Quote of the Day: I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out – Steven Wright
Thanks for correcting me with that Set/Seth thing, whoever was kind enough to do so. (Is too lazy to go find the name) Heh, sorry. Anyway, I'm not changing it, so suffer. :-p And before someone bashed me for this, I've read you can also spell Ra as Re. SO there. (Feels smart, even though most people probably already knew that).
To the people who reviewed: Thank you so much! This story got way more reviews than I thought it would! Seven reviews on the first chapter! There's only one thing I can think of to say to that. HOLY RA! You guys rock.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, the gods, or anything else. I'd say I own the plot, but if it exists, it belongs to the circus folk out back.
HOLY RA!
---Chapter Two: Bottled Chaos---
"I really mean it, baka Pharaoh, what did you mean not of out time?!"
"I meant what I said, Tomb Robber! Now just shut up about it!"
Set sighed. It had been going on like this for hours. Or so it seemed. Maybe the sun was just getting to him. Sun. Desert. Dry, so dry. Water. "Water," he croaked out suddenly. "Need. Water!"
"Ugh, that's so cliché," Bakura muttered as the priest swayed on his feet, dehydration setting in. He fell, in a very graceful manner mind you (as most anime people do), and hit the ground softly.
"Set!" Yami rushed to his fallen priest and dropped to his knees, cradling Set's head in his lap. He turned to Bakura and asked sharply, "Tomb Robber, have you any water?"
The thief snorted. "Even if I did have any, I wouldn't give it to you. Water is a precious commodity here in the desert, highness. We need water to live. You see, most of out bodies are made of water, isn't that fascinating? And-"
"Silence!" Yami stared hard at him. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
Bakura smirked. "Perhaps I live out here, oh great and wise Horus on Earth."
"There's no need to be sarcastic."
"Oh, but there is."
"Is not."
"Is too."
"Is not."
"Is too."
"Damnit!" Yami burst out. "Just tell me the truth or I'll have the gods strike you down with lightning!"
About to reply with a witty retort, Bakura froze. "Can you...do that?" he asked slowly.
This time it was Yami who smirked. "I am Pharaoh. I may do whatever I wish."
Still frozen, Bakura quickly weighed his options. Cooperate with the Pharaoh...Or get struck down by lightning. Hmmm...
Stab him! one voice offered.
"Nah," Bakura said out loud. "Too messy."
Bite him! another tried.
Bakura shook his head quickly, thinking of the scene he had walked in on earlier with the Pharaoh and his priest. "He may...get the wrong idea."
Dance! Fulfill your dream! Become...A ballerina! the strange voice pleaded.
"Just shut up! All of you!" the thief snapped.
Yami, who had been watching this one-sided conversation with wonder, jumped. "Uh...Tomb Robber?"
"Shh! Zip it!" he snapped. "Can't you see we're trying to have a conversation?!" He turned his back to the Pharaoh, muttering "Sheesh, some people..." under his breath.
Yami closed his mouth and shut up, content with petting the unconscious priest in his lap.
"What about your plan?" Bakura whispered once he was sure the Pharaoh wasn't paying attention to him anymore. "You know, the one from before?"
Well, I don't know, you wouldn't listen to my idea of stabbing him...
"I left my dagger in the secret hideout!" the thief shouted out loud in exasperation, perhaps a bit too loud.
"Secret hideout?" Yami echoed. "What secret hideout?"
"Mind your own business!" Bakura snapped.
"Make me!" Yami retorted, perhaps not his best comeback, but hey, it worked.
"Fine!" With that, the tomb robber leapt onto the Pharaoh, taking them both to the ground and poor unconscious Set as well.
Over and over the tomb robber and the Pharoah rolled, kicking and punching, and, to the great satisfaction of one of Bakura's voices, biting. Soon both were sore and knew they'd develop pretty purple bruises, but that didn't stop them. If Seth, the god of chaos, had come down and stepped between them, they would have pushed right over him and kept fighting. Not that Seth wanted them to stop. On the contrary, he was having a grand time watching them from above. But that's not the point. The point, if there was any, was that it seemed like nothing, nothing would stop them. That is, until the crash...
The big explosion did manage to get their attention and make them pause.
Bakura jumped, latching onto the closest thing to him: the Pharaoh. "W-What is that?" he asked, referring to the twisted and flaming mass of metal laying only a few feet away from them.
"That, my dear tomb robber, is not of our time," Yami stated, proud of his earlier cryptic prediction. "See, that's what was making that noise."
"...I guess I can agree with that..." was Bakura's response. They both looked upon each other in wonder (they had actually agreed on something!) then jumped away quickly, finding each other in the other's embrace.
As this was going on, four figures pulled themselves from the wreck.
"I think our plane went down!" an Egyptian looking teen with tan skin, light hair, and an interesting lavender shirt said once he'd gotten to his feet.
It wasn't he who had caught the Pharaoh's and the tomb robber's attention though. It was the other three young men; all who bore striking resemblances to certain other Egyptians the two knew.
"Ummm...Guys? Where are we? I thought we were going to Madagascar..." said one boy who looked a lot like Yami, except shorter...and happier.
"Why were we going to Madagascar?" a paler and much more innocent version of the tomb robber asked, a slight British accent clear in his voice.
"To see the lemurs!" happy shorter Yami exclaimed.
"How did we even survive that horrible crash?" the pale one asked, looking back at the hunk of metal that was formerly their plane.
The tallest of the four gave a low growl. "I think the most important question we should be contemplating is why the hell we four were on a plane together." Yup. Definitely Set. He had bitter high priest written all over him.
Yami stood up slowly and Bakura followed. This movement caught the eye of Set's look-a-like. His blue eyes widened and he gasped, "Y-Yami?"
Yami took a step forward. "Who are you?" he asked slowly.
This got everyone else's attention. Bakura's look-a-like gasped and gave a little squeak, as did Yami's.
"Is he speaking Egyptian?" Set's look-a-like asked no one in particular.
"Yes!" the Egyptian with the lavender bellyshirt answered.
"Great..." he muttered in answer. "Now I can speak Egyptian..." He cleared his throat. "Right. I am Seto Kaiba," he addressed the pharaoh. "And you are Yami, spirit of the Millennium Puzzle." He paused. "I can't believe I just said that. "I'm supposed to be the nonbeliever." He sighed and turned his attention back to Yami.
Yami looked at him blankly, then put a hand on his Millennium Item. "I am...no spirit," he said. "I am the Pharaoh."
Bakura sighed at his side. "Great thing to tell complete strangers when you've no guards to protect you, highness," he muttered. "Who knows who they are? They outnumber us and they could just rob you, or kill you, or... hello." He stopped his tangent when he spotted his look-a-like. "My, aren't you the pretty one," he said, striding forward and clasping a pale hand. "My name is Bakura. Might I know the name of you, the angel who has graced us with her presence?"
The pale one squeaked and jumped back. "My name is Ryou and I'm a guy," he snapped.
Bakura blinked. "You're a guy? Oh my..." He heard Yami snickering behind him. "Well, you're still very pretty," he said with a flirtatious grin." That shut the Pharaoh up. It also made Ryou groan and bury his face in his hands.
"Yami?" the short and spiky one asked. "Yami, what's going on?"
Yami shrugged. "Why do you look so much like me?" he asked.
"Uhhh...I'm kinda your reincarnation...or something..." he answered.
"Reincarnation?!" Yami and Bakura asked in startled unison.
Yami's look-a-like and Ryou nodded. "Yeah, it's me, Yugi," Yugi said.
"So you're mine?" Bakura asked Ryou, who was still sitting embarrassed on the ground.
Ryou looked up, blushed even harder, and nodded. "You live in the Millennium Ring," he said softly. "Just like Yami lives in the Millennium Puzzle...Or something..."
"Ok," Bakura said, not really listening. "And you've got to be that high priest's," he said pointing to Seto, who just gave him a blank stare. "But who in the name of Ra are you?" he asked the Egyptian in the bellyshirt.
"I'm Marik!" he said.
"And that means nothing to me." He floated back to Ryou's side.
Suddenly, they heard a groan from behind them.
"Set!" Yami cried, rushing to the side of his priest. The others followed, Seto a few steps behind the Pharaoh. What the CEO of Kaiba Corp saw amazed him.
"What trickery is this?" he cried. Lying before him was...him! Well, in funny clothes, sure, but the man sprawled out in the sand looked just like Seto Kaiba.
Yami fell to his knees, taking up the priest's head in his lap again. "Do any of you have water?" he asked.
Seto, a bit red at the sight of Yami holding him, turned and grabbed a canteen from Marik, who, for some reason had one, and handed it to the Pharaoh.
"Thanks, Set," he said holding the canteen to the priest's parched lips.
Seto cleared his throat. "It's Set-o," he muttered.
"So, you're from the future," Bakura said in an off-hand manner, stretching and slipping an arm around Ryou in the process. "What's that like?"
Ryou made a small squeaking noise and ducked under the thief's arm, dashing for cover behind Seto, who just happened to not be in the best of moods. The billionaire from the future sent an accidental glare at Bakura, who made a sound much like Ryou did and went to stand by the Pharaoh.
Seto turned around to face the cowering teen. "So, that's your evil yami?" he asked in disbelief.
"I-I'm not sure," Ryou admitted. "Those thousands of years of seclusion in the Millennium Ring must have hardened him a bit. I mean, how would you be affected, being alone for years, teetering on the brink between life and death, light and dark, sanity and insanity?"
"WHAT?!" Bakura asked, throwing them an astonished look from Yami's side.
Glancing at Seto, Ryou immediately said, "N-Nothing! No, I was...I was just telling Seto about a...a story I read on the plane! Yeah...In a book! And it was..."
"It was a story written about the mysterious Millennium Ring," Seto took over. "Some idiot's rendition of the myth behind it. Rubbish. Completely false. Forget about it." Ryou sent him a thank you glance. Seto nodded.
"Riiiiiight..." Bakura's already uninterested reply came.
"But wait," Yugi, who had caught Seto and Ryou's conversation and knew the truth of it asked. "Where are our Yamis?"
Ryou shrugged.
"Somewhere between Japan and...Madagascar...we crashed here in ancient Egypt," Seto began. "I never thought I'd say that," he muttered in disbelief at the nonexistent logic. "Since we are here in the past, your yamis haven't yet died. As you can see, they are very much alive."
"With the exception of yours," Bakura muttered.
Seto threw him another glare, producing yet another squeak. "Because they are still alive," he continued, "they weren't yet trapped in the Millennium Items."
"Trapped?!" Bakura exclaimed.
Seto ignored him. "Therefore, your Millennium Items won't work here, because theirs," he motioned to the Egyptians, "were created first."
"My head hurts..." Bakura groaned. "No more smart talk..."
"Mm. Maybe you should go talk to Marik," Seto retorted. "You won't get much 'smart talk' there."
Ryou looked around. "Where is Marik anyway?"
The sandy-haired Egyptian was nowhere to be seen.
Meanwhile, the fourth member of the plane's passengers, Marik, had found Bakura's secret lair.
"Ooooooh," Marik said, gazing at the trapdoor in the middle of the desert. "What's this?"
The sign on the door read: Bakura's lair. Do not enter. Enter and Die.
Marik frowned at this. "Ok, so first it tells me not to enter. Then it tells me to enter...and die." He paused for a moment, contemplating this. "Well, I guess I'll go inside!" And so he did.
How could he have known about the traps that awaited he/she foolish enough to enter the lair of a thief?
"So, he's going to be ok?" Yugi asked, hovering over Yami's shoulder.
Yami nodded, glancing down at Set. "Yes, he should be fine."
Yugi breathed a sigh of relief.
"So tell me...Yugi...What happens to me in the future?"
Yugi paused. "Well, you're a spirit...guess that means you're dead, huh?...and you live inside the Millennium Puzzle...and we share the same body...and..."
What a future! Yami probably would have been quite depressed, hearing that he would eventually end up sharing a body with an elementary school-looking short and overly happy high school boy. Lucky for him though, he didn't hear a word. For at that moment, Set woke up...
...and, of course, the first thing he happened to see was his reincarnation from the future...
"AHH!" he cried, bolting upright. "What trickery is this?!"
Seto's eyes widened as he took a step back. "Well," he began, regaining his composure. "it's kind of a long story."
Set's eyes narrowed. "I've got time. All I've got is time. I'm stuck in the middle of the desert with two morons."
"Join the club," Seto replied.
Set eyed his reincarnation for a moment then leaned back onto the Pharaoh and said, "So, let's hear this tale."
"Owies!" Marik said with an adorable pout as he slowly stood up and rubbed his sore bottom. "Damn tomb robber," he muttered, looking back at the various swinging knives, pits of doom, and rabid crocodiles he'd just crossed to get into the thief's lair. "Always causing me trouble in the present and now he's trying to kill me in the past." He sighed and dusted himself off, crossing further into the thief's lair.
"Hmm..." he muttered, curiously eyeing a diverse collection of bottles containing Ra knew what. He picked one up and examined it, popping the lid off and sniffing its liquidy contents. "Ewww!" he declared, hurriedly stuffing the cap back on and replacing it on the counter.
Meandering towards the back of the underground lair, Marik wasn't expecting to find much. That is, until he found the treasure chamber...
"Holy Ra!" the Egyptian exclaimed at the sight before him. Gold coins, jewels of every sort, elegant trinkets, and valuables of just about every kind met his wide lilac eyes. "Tomb Robber's loaded!" He ran for the glowing pile of wealth, thinking to jump in and swim around in it, when he saw yet another bottle.
Why it caught his eye, he didn't know. It was ordinary enough, just a red glass bottle. Yet another liquid sloshed around in it when he picked it up. Quickly, he dismissed the thought of smelling it, fearing its stench would be as bad as the last one. The teen was about to toss it back to the ground, when a silent command sounded in his head: No.
"No? You can't tell me no! You're just a glass bottle!"
The thief. Bring me to the thief.
Marik snorted. "I think not. I take orders from no one. Especially not little talking bottles..."
THE THEIF! the voice shouted in his head, a deep imposing voice. You will take me to the thief, mortal. If you do as I command, I shall make sure you and your friends make it back to your own time alive.
Looking longingly at the treasure, Marik shook his head. "Nah, I think I like it here better. Bakura's friggin' rich, man!"
DO IT NOW!!!
"...Ok...Sheesh, impatient bottles..." And with that, the Egyptian reluctantly took the talking bottle to the thief.
"So then Yugi says, 'Hey, let's go to Madagascar!' and I say, 'Why would I want to go to Madagascar with you losers?' and Yugi says, 'To see the lemurs!' and I sigh and Ryou sighs, and Marik jumps up and down clapping his hands with this deranged-psycho-happy look on his face," Seto said, "then we all got on a plane from Japan to Madagascar. Which strangely departed the same day and time we, and when I say 'we' I mean Yugi, was planning on leaving."
Set leaned forward in anticipation. "And then what?" he asked excitedly.
Seto also leaned forward. "Well then the captain said something about flying monkeys in scary little red vests and bellhop hats attacking the plane...I don't know, I wasn't really listening. And then we crashed. And here we are now."
"Wow," was all Set could say. "Hey, you know what, you're not that bad."
"Yeah," Seto said, nodding. "You're not that bad either."
Ryou, Bakura, Yugi, and Yami exchanged stares, knowing that was as close to a compliment as either of the Setos would ever give out.
"Heeeey!" Marik called, running up to the group.
"Oh joy, he's returned," Bakura muttered dryly.
"Uhhh...Bakura?" Marik asked, approaching the tomb robber. "I know this is gonna sound kind weird, but this bottle wanted to talk to you." He held up the glass bottle.
Bakura's eyes widened in horror, for he knew the chaos that bottle contained. But before he could warn everyone of the danger they were in... "Hey, you went into my lair? My lair?! How'd you get past the rabid crocodiles???"
Marik shrugged and was about to say it was nothing big, when a deep voice interrupted him.
How very nice to see you again, Tomb Robber.
Bakura paled, recognizing the voice.
"You...know this bottle?" Yami asked, raising an interested eyebrow.
I am Seth, god of CHAOS!
Wincing, Bakura turned to Marik. "You had to grab that bottle, didn't you?" He sighed. "I hate you."
END
Seth, god of chaos? Why's he in a bottle? How did Bakura manage to trap him? What's going to happen next?! ...Don't ask me, cuz I don't know...
Anyway, sorry it took me a while to review. I'll try to make the next update sooner, k? The key word there being try. Heh. So, R&R and adios!