Ambitions from the Heart
Written by: TheDemonHuntress
Chapter 4: The Onslaught of Friendship
"He called you 'mediocre', you know," Mai said as we brushed through the city docks on a warm sunny afternoon. How often did the topic of Mr. President have to come up? I knew that Mai was trying to get me to crack under her pressure.
"He's not exactly the nicest guy around," I admitted. "And he hardly knows me- I don't really even know him, either."
"Listen, we can get that worked out," Mai suggested. "Like actually getting you two to talk…"
My eyes widened and I stopped walking abruptly. "Not another one of your plans… you want to force him to talk to me?"
"Well, if there isn't any other way…"
"There had better be," I said almost fearfully. "Because I'm not letting you do that."
"I will think about it," Mai said as she began to walk away. "You'll find out sooner or later!"
Great, I thought. I just let Mai get away with some evil plan of death. I remembered one of her plans that she designed for Tristan in order for Serenity to know how he felt about her. The result of that plan was Serenity thinking that Tristan was a freak. I couldn't even imagine what would happen now.
I caught up with Yugi and Joey later that day, letting them know what Mai had in store for me. Yugi just shrugged; Joey laughed.
Joey had some rather 'exciting' news- he and Kaiba worked out a duel in an hour. Apparently Mai had also caught word of this- no doubt off to tell Tea as well.
Meanwhile, inside Belinda's room…"Are you sure this is going to work?" Tea asked Mai uncertainly as the two girls were sifting through a rather messy room.
"How does she find anything in here?" Mai asked incredulously. "And yes, it will work. I know all the aspects of the plan!"
"Is this it?" Tea asked tentatively, holding up a box with only one hand. But she looked inside and found a moldy sandwich instead. "Ew- yuck, this isn't it…" She tossed the box into a corner.
"Aha!" Mai shouted triumphantly. And indeed there was reason to be triumphant. The two girls had survived searching through an extremely disorganized room that was filled with… stuff.
Tea sat down next to Mai, although it was hard to find somewhere to sit that wasn't occupied by other things. Mai handed Tea a pile of cards, while taking one for herself.
"These, Tea, are what we have been searching for," Mai said.
"But for what?" Tea asked as she looked through the Duel Monster cards.
"My ingenious plan, of course," Mai replied. "Just look for a card that looks cute- like something having to do with love."
"How about this?" Tea smiled as she showed Mai a Ryu-Kishin Powered card.
"Tea, be serious!" Mai said. "We might not have much time- who knows when she might come here?"
"Okay, okay!" Tea responded. "I still don't know what we're doing this for…"
"You will know soon enough." Mai took up another card pile, and immediately began searching through it.
"This, then," Tea said as she showed Mai a card.
"This is perfect!" Mai exclaimed as she took it. "Tea, you came through! Any duelist would think the same thing when they look at this card!"
It was the Tenderness card, a fairy-like monster that celebrated love between couples.
"So now can you tell me what this is all about?" Tea asked.
"Oh- yea, right…" Mai replied. "We are going to put this card into Kaiba's deck, where he will have to see it. You see, with Kaiba's new prototype, it'll let him know that there's an extra card in his deck before he duels Joey. That way, he'll probably look through his deck and find it! Even he's gonna know what it means…"
"Omigosh, Mai…" Tea protested. "We don't even know if she likes him!"
"Well… she will. We've just got to make it obvious that she'll be the one that he thinks about… it'll work, trust me. Just right now, let's worry about how to get this into his deck…"
Tea sighed. "Somehow I don't think that this will quite work…"
"Hey… what's this…?" Mai asked, as Tea was about to walk out the bedroom.
"What's what?" Tea asked, somewhat annoyed.
"This," Mai replied, closing the door of the bedroom before Tea could walk out.
What Mai's eyes caught behind the door to Belinda's room was a poster from a magazine. It had a picture of no one else but Kaiba himself in his trench coat, the poster announcing the beginning of Battle City a while ago.
"Can you believe she sleeps with this on her wall?" Mai asked, shocked.
"Forget that," Tea said. "Think about how long it's been up here!"
"I wonder if she keeps a diary?" Mai wondered.
"NO, Mai," Tea replied blankly. She pushed Mai out of the room. "It's bad enough that we busted into her room…"
In Duelist Corner…I was still worried about Mai's plan at the time Joey and Kaiba's duel was approaching. What were she and Tea doing in the past hour? I hadn't seen either of them since Mai had put her plan into action. Meanwhile, I was waiting for Joey and Kaiba's duel to begin.
"That creep better not be late!" Joey shouted impatiently as the time of the duel came and passed. And there was still no indication that Kaiba was coming, either.
"He'll be here," I reassured him. "He wouldn't back out of a duel that he accepted."
Suddenly, Mai and Tea appeared from a street corner. They were very suspicious at the moment to me. But they still walked towards me as if they hadn't done anything.
"Where have you guys been?" I asked once they approached.
"We were out… shopping." Mai's eyes darted around the city.
"Oh, really." I looked at my two friends skeptically. "What about your plan, then? I don't see any shopping bags with you."
"Don't be so silly," Tea said a bit nervously. "We- we dropped them off at the game shop."
"Uh-huh." I decided not to push the discussion any further; I wouldn't get any answers out of Tea or Mai.
"Whah!" Joey shouted out from down the street.
The reason for his sudden shout became clear as a ladder fell down from the sky, coming out of a helicopter. It also became evident whom it was that was coming down, as the letters 'KC' came into view on it.
Kaiba landed neatly on the ground next to Joey, despite his hold on his heavy suitcase. I looked around and was infuriated to see that Mai and Tea had both again disappeared. My God, what were they up to?
"It's good to see that you didn't back out, Wheeler," Kaiba said as he caught his breath. "Are you ready to humiliate yourself?"
"Actually, I thought that it was you wantin' to back out, Moneybags!" Joey retorted. "I mighta died if ya waited any longer!"
"Oh, that's unfortunate," Kaiba replied in an icy tone. He then smirked. "I'll be sure to go those few extra minutes next time."
"Kaiba, you are goin' down!" Joey shouted.
"Joey, calm down," I said. But in restraining him, I didn't realize that Kaiba's briefcase had disappeared from the sidewalk where he had left it.
Mokuba, too, jumped from the helicopter ladder before it flew off.
I talked a bit with Mokuba, and he explained his brother's delay because of a company issue. Meanwhile, Kaiba introduced Joey to his new DuelPort, as the briefcase suddenly appeared as well.
As soon as everyone settled down, Joey began the duel by yelling across the street to Kaiba, "Let's duel!"
But before the duel could begin, Kaiba's DuelPort began to beep uncontrollably.
"Tryin' ta cheat, Moneybags?" Joey taunted. "At least I play fair!"
Kaiba scowled. "It's only prolonging your defeat, Wheeler."
What was wrong? I thought. Kaiba took out his deck and shuffled through the cards, since the DuelPort had indicated that he was holding more than 60 cards. Maybe an extra card got mixed in…
Oh, if only that had been the case… I looked over at Tea and Mai, only to find them holding in their breath. So was this part of Mai's plan?
Immediately, Kaiba found the problem. He took out the card in question and seemed to be inspecting it very closely. But nothing could prepare me for what happened next. After giving one good look at the card, he looked across at me.
Why me? What did I have to do with that card? I was perplexed as much as he was.
"C'mon, Moneybags!" Joey yelled impatiently. "Jus' take out the card an' let's go!"
"There seems to be a problem, mutt," Kaiba replied, finally taking his eyes off me.
"Well, get over it, rich boy. You're wastin' time!"
Right now, I was very worried about what the whole fuss over that card was. So I decided to question Tea and Mai.
"Mai, Tea, this isn't funny," I said as the duel began. "What the hell did you guys do?"
Mai laughed, and Tea was looking nervous.
"Well, I told you that we would get you to talk to him, right?" Mai answered. "After my plan is complete, he absolutely will…
"You see that card that Kaiba just took out of his deck? That, hun, is not a card from his deck at all. Let's just say that it's… yours. And he will definitely talk to you…"
Mai wasn't kidding. Tea looked as if she was regretting whatever they had done.
I tried to keep myself calm about the situation.
"Ok, so then how did you get that card?" I asked. "And what is it"?
"Tenderness, Belinda, tenderness," Tea replied. "We kinda went in your room to get it… but we found something interesting in there, too."
I knew that my room was messy, but what else could they have found? Then it dawned on me. Oh no… not the Kaiba poster! Even my mom never saw it, since it was behind the door!
"You guessed right," Mai said, taking note of my fearful expression. "None other than Kaiba himself hanging up in your room!"
"Guys, I only put that up be because I was excited about Battle City!" I tried to explain by lying. "The poster's not supposed to be about him!"
"Suuure…" Tea glanced at me awkwardly. "So exactly how long have you thought that Mr. Jerk is cute?"
I sighed. Of course they could see behind my lies. The duel was coming to a pretty nasty end for Joey, so I decided to at least to let my friends know the truth before I died talking with Mr. CEO.
"He's been cute since Battle City first begun," I admitted.
"That's interesting," Mai stated. "It's been a pretty long time, then…"
Tea glanced behind my shoulder at the duel. "Uh… Mai… we should get going…"
The two girls ran in the opposite direction, which told me that they were running away from something behind me. Soon, I would find out what that was…