You know, I think I may be favouring Kaiba a little bit. Or . . . a lot. I can't help it. He is one cool guy. And writing dialogue between him and Joey just never gets boring. But, seeing as nobody has complained, I just keep doing it.
Anyway, this is the first half of a Christmas story within 'For I Am Pharaoh'. It's not particularly good, but I needed to set it up for the next chapter, which WILL be good. Pinky swear.
I don't own YuGiOh. Or Santa Claus. Or anything else for that matter.
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For I Am Pharaoh------------------------------------
Chapter After The Freak Chapter Without The Word 'Chapter' In The Title
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So there they were. Nine individuals. A 'fellowship', if you will. Flying towards countries unknown, dangers unforetold, and explosions unexploded. It would prove to be a legend most epic, and worthy of remembrance. One of those stories that stayed with you, which really mattered.
Well, that's what I'd like you to think. However, this is not 'Lord of the Rings' and there will be no such honorable clap-trap in my fiction. Let's try this again.
~*~
"This plane is sooooo boring!"
"Actually, Joey, the plane is fine," sneered Kaiba. "It's the people inside it that are boring."
"You included, smart-ass," retorted Joey, flipping through Tristan's sewing magazine for the hundredth time.
"Joey, no matter how many times you search the knitting section, I can assure you that there won't be a bikini centerfold that you somehow missed the first hundred times."
"Yeah, well, we'll see about that. You'll be jealous when I find it."
It was nighttime, wherever they were. Or, wherever they were over. They had been flying smoothly for the past nine hours; quite a feat in itself really. Much as Kaiba hated to admit it, Yami had apparently mastered control of the plane. All that really meant was that he now needed a different excuse to hate the spirit. Seeing as he had a list five feet long of things he hated about Yami, that wasn't really a problem. He thought of another reason suddenly, and pulled out his huge list, writing it down.
"Yeah, his tango dancing annoys me too," Yugi quipped, hanging over the back of his seat to read the list. Kaiba was tempted to smack the little duelist around the head with it for interfering, but decided not to. He had, somehow, become far more tolerant of Yugi and his friends. Possibly in the face of being united under Yami's reign of pseudo-terror, or having to rely on them from time to time when he was blown through walls. In any case, he didn't beat Yugi up. How nice of Kaiba-boy.
"Don't call me Kaiba-boy."
Sorry.
"But you know what really bugs me about him?" asked Joey, reading the list from behind Kaiba. Suddenly, it seemed he had an audience. "It's his stupid stupidness."
Silence.
"That was very intelligent, Wheeler."
"You shut up."
"I get what you mean though," said Mokuba. "He really is kinda . . . stupid."
"In an evil, taking-over-the-world, ancient spirit kind of way," mused Tea.
"That doesn't excuse him," Joey snorted. "I mean, look at Bakura. He's an evil, taking-over-the-world, ancient spirit guy, and he's at least sort of smart."
"You flatter me," grumbled Bakura.
"Except when you're drunk. Then you're just plain nuts." There was a yelp and a thud as Joey mysteriously fell over unconscious to the ground. Mysterious, sure.
"In any case, what are we going to do?" asked Yugi. "We can't just follow Yami around to the ends of the earth like this. I don't think he has a damn clue what he's doing."
"Oh, that's a bit unfair. He's gotten much better at flying the plane at least." Everyone stared at the intolerably cheery Ryou. There was another yelp and thud as Ryou mysteriously fell down unconscious. Tristan gave Bakura a wary look.
"I don't want to know how you keep doing that . . . but thanks."
"My pleasure, mortal."
"Um, yes. But back to Yugi's question. What do you reckon we should do?"
"Gain control of the plane perhaps?"
"Tie up Yami!"
"Send out an S.O.S. on the radio system."
"Disobey him at every turn, even when it's bad for us!"
"Ancient Chinese water torture!"
"Newage Avril Lavigne music torture!"
"Futuristic Laserbeam burn torture!"
"Just plain torture!"
"Burn him alive!"
"Tear off his skin!"
"Disembowel his innards!"
"Shave off his hair!"
"Stab him with pens!"
"Ink poisoning!"
"Death by ferrets!"
"Let him rule the world!"
Everyone stopped as they realized who had just said the last thing. For there was Yami, standing nearby, near burning with anger. Or pissed-off-ness. Whichever. He looked at each one of them in turn with his vicious purple eyes. They were long past the point of flinching when El Mighty Pharaoh looked in their direction though so they just stared back at him.
"What exactly are you doing?" he asked slowly, sinisterly, savagely, sensuously . . . my, there are a lot of words starting with 'S' in the english language. Yugi averted his gaze, whistling an innocent tune, which somehow came out as the song 'I Shot The Sheriff' and so didn't work in his favour.
"We're reading Kaiba's list of personality traits he looks for in a girl!" Tea blurted out suddenly. Blinking, Yami peered over Kaiba's shoulder and started reading. Thankfully the top of the list was currently on the floor, buried under the main length of the list so the bluff was at least believable.
"I did not know you fancied girls who wore leather pants, Kaiba," said Yami in surprise. Kaiba just sort of squirmed in the seat, wishing like hell that the freak would go away before he managed to figure out what the list was really talking about. That, and he needed to go to the bathroom. "Anyway. I have come to inform you that we will be landing shortly."
"Really?" Mokuba asked happily, trying to ignore his brother's fidgeting. "Where're we landing?"
"I will tell you once we get there."
"Why can't ya tell us now?" griped Joey, who had just picked himself up off the floor. He gave Kaiba a weird look as the CEO jigged his foot up and down. Yami sighed, and everyone groaned. He was going into 'Lecture the idiot' mode.
"Now Joey," he started, taking the blonde aside but still speaking loud enough for half the planet to hear. "I have explained before about the confidentiality of this mission. It is holy, and of great importance to everyone. And me. Very important to me. Thus, we cannot allow any outsiders to gain this information. I have already gone farther than I should have by letting Bakura join our mission." Bakura snorted, paying little attention and cleaning his nails with a gigantic knife emblazoned with 'YAMI MUST DIE' on the side. "So you see, Joey, I cannot tell you, nor any of the others where we are heading. That information could lead to our downfall! And it must not! For I am Pharaoh, and this mission will succeed!"
"Say, Yami," Tristan drawled. "Who's flying the plane right now?" Yami blinked. Yugi blinked. Bakura blinked. Tea blinked. Kaiba fidgeted. Mokuba blinked. Ryou stayed unconscious. Joey blinked. Tristan smirked. Yami blinked. Twice.
"RA ABOVE!" he shouted in panic, tearing back into the cockpit to control the plane again. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Except Kaiba.
"GOD FREAKING DAMN!" he screamed before exploding out of his seat and running to the back of the plane, locking himself into the toilet.
"I guess those five years he spent since his last trip to the bathroom finally got to him," Mokuba said breezily.
~*~
Three hours later . . .
"I thought he said we'd be 'landing shortly'," moaned Tea. She had gotten quite considerably bored waiting for the plane to descend, and had mistaken a few wild loop-the-loops for landing procedures. By the fifth spin, it had become irritating.
"Yami's definition of 'shortly' got warped in those 5,000 years he spent locked in the puzzle," Yugi said, happily making paper airplanes out of Tristan's magazine. He tossed one at Joey, who caught it smoothly and began drawing on it with red texta.
"D'you ever think that he got stuck in the puzzle for a reason?" he wondered. Finished with his work of art, he hurled the plane back across the room to Yugi again.
"Sometimes I do . . . Oh Joey, ergh!" Yugi cried, getting a proper look at the paper plane. "What the hell is that supposed to be?"
"It's a naked woman!"
"I think your definition of 'naked woman' got warped by hentai manga," he said queasily, throwing the offending object to Joey again.
"You wonder why the Pharaoh was sealed in the Puzzle?" came Bakura's voice. Yugi glanced over to him, sitting atop of the (still) unconscious Ryou and fiddling with a Swiss Army knife.
"Do you know why he was?" Bakura brandished the nail clippers part of the knife.
"Indeed I do. And as you'd expect, it was because he was one annoying f**k."
"I hear that," said Tristan, snatching his precious sewing magazine out of Yugi's hands.
"Even his High Priest couldn't stand him. 'Seto, fetch me a drink. No, that is not cold enough. Put ice in it. More. More. No, that is too much. Take it away. Make me a Bloody Mary.' Psh," he snorted. "Fool didn't even realise those hadn't been invented in Ancient Egypt."
"Wait, you mean Kaiba was Yami's High Priest?" Joey exclaimed. He dropped his porn-plane and payed full attention to the Tomb Robber.
"Indeed. I'd wager that's why he constantly fights with our dear Pharaoh so viciously. Old habits die hard; or in his case, not at all."
"I feel sorry for the bastard, having to spend two lifetimes with that jerk. Say," he said in a different tone, looking around. "Where is Kaiba? I haven't seen him in a while."
"He's still in the toilet," answered Mokuba, indicating the back of the plane with his thumb. "He'll be a while. Trust me."
"Maybe he's just hiding from Yami. Hey Kaiba!" Joey shouted. "Room in there for two?" There was a muffled shout of 'No, piss off!' from the back of the plane, to which Joey just shrugged. "Oh well. I wouldn'ta joined him anyway. Just because he's slightly less annoying than Yami doesn't make him any less of an annoying asshole." 'I heard that," came Kaiba's voice again.
"Wait a second," Yugi said, peering out of the window. "I think we really are going down this time." Indeed, there was a definite list to the plane's angle.
"We aren't going down like last time, are we?" asked Tea apprehensively.
"Don't think so. We aren't on a 90 degree angle at least." Suddenly, the seatbelt lights snapped on overhead.
"You're kidding," Joey said, staring at the lights. "He kept the friggin' warning lights on his battle-equipped fighter jet?" Yugi just shrugged and put on his seatbelt obediently. Everyone else returned to their seats (which they'd begun to regard as home, pretty much, seeing as they'd been in them for at least a week now. Tea had hung up some pretty flowers in her chair, Joey had decorated his with . . . um . . . stuff similar to his porn plane, and Bakura's seat had been swallowed by darkness some time ago and just looked like a black hole on the left side of the plane.)
There was a bang as the toilet door opened and Kaiba staggered out after his seriously long absence. He managed to make it back to his seat before collapsing into it, shaking. "Are you okay, big brother?" Mokuba asked, tugging at his sleeve. Face covered by his hand, Kaiba just panted for a bit.
"Yes . . . just . . . give me a minute . . . god . . . that was . . . feh . . ." Mokuba gave him a self-righteous look.
"Well maybe next time you shouldn't hold it for so long."
"Shut . . . up . . ." Crackling ominously, the speaker system came to life. There was merely static for a second, but everyone tensed in preparation for what would surely come next. Sure enough . . .
"WE HAVE ARRIVED!" shouted Yami into the speakers. "YOU WILL PROCEED IN AN ORDERLY FASHION OUT OF THE PLANE AND AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS. NO QUESTIONS ASKED. THAT MEANS YOU RYOU!" Ryou squeaked and put down his hand. "I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED YOUR FLIGHT."
"That last bit was uncalled for," Bakura muttered, emerging from his Black Seat Hole and making his way to the door. The others got out of their seats and joined him (Kaiba somewhat shakily). They paused for a minute. Did they really want to know where they were now? The door looked dangerous to them. Eventually Bakura scowled and went forward. "Cowards." He pushed out of the door and down the steps.
Well, seeing as gunshots or wild jungle natives didn't assault them, they could safely assume they weren't in any immediate danger. However something else became apparent the instant Bakura opened the door.
"It's damn cold!" Tristan cried, trying to step back into the plane but running into Tea along the way.
"Get out there Tristan," she snapped, kicking the taller boy right out of the door. Tristan landed with a soft whump outside . . . in a mound of snow. Tea stared. "Snow? But it was nowhere near cold enough for snow back at Duellist Kingdom."
"This ain't Duellist Kingdom then," Joey said, staring around. He didn't get to see much as the blinding snowstorm raging around them got right into his eyes after one second. "I'm blind!" he screeched, failing his arms around. "I'm blind, blind! Serenity, I feel your pain!"
"Fool," said Bakura before booting Joey from behind. Joey toppled through the air and landed right on top of Tristan.
"Now now, Bakura, there's no need to kick people ou-" Before Tea could finish her sentence, she found herself ass-up in the snow next to Joey. She was closely followed by Ryou, Yugi, Mokuba and Kaiba. Bakura watched in amusement as they all struggled to stand up, only sinking right down in the snow or whacking each other in the head. He smirked. "Now, only the incompetent Pharaoh remains. I will dispose of him, then fly this vessel back to Japan. Bakura one, losers zero."
Turning, he went back into the plane to look for Yami. Barging into the cockpit like it was his God-given right, he found Yami still in the pilot's chair reading something that was shielded from view.
"Pharaoh, I-"
"Silence!" Yami snapped, cutting Bakura off in mid-sentence. Fuming (how dare he do that to him? He hadn't participated in those motivational speaking classes for nothing!) Bakura stalked up to Yami and grabbed him by the shoulders.
"You will not order me around you arrogant-"
"Do you see this?" Yami asked, waving a piece of paper in the Tomb Robber's face without any regard for what he had been saying. Seeing as he was waving it around at hyper speed, Bakura could safely say "No," because it was just a white blur. "This," huffed Yami, "is the reason I have landed here. Read it!"
Yami shoved the paper in Bakura's face. Despite himself, he started to read it anyway. He would smite the fool after he'd read it. On the paper were two emails, the second apparently a response to the first one. They read like so:
To: santaclaus@northpole.org.np
From: bestpharaoh1@worldrulers.co.jp
Subj: Demands.
To Mr. Claus,
My partner has told me a great many things about you. About how you are able to gift people with anything they wish, if they should ask for it. Your powers are obviously great and many. He also said that I needed to ask you nicely, in a form of correspondence such as this, for the items I desire. You will deliver the following to me, not on Christmas Day, but as soon as possible:
-6 Millenium Items (1 Ring, 1 Tauk, 1 Rod, 1 Scales, 1 Ankh and 1 Eye)
-4,000 able-bodied servants (3:1 ratio of men to women)
-10 nuclear missiles
-1 copy of 'Dr. Evil's Guide to Thwarting Your Nemesis'
-17 deeds of ownership to the world's most powerful nations
-300+ deeds of ownership to the other countries in the world
-Bakura's head on a silver platter
-Marik's head on a silver platter
-Kaiba's head on a silver platter
-Phenomenal cosmic powers
-Command over the universe
-1 bag of choc-chip cookies
I expect your compliance within the hour. Regards,
Yami, Pharaoh
And the second email:
To: bestpharaoh1@worldrulers.co.jp
From: santaclaus@northpole.org.np
Subj: Re: Demands
To Mr. Yami,
No.
Santa Claus.
Bakura blinked and read over the list again. Clearly this Santa Claus was a smart man. Jumping to his feet, Yami swept out of the cockpit without a word. Startled, Bakura ran after him. "Hey, I'm not done with you yet, Pharaoh!"
"We shall," Yami said loudly, once again ignoring Bakura, "go meet with this Santa Claus and extract the reason for his refusal. He will regret the day he crossed the Pharaoh! Nobody says no to me!" He slammed open the door again and stepped outside.
And fell smack down into the snow.
Bakura peered out after him, noting that the stairs had somehow disappeared. Coughing and spluttering, Yami managed to drag himself out of the 5-foot deep hole he'd made and shook the snow off himself.
"Accursed stuff," he grumbled, kicking at the innocent snow. "It is impossible to walk on, or indeed do anything with." He heard a slight sound behind him and was turning to see what it was when a heap of snow whammed into his face. Yami shrieked and fell backwards into the hole again, drilling down another 5-feet. Bakura chuckled, bouncing his remaining snowball in his hand and throwing it straight at Yami's pants. You know what I mean.
Skirting around the ridiculous Pharaoh, Bakura casually walked up to where the others were. Or had been last time he saw them. They were buried under a fair bit of snow by now. He began the annoying process of digging them out. Finding Yugi first, he grasped the boy by the ankle and yanked him out roughly. Yugi landed with a "Oof!" and blinked up at Bakura. "Um, thanks," he gasped, getting back to his feet. "Where's Yami?"
"Getting personal with the snow," answered Bakura over the noise of Yami's screaming and cursing. "I suggest you help me retrieve the others before he finishes having his hissy fit."
"Why?" Yugi asked, starting to scrabble at the snow anyway.
"So that we can have at least 5 seconds to plan before he comes back and takes over again."
"Oh, fair enough." Yugi came up with what looked like Tristan's arm, and tugged hard until he'd gotten him halfway out. "Come on Tristan, you do the rest, you weigh a bloody tonne."
"I do not," he said in an offended tone, struggling his way out to stand next to Yugi. "You're just really really small. Uh, what is Bakura doing?" Yugi turned to where Tristan was looking. Bakura stared at the snow for a few seconds, then plunged his arm in swiftly. A screaming Ryou came flying out and crashed a few feet behind him.
"He's uh . . . getting the others out. In a less pleasant way than I'm doing." They stared again as Joey whipped past overhead and banged into the side of the plane, falling down. "Let's try and save one of them from him at least."
Sadly, Tristan and Yugi only managed to retrieve Kaiba between them, with Bakura 'rescuing' the rest. It took them ten whole minutes to pull Kaiba, shaking harder than ever and faintly blue, out of the snowdrift. In that time Bakura had flung Mokuba and Tea out as well and proceeded to slap them awake.
The troops of Yami stood in a circle, freezing their collective asses off as Bakura told them what Yami had shown him.
"That idiot," Joey groaned. "As if Santa would give him all that crap. He's out of his mind."
"Gee, what was your first clue?" retorted Tea, hugging herself tightly in an attempt to ward off the blizzard. Joey got a strange look on his face and moved around, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. He received a swift punch to the face for his efforts. "Not on your life, bud."
"But you're suffering!" he whined.
"I'll suffer on my own, thanks."
"Y-you all act as th-though Santa is r-real," Kaiba said jerkily, teeth chattering. He'd accidentally left his white duster back on the plane, and seeing as he's such a tall skinny bugger he was worse off than the others.
"Well he is real," said Yugi, squirming up close to Joey for warmth. "I mean magic is real, why not Santa?"
"Yeah, he's just as real as the Loch Ness monster, mermaids and Godzilla," Joey said, nodding resolutely. Kaiba just shook his head at the idiocy of it all and held Mokuba closer.
"So what'll we do?" sniffed Ryou, clinging to his yami. Bakura growled but didn't slap him away. He'd make an exception just this once. But only because he was bloody freezing and Ryou was warm. That was the only reason. Yes.
He isn't fooling us though, is he kids?
"We should warn him," said Tristan.
"Who, Godzilla?"
"Don't be a dumbass, Joey. We should warn Santa about Yami before he comes."
"That sounds good to me," agreed Tea, stomping on Tristan's foot as he tried to snuggle up. Mokuba looked up at Kaiba expectantly.
"Can we Seto? Can we warn Santa?"
"F-fine. But I r-refuse to let you ask f-for that Nelly Furtado CD from him."
"Aw Seto . . ."
"Don't you 'Aw Seto' me."
"But how will be find him in all this?" Yugi asked, waving his hand at the blizzard and snow. They stood in thought for a moment, but were interrupted by a shout of 'Aha, I have a foothold! Snow, you shall be defeated!" Bakura looked over to where Yami was anxiously.
"There's no time for this. We shall have to split up and find Santa's workshop. Hopefully one group will make it before Yami does." At that, they split up into groups of two: Yugi and Tea, Joey and Tristan, Ryou and Bakura, Kaiba and Mokuba. They each picked a vague direction and plowed off through the snow, almost instantly losing sight of the others as they moved apart.
Ryou started to leave as well, but noticed Bakura wasn't moving. "Bakura?" he called out. Twitching, Bakura looked up at him.
"One moment." He then turned and marched up to the plane. Passing right by Yami's hole ('I can see the top! I will make it out of here!'), he stepped under the plane wing. Checking to make sure it was in the right place, he came back out from underneath. Pulling a BB gun from his pants, he took careful aim and shot at the wheels of the plane. After one hit, the plane groaned something terrible and toppled over. The wing Bakura had studied fell right across Yami's hole with a crash ('Oh Ra damn it!').
Nodding in satisfaction, he returned the BB gun to his pants (magically, there isn't really much room in his pants after all) and walked back over to Ryou.
"Let's go find this Santa Claus."
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Yay XD. It's off to Santa's workshop we go. Will they make it there before Yami does? Will they all die of frostbite in the snow like they would in real life? Why does Bakura keep a BB gun in his pants? All these questions will be answered next time!
. . . Except for the one about Bakura's BB gun. I'm not telling. Haha.
- Vappa