A Day in the Life of Malik Ishtar

Chapter Seven: A Replacement – Oh, and One of those "Important" Duels

Author's note: ... Hahaha. Hahaha. HAHAHA. I've had ideas for this particular chapter for so long that I'm surprised I remember them. As for little details about who says/does what, I have no clue. Honestly. So you'll just have to bear with me as I make things up. As for the question countdown...you'll have to wait one more chapter. And I know I said this was supposed to be about Bakura, but I forgot that this duel had to happen before his special episode. ;o; But he's coming up, don't you worry!

PS - I hope I got all of the italics and formatting. :D

"Kaiba, I'm tired!" Yugi whined between panting. It was hard work sprinting as fast as he could, especially when he had to keep up with Kaiba who was much taller and faster. Nature was cruel.

"I swear," Kaiba growled, "if you say one more word that even sounds like complaining, I will personally make sure you won't have a throat to complain through in the most painful way possible!"

Yugi shut up.

Lucky for them, the docks were close to their last dueling location, and several blocks later, they arrived. At first, the scene was deserted, until the bright-haired head of Jounouchi was spotted walking toward them, accompanied by no one. "Jounouchi!" Yugi called out happily. There was no response.

"Aww." It was Malik's disembodied voice once again. "Another touching reunion. Oh. Wait again. Jounouchi doesn't recognize you, Pharaoh!" Malik was grinning so wide that his face hurt. This was so priceless. "But there's no time to mourn the loss, Pharaoh. You'll need to follow your gel-haired friend to the square, wooden dock...yes, that way. Good."

Kaiba glared up at the sky, since there was no one physically there to glare at. "Where's Mokuba?" he demanded. Two questions remained.

No answer came. Malik blinked and stared down at the floor in frantic thought. They got the girl out of her room...but Mokuba wasn't present when they opened the door. Hunter 89 ½ put the boy in the same room, didn't he?

Initialize flashback sequence, with harp sounds and wiggly motions on the screen...

"Oof! ... Oh, hi, Anzu!"

"Hi, Mokuba."

"What'cha doin'?" (A/N: Flashback questions don't count.)

"Oh, you know. Just admiring my nails and wondering why I thought following the boys around all day instead of going to the spa was a good way to spend my Saturday afternoon. What are you doing?"

"I was mercilessly kidnapped and thrown into a room with you. Come to mention it, landing on my head sort of hurt."

"Ah."

"You sound uninterested. Hey! Look! Those boxes stack up to an open window."

"For once, your A.D.D. might have just come in handy. Start climbing."

"Yay, I'm almost at the window! Too bad that robe guy is behind you..."

"What?! Ack! Get off of me!"

"Sorry, Anzu, I'll go get help or something! Then again, I'm hungry... Ooo, that's an ice cream shop!"

"MOKUBA!"

Back to the present...

Malik blinked. Well, it didn't matter. Not supplying Kaiba with Mokuba's whereabouts would surely drive the poor boy even more nutters, and there was nothing wrong with that.

"Come to think of it, Kaiba, your precious little brother might have gotten lost somewhere along the way. We don't pay much attention to extra baggage, you now." Nice save. Malik mentally gave himself a pat on the back.

Kaiba was about two point five seconds away from letting out an infuriated roar and launching a nuclear warhead at some unsuspecting Third World country. But like his counselor said, he just had to count to ten, take a deep breath, and throw his metal briefcase at the nearest person. That robe-clad Hunter would do just fine.

"KAIBA!" Malik shouted, as though scolding a child. "You just floored one of my Hunters! You know, I wasn't going to do this, but if you look to your left, Anzu is over there strapped to a chair. I'm going to have an obscenely large box placed over her so if you try to make a move, she'll get squished. I think you'd agree that she's too well-formed to get squished." Malik chuckled.

Kaiba thought Anzu was annoying as much as the next person, but facing the annoyingly weak wrath of Yugi, Jounouchi (if he ever came to his senses), and Honda was out of the question. And, deep down, he had to agree with Malik: Anzu was hot, and therefore couldn't get squished. Deep down, some antibodies crowded around that notion and consumed it into ATP which was then used to create Kaiba's next thought.

Damn it, I'm hungry.

Turning his attention back to the duelers, Malik continued. This time, however, he directed his speech through Jounouchi, whose sunken, baggy eyes looked even more blank and dead when possessed by the Rod. "As you can see," Malik began, startling Yugi with his voice coming out of Jounouchi's body, "this square dock is surrounding the water, which inevitably is very deep and probably has a giant squid living in its depths. Have you ever eaten calamari? It tastes like underpants." Malik paused, remembering he was hungry for about the umpteenth time in the past twenty minutes. There was, coincidentally, 1 question to go.

Does anyone else see a theme going on here? With the hungry thing? I wonder if it's me...

Malik glared at the ceiling, perturbed at the narrator's rambling. He said nothing, so as to not confuse Yugi. Explaining that he was talking to a disembodied voice would be a little awkward. Not that Yugi wasn't used to disembodied voices, but...ANYWAY.

Jounouchi knelt down and clamped a metal shackle to his ankle, nodding to Yugi to do the same. Seeing no other choice, he complied, and made a sort of pouty, defiant face at Jounouchi, waiting for instructions. "In about a minute and a half, a very large and obviously heavy anchor will be delivered and attached to the shackles' chains. A timer will be set for an hour, and if the duel isn't over yet, then the anchor will drop and both of you will – "

What the – who are you and what are you doing in my basement?

Get off of me! You're those crazy nutjobs from 4Kids Entertainment, aren't you? Well I'm not going down without a fight! ... What's that? A tape of the entire second season of Pokemon? I SURRENDER. TAKE ME, BUT BURN THAT TAPE UNTIL THERE IS NO DESCERNABLE EVIDENCE OF THAT HORRID PLASTIC AND TAPE..like..STUFF!

Malik: Wait a minute. If the narrator's gone, there's no one telling the story.

Yugi: Did anyone else here someone yelling?

Kaiba: I miss my Prozac. So much.

Jounouchi: ... -drools-

Yugi: Hey, look, the sky's turning all blue and happy like it's a sunshiny day in the middle of June!

Anzu: And there's a rainbow! Oh, it's so pretty! There are fluffy clouds too! -has suddenly forgotten she's strapped to a chair and a lever-pull away from d– suddenly the crane holding a heavy, metal box is replaced with a giant teddy bear, ready to tickle Anzu into discomfort with a large feather-

Kaiba: This is ridiculous. Fiddley dee, I want my gosh darned agent on the phone before I bizzoink all of your dingfloops to CANDYLAND. -stops- Th-Those words...so vile... I NEED LISTERINE, STAT.

Yugi: Golly jeepers, the countdown on that charming alarm clock has already started! If we don't finish the duel before it goes off, we might...we might...we might have to listen to it ring until someone figures out how to turn it off!

-dramatic camera close up on the "shocked faces" of Yugi and Jounouchi—Yugi is picking his nose and Jounouchi is still drooling-

Kaiba: Hello, Burke? Yeah. This is Seto. No, shut up. We're having issues right now and you need to fix them or I'm cutting your pay in half. Scratch that. I'm firing you if you don't make everything perfect again.

-microphone feedback deafens and silences all the characters, then tapping and "Check, check" echoes-

Hello. My name is Brian. I would like to announce on behalf of 4Kids Entertainment that there will be a budget cut, and the story will now continue in a different but not necessarily bad manner.

Malik: Rishido. I think we're going to have a few problems.

Yugi: bad? did he say – oh no, where are the capitals!?

kaiba: the budget must have cut grammar

malik: well thats not so bad i mean as long as its still intelligabull

kaiba; huh??/

malik: i said readiable

yugi: i 333 plyaing duel monstesr

jouno..noshc..joey: 1 crd f/d end turn

yugi: i dun wanna duel u nemore

malik: ya i dun like were this is goin i cant kill ne1 if were tlakin like dis

kaiba: asl??

yugi: onos the alarm clock!!2!1!!!#!!3!!!!!1!!!1

anzu: roflmao stop ticklin me!!!11 roffl roflrofllolz

OKAY. STOP EVERYTHING. I found a LOOP HOLE, and I'm going to end this madness! 4Kids might have licensed Yu-Gi-Oh, but this piece of writing belongs to me. Therefore, you can't edit what I put in here, and I can say "death" and "crap" and "fool-ass lamer" all I freakin' want! I can even say "canned peas in a shopping cart" or "your mother was a hamster" and—

Everyone: WE GET THE POINT.

As I was saying, 4Kids, get out of my house and give me back the keyboard before I take legal action. My mommy's an attorney, you know. Yes, that's right. Move along. Good.

Ahem. In the chaos that ensued, Yugi and Jounouchi dueled in a heart-wrenching hour. In vain, Yugi tried to revive Jounouchi's suppressed memory to return his beloved friend to his natural state. Meanwhile, through a chain of comical and random events, Honda, Shizuka, Ryuuji Otogi, and Mai made the scene.

Honda: We were all piled on a tricycle there for a few minutes, and I got worried.

Otogi: Wanna watch me flex my muscles?

Shizuka: What muscles?

Mai: Oops, there goes my corset.

Meanwhile, once negotiations were settled with Burke, Kaiba used his cell phone to order a pizza via helicopter, which coincidentally knocked over the crane threatening Anzu's life. However, the duel was still raging on, and it resulted in the painful defeat of Yugi. Because of Yugi's life point depletion, Jounouchi was able to access the key to his shackles. Instead of using it, he attempting to swing over to Yugi and unlock his before the anchor dropped, but –

"Hold on, Yugi!" In mid-swing, the chain suddenly broke and Jounouchi went tumbling into the water. Yugi fell in with him, passed out from the excruciating pain of the duel.

Everyone stood and stared (except for Shizuka, whose eyes were still bandaged). "Why's everyone so quiet?" Shizuka asked timidly.

"Yugi and Jounouchi fell into the ocean," Honda replied blandly.

"Oh, no!" Shizuka cried in despair. "Someone needs to save them!" She quickly unwrapped the bandages from her eyes and went running toward the docks, slowly coming to a halt and blinking. Kaiba coughed.

Jounouchi was sitting in ankle-deep water with Yugi at his side, both looking confused. Jounouchi was no longer possessed.

"Jounouchi," Yugi managed after he regained some of his sense. "I...I love..." he drew a deep breath. "I love y -...your cotton socks."