BookDragon: "Another week, another chapter."
Bill: "Jeez, this is longer than Day dreams now…how long will it be?"
BookDragon: "I'm not sure. Until it's done I guess. I'm making it up as I go."
Bill: *rolls eyes* "On with the fic!"
Chapter 11: Bakura + Rapid Fan girls + Bill = Chaos
Sighing, she threw off the white sheets and found herself wearing those paper clothes that they put you in. An other thing to do. Bill handed her some clothes that he had brought for her, watching Bakura still, wondering if he would flip out again. She took the pile of fluffy garments and ran into the small bathroom they gave her, whipping the black tank top and blue jeans, finding the jeans a bit uncomfortable around the waist for some reason, and pulled on a brown feathery sweater. Bursting out of the room she asked Bill for a belt. He conjured one right in front of her as if it was no big deal, actually it wasn't really any more, and handed it her. She immediately put it on, asking him what the hell were wrong with these pants.
"There's nothing wrong with them. I'm letting you borrow mine." That explained a lot. She groaned annoyed. Something else to remind her of the whole puberty shit going on. Shaking her head she avoided that conversation and looked for her shoes, which they had stuffed in a plastic bag by her bed. She assumed they had one of those emergency checks on her when Bill took her in. Clawing them out of the bag she flung herself onto the bed, franticly shoving her shoes on (that now had the added aroma of trash), and jumped to her feet.
"Okay. Let's get the hell out of here." Bill got up quickly at that comment.
"What about those papers?"
"Screw the papers Bill, I don't really exist in this place anyway, do you feel like paying a hospital bill? Kaiba smiled a brief sly grin and stood to his feet, dusting himself off, and prepared himself to get out. An obvious no. Bill shifted a moment, uncomfortably, looking totally unsure.
"…Fine. But one thing." His eye lids flipped shut and a green wad of American bills appeared into his hands, which he placed on the papers and stuffed into the slot holding her files about injuries and stuff and followed them to the door. Bakura bit his lip nervously; brown eyes full of worry, as Ann opened the door a jar and peered through, looking both ways, and finally beckoning them through into the hall. Kaiba didn't bother to tell them it was a waste of time, because it really wasn't, since he had Serenity after him. Thinking about it sent a bit of horrific laughter scratching at her throat as they sped walked through the crowds, looking a lot like visitors, except Ann with the few bruises on her face and looking at her hand (the one sliced on Kakra's blade) now a white line, only another scar to worry about. So much for stitches. The skin covered it up like freaking cancer, healing it in about two days instead of six weeks. Even flexing her hand, the palm was completely healed up, some kind of flipping miracle, making her more scared of it than joyous. Shaking her head a bit annoyed a small tingling at the back of her head; she dismissed it as an on coming headache and started hurriedly to the bright double doors to freedom. Only to have it blocked by the group of wandering girls who immediately froze at the sight of Bakura's unmistakable white haired bolts.
"Ah shit." Ann started as she felt Bakura's eyes go wide behind her, darting for the quickest exit when Bill looked at her to Bakura to Kaiba (looking completely bored at the time), to the girls.
"Let me handle this." Bill walked out to the space in between them, right in the middle, and stood a moment.
Now, if you had known Bill particularly well before he had went traveling into the anime world like Ann did, you would've know that no girl in her right mind would ever thing of him a handsome or cute. Just annoying and geeky at first glance, a reason why Ann had found him so like able when she had first met him way back when, a time she could scarcely remember except to be a hilarious joke she had over heard in the fourth grade that came from him. Her twisted sense of logic, which she had inherited from reading so many fiction books, told her that those kinds of people were the best to trust, since most people over looked them. She was an over looked person so she should know. The people that keep themselves unseen, which was their best talent and greatest flaw about them, they always had it. Why she had been scared shitless by Yugi on the bus that day about a year ago, watching his eyes watching them as they did everyone else. But Bill was busy now using his gift/flaw to his advantage on these girls, to expect them to run away or look disgusted with him and run off making fun of him or just plain scared. A reason why she had all the confidence and assurance knocked out of him when from out of nowhere from the back of the group some girl said something so loudly it was almost unnatural for a girl to even talk about in the open.
"He's cute!" His face when suddenly white and turned about to Bakura (looking the same pasty color knowing the inevitable torture had finally arrived) Bill's voice croaked with complete understanding what Bakura was going through for the every first time in his short life.
"Run guys." Bakura was out of the hall faster than lightning with Bill at his back, sprinting for there lives as the girls ran past Ann and Kaiba,( both blinking with surprise) the crowd not noticing them as they shouted things that disturbed Ann's tomboyish mind.
"God they sound like my sister." Kaiba rolled his eyes and followed the crowd at a slow pace, disgruntled and very close to being beyond pissed off at this charade as he stepped lightly forward with that bad ass attitude flickering under his skin and through his eyes. Ann followed with the greatest caution, knowing that she shouldn't get him at all angry at this point. The consequences would be catastrophic.
His trench coat swished evilly behind him, like in the movie The Matrix; in that scene were Neo walks in with all the guns to save Morpheous, yeah that one. She expected him to pull out those sunglasses and suddenly do some karate or something but remembered she was dealing with Cartoons, not action movies. Sighing, they stumbled upon both boys frantically sprinting back at them, Bill somehow in the lead, and then tripping and sliding onto the floor, sending Bakura down on him from behind to Kaiba's boots in a cluttered out-of-breath mess. Kaiba lifted his fogged up jet black boots and casually walked over them and stood right in front of the mob of girls, now stopping three feet away from Kaiba, looking startled at his appearance, and regained their wits and started glaring at him.
"What do you want?" Asked a blonde girl with a high ponytail, wearing lots of pink eye shadow and looking every much like a cheerleader. Kaiba leaned his stern grim face almost two inches in front of her's, ducking since she was a lot shorter than him, and breathed at her evilly.
"Get your damn friends the hell out of here. Now." He got a girlish glare and her small nose turned up at him, but still she was smart enough to know when she could win a fight and lose one, and simply stamped off from the distasteful scene. The mob looked at her then to Kaiba's pissed off face, and decided to go with her. A series of angry groans and glares sounded as each girl stamped off defeated, hating Seto Kaiba more than ever. Ann, mean while, was actually happy with him for that one rare moment. Bakura gave him the biggest look of gratitude in his whole entire life and kept giving him murmured thank yous as Bill almost attempted to kiss him with over joyed laughter practically shouting words of praise at him. Kaiba shook them off and gave Bakura the smallest 'think nothing of it' he could say and told Bill to shut up as they trotted off and out the door easily for once.
Fresh air filled Ann's lungs as she took the first step out onto the pavement, wanting to raise her arms up at the first gust of wind that greeted her warmly. Her hair rose up and scattered around, messing it up and pushing it into her eyes, as did Bakura, but Kaiba and Bill were unaffected since there hair was too short. Instead her hands were placed behind her head and her elbows forced out, her arms looking like triangles, as another friendly gust took the flapping parts of her clothing and showed the figure underneath for what it truly was. She was glad no one was watching and with a blushed expression pressed her arms around her to keep that from happening again and walked on with the group, wondering if Yami and Yugi and the others were still sitting in the hospital. If they were, I think they'd know by now that it was a quick get away and probably were they were headed. When Bill took the wrong turn and the opposite way to his house Ann's curiosity suddenly flared with wonderment.
"Where are we going?"
"To get some fast food, a public place near the heart of the city so we can get everywhere we might need to go in a quick way."
"Why?" Bill gave her a sly look as Kaiba looked at the street signs boredly, his hands shoved deep in his trench coat.
"I need Kaiba to hunt through some records on the internet, mostly likely hack into if you want the truth with his handy dandy laptop." Kaiba glared at him and quickly tried to kick him square in the back of his shin, but Bill nimbly jumped away.
"What for?" Ann asked perplexed more than ever.
"I need to find some records…of every male in all the hospitals in the city in the past two days that has been treated for a broken arm…" Ann immediately knew what he was up to at that, and smiled at his old sense of cunning.
"How do you know they'll use a hospital for treatment?" Bakura asked, "Why not just use magic or heal him in the ancient ways?" that was a good question.
"Well…I didn't _say_ he was in a hospital at any point. I just want to get an advantage if they deiced to get sloppy in there get aways. Better to stop them sooner than later. Less chaos that way." Bakura and Ann nodded with agreement; Kaiba just ignored them as usual.
"What place?"
"Out in the open. They won't attack in broad day light in a busy crowd around us, too many wandering eyes; we should be safer there than picked off in some dark alley. We need to wait for rush hour, and then in the mob I can shake everyone off and get to the house safely."
"Why not just kick there asses?" Ann asked, knowing Joey would've liked to ask that question if he was here.
"With you in _that_ condition? I doubt you could even sock me with a good punch or the tiniest spell your mind could make. Ammon says you need to rest your soul, to replenish it before you run off into the depths of battle. At least you'll have a better chance of winning that way." Okay, she would admit that all of that was true, mournfully yes but she admitted it in her mind. However, her head was starting to buzz pretty bad now, feeling like her head was beginning to split in two she lightly placed her hand on the back of her skull to stop its annoying sound. It was a while before anyone noticed her eyes squinted up with pain.
"Hey are you okay?" Bill's voice inquired.
"No… it just feels like someone is hacking my skull apart with a chainsaw… would _You_ be okay?" This was starting to hurt like hell, feeling it in throbs as something in the back of her head wiggled deeper, stopped a moment, and pressed onward into her brain. It was slowly getting worse.
"…Not a worm digging in headache…Right?"
"No…"
"Oh shit."
"What?" Her eyes shot open, to a blurred dark world and Bill's worried expression, standing right in front of her.
"Okay. Ammon told me about one of these. Okay…Okay, Listen to me. Someone is trying to hack into your mind…like a computer hard drive… you need to but a fire wall up." Ann's jaw dropped but re clenched with a sudden bolt of pain. Of all the times to hack into her own skull it had to be now. Sighing annoyed she looked at Bill for further instruction.
"Clear your mind. Quick. Then think of a brick wall. Doing it before they get whatever info they're after, that is if they haven't found it already…" Ann ignored his last comment and franticly cleared her head, recalling only for haft a second that she had read something like this in a Stephen King book once, and started to build a brick wall fast. The pain lessened, making her sigh with some relief. Then she felt suddenly blown back as the wall practically bursted and a brief flash of a huge smile appeared before a horrible pain filled every bit of her nerves and almost sent her tumbling down before she regained herself and felt it reseed and she turned back to normal, or she should've. No. Something had just made it's self cushy in her own mind, somewhere in the many doors that she had created. Something was wrong.
"Ann? Is it gone? Are you a hundred percent okay?"
"No."
"Is it… eating any of you…?" It was a startling question that Ann preserved as a no, she felt like she was all there, there was just something extra camping out in her third door now, she could feel it moving around in there, reaching for all her secret thoughts. She suddenly turned boiling mad.
"Get the hell out." She whispered, wondering if it would work, listening to Bill take a worried step back.
"Ann?" He was clearly wondering if she was she.
"Yeah. I'm still here. It's just in my damn thoughts, reading everything."
"Which ones?" Ann hesitated, aware of Bakura's and Kaiba's presence. Nut what choice did she have?
"In the Daydream ones." Bill sighed with some relief.
"Can you keep it in there?"
"No. It smashed my wall to pieces. How the hell do you expect me to keep it locked up?" She spat at him, feeling very crazy just sanding there listening to Bill calmly talking about something horrible.
"I dunno, it's your mind… I suggest you go talk with it, at least get it to stall while I get Ammon."
"…Alright." Better go to see what's she's dealing with and just sit there and dread it. Concentrating she plunged herself out into her daydream door and peered through the eye hole her mind created, looking at a brown eye just like her's, making her leap back in some surprise on the soft grass.
"Hello? Ann? Are you out there?" She blinked with complete and udder shock and gripped the handle of the door fast as it started to turn.
"Who the hell are you?!" It wasn't Bakura's other half, it wasn't even her own, and most certainly wasn't Marik or Malik. Yet it was familiar, which in any case scared the shit out of her.
"Ann! So that is you! Come on let me out or come in. We need to talk in private." The voice was cooing her, a bubbly giggle almost convincing her to open the door, almost. She fought it and kept her hands clenched down on the knob in total fear. But the other force was stronger.
"Oh come now Ann. I'm stronger than you. I made you that way." Ann's hands froze as she turned to the door with utter surprise.
"Who the fuc-"
"We don't have much time. I've come to tell you some things."
"What things?" Ann inquired through the door, scared beyond shitless, eyes darting from the eye hole to the door knob. A chuckle sounded from the other side.
"Stubborn. Come on. Don't be afraid of me…let's talk…while I still have time."
"You hack into my head and read my most secret of thoughts. Give me one good reason why I should trust you!!!" She was using her angry to cover up her fear now, puffing hard to keep the knob from turning. There was a brief silence.
"Because, Annora, I've saved your life a number of times, your honor code says that you at least have to pay me back." That "Code" had been a secret, not in that room at all, not in any room, but kept in her pocket on her dream self standing there dumbfounded.
"…How the hell do you know that?! How in god's name can you know that?!"
"Open the door Ann… and I can tell you everything."
BookDragon: "Bet you didn't see that coming."
Bill: "Tell her if it sucks with a review okay?"