act and probably will cause more trouble. She's a menace…well…went she wants to be…" Ann complained, twisting her wrist around and flexing her fingers faster as she curled her toes, as she fumed at how everything was going to shit again.
"Well…that's not the haft of it. Bill said he was gonna pick her up from our world and bring her here to come see you." Ann slammed her head on the bed angrily.
"DAMN IT BILL! How long ago was that?"
"Maybe an hour." She rolled her eyes; this was just getting more and more unpleasant.
"Anything else I should know?" Brian paused, thinking a moment and them giving her another spoonful.
"…well…her boyfriend was with her when Bill called…and…Bill said that it sounded like he wasn't gonna let her go without him…so…" Ann looked at him wide-eyed.
"You don't mean to tell me she's taking him with her. God! I'm going to KILL her if she does! Who knows what will happen? If she takes him it would probably ruin everything! Poor Joey…poor Marie…poor Trent. Joey will probably kick the shit out of him when he finds out…" Trent was the new boy friend. Ann had only met him a few times, so she didn't know him every well. Marie liked to be mysterious about him and not tell her anything, so Ann always assumed it was either making out in his pick up truck at drive ins or romantic dinners. It had to be something stupid, so Ann never really decided to investigate. After a long time of slowly taking in soup she could move her arms enough to take the bowel from him and start chugging it down instead of using the spoon, not caring if it was at all lady like in front of him. She finished the bowl fast, and could move a bit. Enough to get up out of her bed and make a few slow movements to try and walk around, feeling a lot like a stringed puppet with the worst controller in the world pulling the strings. It was funny enough to make Brian start laughing at how stupid she looked, she fell a few times trying to hit him, and wobbly out back onto her feet.
"…I think I'm gonna get some more of that soup…until I can walk normal again anyway." She jerkily reached the door and opened it slowly, concentrating all she could just to open it without anyone's help and started out into the hall, still walking like a drunken fool. She slowly reached the kitchen and walked past Yami sitting at the table, read some book that was probably lying around the house boredly, as she held herself up on the counter as she looked for more of it, and snorted to find that they didn't make any extra. She sat down annoyed and felt like banging her head on the table when Serenity arrived light heartedly and sat at the table with a bit of a giggle. Yami didn't notice, and flipped the page still wearing that bored expression…that is until Kaiba came into the room fuming angrily, muttering something about "damn letters" and quickly jerked the front door open and slammed it on his way out, carefully missing the ends of his trench coat while doing so. Yami raised an eyebrow at the door, and sighed sadly as Serenity got up from her chair again and left Ann sitting there dumbfounded.
It seems Serenity had a crush on Kaiba.
BookDragon: "Please send reviews!" ^_^