The nerds were out at this time of day. Huddling together in their "nerd squads" in front of the library and hiding in bushes picking their acne infested noses, they watched her strut by, eyes following her every graceful movement.
Ayera knew they were gazing at her-she could feel their hunger to be as cool as she was, almost as much as she could feel her temper rising to its peak. For after tons of walking around in her super pink super high platform shoes checking out all the cool, "in", places, she still hadn't found the pharaoh.
Maybe this is the wrong approach, she thought to herself. Lets see, if I was as dull and as ancient as Yami, where would I be?
The answer hit her like someone who had forgotten to put on underarm deodorant had just raised an arm.
She almost smacked herself in the head before she remembered she had just brushed her hair to absolute silky, shiny perfection.
"Bingo! Of course!"
"Are you sure you don't want to play?"
"Ug! I said yes, I'm sure!" Ayera snapped and she pushed past the man and into the huge room beyond. And gasped.
For inside, filling every seat at the dozens of long tables was the BIGGEST amount of old people she had ever seen!
They all sat hunched over their bingo cards with their wrinkly faces and hands and limp white curls.
Ayera could barely breath. "S-So many wr-wr-wrinkles!" She gazed around and when she spotted a granny with curlers still in her hair, she almost fainted.
"Forget this! I'm sooooo leav-"Her eyes fell upon multi-colored spikes resting on a head of a familiar person sitting between two plump elderly women.
"Thirty-nine!" announced a man standing up at the front of the room. "Folks, the next number is thirty-nine!"
"Bingo!" announced the pharaoh. He stood to go collect his prize, but Ayera seized his arm.
"Come honey, we're leaving."
Yami frowned. "But I have bingo."
"Yeah and I have yucky red blisters from looking for you everywhere," she grumbled.
Yami didn't budge. "Bingo. I have bingo."
"And I have an attitude problem! Lets go!" Ayera turned to look at him, then her mouth dropped open. "You're wearing a plaid shirt?! That's the kinda thing OLD PEOPLE WEAR!!!"
Silence settled over the room and every old wrinkly face turned to stare at Ayera.
"Uh-"she began, taking a step back. "You're all not that old. I mean, the dinosaurs are older. And the Stone Age was waaaay before your time." She blinked. "Right?"
Everyone blinked.
"If you all have problems hearing me, I'll speak louder," Ayera said slowly, carefully pronouncing each and every syllable. "I said.....YOU'RE-NOT-AS-OLD-AS-DINOS!"
"Oh, we heard you girl," announced one of the plump ladies who had been sitting next to Yami. "We also heard that he has bingo." She stood to her fullest height and towered above Ayera. "So are you gonna let him collect his prize?"
"He's coming with me," Ayera said haughtily.
The other plump granny stood. "We don't think so, girl. So why don't you take your third rate fashion sense and get lost."
The bottle that had been containing Ayera's rising temper, exploded. "Third rate?" she inquired through clenched teeth. "I'll have you know all my clothes....ARE DESIGNER QUALITY!!!"
"Hn!" scoffed the woman, looking her up and down. "If my old memory serves me correctly, I don't think a dino would be caught wearing that outfit!"
"Oh, that's it!" Ayera shouted, shoving the pharaoh out of the way. "You can insult my friends, my family, and my very existence, all you want. But making fun of my incredible fashion sense is where I draw the line! You're goin' down granny!"
"Who ya callin' granny?!"
With an angry battle cry, Ayera leapt at the first granny, taking her down. But the other was quick on her feet, and dropped to her knee, sweeping her leg over Ayera's and causing the girl to lose her footing.
"My grandson taught me kunfu!" the old lady said proudly. "Haicha!"
"Oh, no you don't!" Ayera cried, grabbing her nemesis by her ancles and dragging her to the floor.
Soon after, complete chaos ensued - hair was ripped right out of curlers, designer clothes and plaid shirts were torn, and cat fights began.
Meanwhile, Yami had merrily gone over and received his prize - a crossword puzzle - and was contentedly looking through it as he made his way to the exit.
"W-Wait!" Ayera called, shoving an evil looking wrinkly face away. "I c-came here to tell you about what happened to Yugi! Hey!" she shouted at a granny who had taken out her denchers and was using them to gnaw a hold in Ayera's shoes.
The pharaoh halted. "Yugi? Wasn't he with his friends on a field trip?"
"Yeah! But this morning I found him tied to a pole covered in rubber. He-"(Ayera halted to drop-kick a granny who retaliated right back with a spinning back-kick shuto combo) "-said Ryou and Joey did it to him."
"THEY DID WHAT?!"
An enraged pharaoh tore up the streets as he marched maniacally in crazed pursuit of his potential "victims". Those who were unlucky enough to be within 50 feet of him noted his bulging manic gaze and several were positive they had caught sight of foam fleeing the corners of his grim-set mouth, before they ran for their lives. A few kids even swore they saw the pavement melting under his furious stomps.
"S-Slow down!" Ayera begged, shoving past the flocks of terrorized people stampeding the opposite way.
"It's Godzilla!" shrieked a horrified little boy as he darted past Ayera.
Oh, it's worse than that, she sighed to herself, wondering just what terrible monstrosity she had unleashed on Ryou and Joey.
"Hey!" she called out again, sprinting to his side. "Do you even know where they are?"
A GIGANTIC crazed eye focused on her a moment. "I can smell their guiltiness - their wrong - in the air," the pharaoh replied evilly.
Ayera stopped sprinting, realizing with terror where the psychotic pharaoh was going. "But that would mean the wrong in the air is coming from the arcade!"
Yami didn't reply - he continued his rabid march, lunatic eyes filled with a wicked purpose.
Nothing could have saved Ryou and Joey. Not even the entire Naval Force or an ocean full of tranquilizers could have stopped Yami from exploding through the arcade doors and storming over to the two hapless boys, breathing as heavily as a mad man.
"H-Hi Yami," Ryou greeted, unsurely taking a step back as foam from the pharaoh's mouth dripped on the rug.
"Where's Yug?" asked Joey.
This, was the wrong question.
Yami's eyes widened past the point of bulging out, the vain pulsating on his forehead exploded, and a deep growl made the entire arcade shudder.
In a booming, commanding tone, he said, "Were you not the ones who TIED YUGI TO A POLE???!!!"
"Ohhhhh," Joey whispered, rubbing his ears. "He found out. . ."
"SILENCE!"
"You don't understand," Ryou began, "he was frightened of the lightning, almost insanely so, almost like-uh. . ."
"YES?"
"Almost as insane as you are right now. We had to tie him up, we had-"
The pharaoh appeared to have grown twenty feet taller. In a towering voice, he boomed, "IN PAYMENT OF YOUR UNFORGIVABLE DEEDS, YOU MUST NOW BE SENTENCED TO ULTIMATE DAMNATION!!!!"
"Uh, I have a better idea," came a breathless voice. Ayera had appeared.
Yami looked at her as if nothing in his mind could measure "better" than ultimate damnation.
Ryou and Joey looked at her as if she was the grim reaper.
"You really want them to suffer big, right?"
Yami nodded.
Ryou's and Joey's eyes widened in mortification.
"And you truly want them to pay for what they did?"
Yami nodded.
Ryou's and Joey's eyes were now a perfect reflection of the pharaoh's.
"Then trust me on this. . ."
An hour or so later, wearing plaid shirts and sitting amongst a sea of wrinkly faces were Ryou and Joey, positioned in front of their bingo cards.
The pharaoh, for the most part, had relaxed and only occasionally shot Ryou and Joey mad, dark, evil looks in-between solving his new crossword puzzles.
Ryou rolled his eyes, and gave his old-man shirt a tug. "I can't believe I'm wearing this. This is the kind of thing my grandfather wears!"
Joey shrugged. "I dunno. I kinda like it."
"The next number is fifty-six!" called the announcer.
Ryou penciled-in the number on his paper and glanced over at Joey's. "J-Joey! What on earth are you doing?"
"Connecting the dots to make a picture," Joey replied.
"That's not how you play bingo!"
Joey gave his friend a yeah-right-you-must-be-stupid look and concentrated once again on making his "picture" that bore an uncanny resemblance to a well-endowed woman.
"This is torture," Ryou breathed.
"Fifty-six!" the announcer-guy called again.
"Bingo!" Ayera shouted. She smiled sheepishly as she got up to collect her prize.
Oh yes, looks like Ryou and Joey are having lotz of fun! Please forgive Saj for taking so long to write this chapter, she had complications with her computer.
Please review!
Luv Lys