The Epilogue

      Or

"Thank God it's over… what do you mean there's an epilogue?  Dammit, literature…"

            Bakura sat in the sun.  He was on the beach in the private island he had conned from the Dark, Foul, Evil Sorceress of Chaos and Destruction.  He wore a bathing suit, sunglasses, and the Millennium Ring.  On one side of him lay thousands upon thousands of Twinkies, while on the other side was a veritable mountain of ice cream.  Every so often he would take a scoop from the ice cream and eat it, then transform into his Yami, who would eat a Twinkie, then transform back.  Mostly, though, they just sat there working on their tan, and watching the actual pirates who had come with the island have a naval battle.

            ~Bakura?~  Evil Bakura thought lazily. 
            Yes, Yami?

            ~How much money are we worth?~
            $576,930,002, Yami.

            ~Ah.  I thought so.~

            Due to a slight mix up in the financial records (What with KaibaCorp. changing hands twice in one day), all the money Bakura had made conning… er, selling products to… people had gone DIRECTLY into his own bank account.  With that in mind, Evil Bakura was willing to overlook the fact that he hated his counterpart desperately.

            ~So, Bakura.  What do you say we make those pirates fight to the death for our own amusement, then throw all this junk food away and buy NEW junk food for no other reason than to flaunt our wealth?~

            Bakura thought about that for a moment.

            You know, I really don't see any reason why not.

            And the Sun continued to shine.

                                                                        ***

            Cutting-edge KaibaCorp. VP Mai put her feet up on her new desk and smiled in satisfaction.  Sure, her hostile takeover of Industrial Illusions had no hope of succeeding, but just the fact that she was able to attempt to make such a takeover made her feel pretty good.  She glanced over at Mokuba, who was playing with a GameBoy Advance™ (It's Advanced!) after getting his stuff out of his (now Mai's) office, and said,  "Hey, sorry I took your job, kid,"

            Mokuba chuckled.  "The funniest thing about it is that Seto thinks it's a punishment.  He basically just took away my only responsibility on the planet and made me back into a spoiled rich kid who has everything handed to him.  Oddly enough, I don't feel too worried about it," that pleasant little grin turned into an eerily (Seto) Kaiba-like smirk.  "Of course, doesn't mean I won't pay him back…"

            Suddenly, from somewhere else in the building, a blood-curdling shriek could be heard, followed by "NOOOOOOOO!  WHERE DID IT GO?!?"

            Mai's eyebrows raised.  "What did you do to him?"

            "Hee, hee… well, I found him passed out at his desk hugging his deck a little while ago, and I slipped one of the Blue-Eyes out and hid it under his coaster.  He'll find it eventually, but until then…"

            "WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!" 

Mai chuckled.  "Poor schmuck.  But at least now he won't notice the money I took out of the company funds to buy a new limo…"

Mokuba wiped a tear from his eyes.  "In my job for three hours and already embezzling Seto's money to buy stuff that looks cool… I'm so proud…"

"WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT…"

Mokuba and Mai shared a little chuckle at Kaiba's expense.

"WAIT A SECOND… MOKUBA!"

            Mokuba's eyes widened in terror.  "Aw, nuts." He said, and sprinted out of the room.  A few seconds later, a door exploded as Seto ran out of the staircase without opening it and thundered after his little brother.

            Mai smiled, and got out her new cell phone, wondering vaguely how long it would take for the new shoes she had ordered to arrive.  In the meantime, she planned to make a little call to the Stock agency.  Sporks Incorporated was really on the rise…

            In the lobby, KaibaCorp. Executive #5 entered the building, said hi to the receptionist, helped Security fight off a giant rat that had somehow snuck in through the ventilation system, and shuddered at the sight of the S.S.S.S.S.S as they were led off in a cage back to their silo.  Creepy things.  The second they found out they were going back into lockup, they had quite suddenly just ridden off in all directions and began attacking random people.  #5 supposed that was one of the drawbacks of employing a brigade of soulless demons.

            Suddenly, Mokuba Kaiba sprinted through the lobby and burst through the front door.  He was followed by his brother, who burst through a wall… literally…looking angrier than #5 had seen him in at least an hour. 

            "WHERE IS MY BLUE EYES WHITE $%^)$(*%$) DRAGON YOU STUPID LITTLE GEEK?!" He roared.

            #5's jaw dropped.  "Y'know," he said to no one in particular,  "I'm beginning to question the wisdom of giving control of a multi-billion dollar corporation to a man who can't keep track of his playing cards."

                                                                        ***

            Yugi gazed in awe at the results of his great work.  It had taken hours and hours, but through the use of some stolen construction equipment, he had done BETTER than repair his old house.  He had REPLACED it. 

            It helped that Tons of Fun cubes were made of very soft metal, and mostly hollow.  It also helped that Yugi apparently had a natural talent for operating heavy machinery. 

            "LO, and BEHOLD!  I HAVE UNEARTHED THE GREAT CUBE OF DESTRUCTION, AND THROUGH THE MIRACLE OF MODERN METAL- CUTTING TECHNOLOGY, HAVE TRANSFORMED IT INTO A PLACE OF DWELLING!"  Yugi proclaimed to the world.  He had simply used his stolen crane to resurrect the mostly buried cube, and then used his stolen blowtorch to cut a makeshift door.  True, the metal cube had no furniture, no windows, no light, no water, and it did not connect to the remainder of his old house.  It was… well… just a bare metal cube.  But the point was that YUGI had unearthed it, that YUGI had carved into it a great and mighty door.

            After all this ridiculous week, I have created a true accomplishment for my very self!  I, working alone, have made a useless and idiotic cube into a place in which to live, a marvelous home!  I feel like a new man!  Nevermore shall I allow myself to be walked over, and stepped on!  No, no more being a doormat for Yugi!  From now on, I am in control! 

            "DO YOU HEAR THAT, WORLD?!  I, YUGI MOTOH, AM NO LONGER YOURS TO STEP ON ULF!"

As Yugi proclaimed his new confidence to the universe, he was immediately run over by Mokuba.  "Ow…" Yugi said.  "Okay, maybe ONE more person will step on meUGH!" finished as Kaiba, emitting a wordless roar of pure fury, stomped him. 

For what seemed like the millionth time that week, Yugi sighed sadly.  "Never.  Mind."

                                                            ***

Tristan, in his hospital bed, emerged from nearly five hours of deep thought. 

"Yes," he said, satisfied with the results of his intellectual journey,  "Opening that package marked 'letter bomb' was definitely a bad idea,"

                                                            ***

Malik sighed in relief.  Finally, he had gotten away from his sister… AND he'd managed to lose those horrible rat things by reaching up through a manhole to grab at a random passerby to use as a distraction. 

Now all he had to do was spend a few months in a sewer until Isis calmed down.  He'd lived through Isis for years, and this hadn't even been her worst tantrum (The time he'd accidentally spilled ketchup on her favorite robes, she'd obliterated several small African nations hunting him down), he was pretty sure that if he could just stay away until she cooled off a little bit, she probably wouldn't slaughter him like an animal.

So he just sat, and contemplated exactly how lucky he was to be alive.  It wasn't the almighty power of the Ancient Pharaoh, which was really why he'd come to Domino in the first place, but he'd take what he could get.  In the meantime, maybe he could build some kind of shack in one of the alcoves down here…

Suddenly, a small person with dark, spiky hair dropped down from one of the manholes.  He got up and looked around like a frightened rabbit before Malik recognized him as Mokuba Kaiba.

"Older… sibling… gone… nuts…" Mokuba gasped frantically.

"Join the club, kid."

                                                            ***

I would love to tell you what Yami and Tea were doing, but this story is rated PG-13.

                                                            ***

Joey, camping out in the park, sat up with a start.  "Hey… I just realized that other than losing my house, nuthin' real bad has happened to me this week!  It wasn't a really nice house… not a big loss at all!  Yeah, I'd say that this went pretty well."

::CLUCK!::

Eyes wide with fear, Joey turned around.  Standing behind him were several very angry, very FAMILIAR looking chickens.  Some of the chickens looked a little beat up (Joey had put up a good fight last time), but on the whole they seemed healthy.  And unhappy.

"Aw, crap." Joey said.  He turned to the author.  "Just couldn't resist, could ya?"

Author:  Hey, you asked for it. 

"Y'know, I'm starting to see why Yami hates you so much."

Author:  If I were you, I'd start running.

Joey ran for his life.  The chickens, clucking maniacally, followed.

The author sat down on the bench and kicked up his heels.  

Author's Note:

Wow, it's really over this time.  Well, except for the sequel.  Thanks to everyone who reviewed; you guys rock.  Some of you scared me a little bit, but I was very happy to note that not one of you gave me a review that I would describe as truly negative.  Telling an author that there isn't much about their work that you would change is the best compliment imaginable. 

            As I mentioned previously, when I (or rather, my sister) post the first chapter of the as-yet-unnamed sequel, I (or rather, my sister, again) will post a message here telling you so you don't miss it.  I don't know when that will be. 

            For now, consider this:  In the anime, the Deckmaster that the character named NOAH chose was an ARK.  I laughed for a solid five minutes the first time I saw that.

            God, I hope Noah dies soon.

Reviewer Awards:  I love all my reviewers equally, but these few particular reviewers have earned themselves a special spot in the hall of fame! 

The 'You Write More Than Is Healthy' Award:  This award goes to pruningshears, for writing OVER TWENTY REVIEWS, one of which was approximately THREE HUNDRED WORDS LONG.  A lot of these words were taken from my author's note, but that is still a beastly review.  Now that's dedication, people.

The 'Flattery Will Get You Everywhere' Award-  who could this go to but KhusaruMeseiko?  Other people said they were laughing their asses off or rolling around on the floor, but Khusaru here told me Game Over was 'the Best Story ever written' and that I was a better author than Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.  Aw, I'm blushing…

The 'Huh?' Award-  Goes to Jeshone for these little gems (and I'm putting this in verbatim):

 'Sir, not only are you a saint, but you take something absolutely hilarious and you grabbed its nipples and dragged it kicking and screaming to a whole new level, thank you, you treat the characters in a manner which brings out their true funny potential'.

                                                            -and-

'Thank you for that chapter you are the man, when I read your updates in this story its like a small piece of heaven came down and kicked my ass.  thanks'.

… … … oh. 

The 'WHY DIDN'T I THINK ABOUT THAT?! Award-  This one goes to Nihilist Billy, who suggested I should harass Johnny Steps, the guy who Tea had a dance-off with in one of the filler episodes between Duelist Kingdom and Battle City.  And dammit, he was RIGHT!  But by the time the review came in, the story was already so close to the end that I couldn't fit Johnny in! How could I have forgotten to make fun of that idiot?!  I suppose he just didn't really matter, so I totally forgot about him.  But I'll get him next time.  Ohhhhhhhhhh yes…

The 'You really deserved SOMETHING' award-  Shadow Dragonia… you just didn't write as much as pruningshears.  But you gave a lot of reviews, and I like reviews, so I thought you should get a meaningless, pointless reward that has no physical substance or value.  Just like all the other rewardees!

Thank you, all my loyal reviewers.  I hope to see you again for the sequel… and remember, just because it's the last chapter doesn't mean you can't write new reviews!  And next time, bring a friend!