Quote of the Day: I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. – Jack Handey

Heh, a lot of you said you were kinda confused by the last chapter. Well, that's me for you, confusing as hell! ;; I honestly don't know why I do the things I do sometimes. But…yeah. This story has no set course, so expect much more randomness for however long I decide to make it last!

…I'd make friends with my reincarnation…Or I'd hate their guts…Probably a little of both…

I'm so baaaad. For those of you who read MBD, you'll have to wait a while…I don't know, I've just been really slow with it lately. -.-;

Disclaimer: …So then I said, "Hey, Mr. Takahashi, I'll trade you my mind for the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh!" And then he just kinda looked at me funny and walked away…Just as well, I guess. I kinda lost it a long time ago…

HOLY RA!

---Chapter Three: One Tough Riddle---

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Marik said. "So you're Seth, the Seth, god of chaos and all that good stuff?"

Uhh…Yes. Do you have a problem with that?

Shaking his head, Marik said, "No. It's just…" He reached behind his back and procured a copy of the story from thin air. He flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. "Aha! Here it is! Ok, right here in the previous chapter, it says, and I quote, 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. You know, when Pharaoh and Tomb Robber were fighting before in this story. But I just found you in a bottle in Bakura's underground HQ. Wow. Talk about omnipotent."

Uhh…The bottle cleared its throat, if bottles could have throats. Let's just ignore that little plot hole.

Marik shrugged and tossed the copy of the story back over his shoulder. "Ok."

Six sets of eyes turned to stare at him. "What do you mean…story?" Yami asked.

Yeah, the bottle – Seth – asked. I'm a god, so of course I know these things, but how do you, a mere mortal know what others do not?

Marik shrugged again.

Sliding closer to the discarded script, Bakura leaned closer to the paper and poked it with an outstretched finger. The story promptly burst into flame.

"Argh!" the thief cried, jumping back. "What the-?!"

"Oh, you mustn't see the future," Marik said mysteriously.

Bakura looked up at him incredulously. "Obviously Marik is no mere mortal!"

Again, six sets of eyes, and a little red bottle, turned to regard him.

"What?" the Egyptian asked, squirming a bit under the stares. After a few moments of this, he sat on the ground with his arms wrapped around his knees and started rocking back and forth.

"Mortal or not, he's still a moron," Seto muttered with an accompanying nod from Set. "Who cares if this is really all a story or not? That's like asking what the meaning of life is. And that's something for people with way too much time on their hands to think about. That and religious groups. (AN: I have no problems with religious groups of any sort. Believe what you believe! Like the Heart of the Cards! O.o Errr…) Let's just get on with it."

Everyone nodded to that.

"So how did you manage to trap a god in a little bottle?" Yami asked, eyeing said bottle curiously.

Bakura shrugged. "I don't quite remember, actually…"

"How can you not remember something like that?" Ryou asked from Yugi's side.

"Too much time in the sun fried his puny brain," Set and his futuristic counterpart mumbled in unison. They both paused and stared at each other, then shook their heads and decided not to read too much into it.

You are pathetic, Tomb Robber, Seth said.

Smirking, Bakura gave a mock bow. "Thank you, your godliness."

The bottled god growled. You don't remember the riddle?

"Riddle?" Bakura asked, at a loss.

Yugi laughed. "What does this look like, The Hobbit?"

Ryou snorted, Seto groaned, and the Egyptians all looked at him blankly. Except for Marik who was still rocking back and forth on the ground.

"Never mind," the short and spiky duelist said, shaking his head.

"So what was this clever riddle I asked you?" Bakura asked.

You are trapped in a walled in room with no exits. Above is a ceiling, below is a floor. The only objects in this room are a table and a mirror. How do you get out?

"Umm…Out a window?" Ryou asked.

"No, that would be considered an exit," Yugi said.

"Cut through the walls with a dagger!" Marik tried from the ground.

You are not allowed any tools.

Smirking, Yami strode forward. "No, no. Obviously you look in the mirror, you see what you saw, you take the saw and cut that table in half. Two halves make a whole and you jump through the hole."

"How did you ever think of that?" Yugi asked, gaping,

Yami shrugged. "They don't call me the kind of games for nothing."

"That was stupid," Seto and Set said at the same time. They again paused to look at each other.

Seto shook his head. "That was kind of creepy. Even for me." He spun to face his past self. "Stop saying what I'm about to say."

Set snorted. "I should be the one saying that, as I was created before you and you are obviously saying what I am saying."

The CEO glared at him.

The High Priest stared right back.

"Er, right," Yugi said, watching sparks crackle between the two. "So, uh, Seth. How'd you get stuck in the bottle?"

The bottled Seth sighed, if bottles are allowed to sigh, which they are in my stories. Well, you see, the Tomb Robber was about to die and-

"Now I remember!" Bakura cut in. "That was the time after I taunted the Pharaoh at his birthday party! Yeah, and then the guards chased me out of the palace. They didn't stop there though, oh no. They then chased me out of the city! And into the Nile!" He paused. "They seemed to like doing that."

"Specific orders from me," Yami snapped, also remembering that day. "You called me 'Cactus Head!' and 'Jackal Dung!' You bastard…"

"Ahh, the good ol' days," Bakura said wistfully.

"So what happened?" Ryou asked, bravely putting himself in sight of the tomb robber.

Grinning, Bakura gallantly swept back his cloak – only to have it blown back into his face by a stray wind. Clearing his throat, he disentangled himself from the thing and tried to regain some of his composure. "Well," he began. "I was for the second and not last time in my life attacked by rabid crocodiles. Fierce things with pink polka dots and bunny ears; their dentures drooling everywhere and their eyes all skewed. They challenged me to a game of Tetris, which I boldly accepted, knowing I was in serious danger if I were to lose. So the crocs popped some popcorn and broke out the snack food and we all had a grand old time…" he paused. "Until I lost."

"…Pink…polka…dots?" Ryou asked vaguely.

Bakura nodded.

Here, Yami stepped in. "We were both smashing drunk at the party."

Bakura nodded again. "Totally leeched-out (1)."

"O-k. So what happened next?"

"Well…" Bakura continued, inching closer to Ryou.

Well, Seth interrupted, he called out for me, knowing that I, loving disorder, would listen to him if it meant messing up the other gods' agendas…

And of course, hearing his plea, I descended to earth to hear him out. Having watched him before, how could I not aid a fellow lover of chaos? I was going to give his life back to him, but he just had to steal something!

"Besides the ump liters of alcohol he stole from my party," Yami slipped in bitterly.

So he challenged me to answer his riddle, making me swear that if I answered incorrectly, I'd allow him to steal my soul, Seth continued. And I, in turn, made him pledge his eternal servitude to myself for all of eternity should he have lost.

"Guess who won?" Bakura asked with a smirk.

"But wait!" Marik said, coming out of his trance and standing up. He pointed to the bottle. "If you're a god and you know about how our lives exist only for the pleasure and amusement of the readers in an alternate plane of existence, couldn't you have just used your divine powers and viewed the future like my sister does? I mean, you're a god!"

Everyone stared at Marik.

"O.o Uh…" Marik stammered.

Shut up. Seth commanded.

Sniffing indignantly, Marik spun around and sat down again, muttering under his breath, "I always knew you were my least favorite god!"

"So what do you want?" Set snapped irritably at the god, still seething at his reincarnation.

Why, revenge! What else?

"Chocolate cake?" Marik mumbled.

…besides that…

Tapping the bottle with his forefinger, Bakura made a face at the god of chaos. "What are you going to do? Blind me with your shininess?" the tomb robber taunted. Yami chuckled.

More than that. Much more.

With that, the skies darkened and the normally hot climate grew cold. Thunder growled curses at them from above, sending long fingers of lightning to scrape the earth and make them jump. A tornado formed and started swirling in the distance, its black funnel of doom scooping up all it saw: sand, beetles, cows.

"Help me!" a black and white splotched cow shouted above the twisting winds. "Oh, for the love of Ra, HELP ME!"

No one even paused to wonder what a Holstein (2) cow was doing all the way in Egypt.

"What will we do?!" Ryou cried as he grabbed onto the closest thing to him – Bakura.

Smiling into his reincarnation's hair, Bakura didn't reply, enjoying the moment as he was.

Yami fell into Seto and Set, who both caught him, but seeing the other also catch him, both dropped him promptly before turning around and continuing to ignore each other.

Yugi wimpered, forgotten for the moment.

Marik stuck his tongue out at Yugi and told him to join the club.

Meanwhile, the bottle that was Seth was floating and proving to everyone that he was indeed the god of chaos.

"Curse you!" Marik shouted, trying not to get sucked into Seth's hurricane.

Shut up! the enraged god yelled.

Marik sighed. "Isn't it about time for a deus ex machina (3)about now?"

All of a sudden, the dark skies cleared, the thunder and lightening abated, and the tornado stopped, leaving several far-off pyramids upended and dropping the cow to its death near a starving village. The villagers all cried out in glee, thanking every god they could think of, then they all went to their houses and began firing up the grills, telling their families there'd be steak tonight.

A glowing figure swathed in light descended upon our frightened (well, not it Set's and Seto's cases, who were still glaring) protagonists. He held up the Vulcan for peace (AN: coughTrekkiecough) and said in a melodious voice, Live long and prosper, dudes. He then grabbed the bottle. Hey, Seth, we were all wondering where you'd gotten off to. Come on, we're all playing charades!

No! Horus(4)! Stop! You rotten piece of jackal dung! Seth cried. I. Want. My. Revenge! But Horus carried him off anyway, to play more godly games. Or to torture him. Who knows what the gods do in their spare time? Well…besides the gods…

He was kind enough to let Seth out of the bottle though.

WHAT?! HORUS! WHY HAVE YOU GIVEN ME THE FORM OF A BUNNY?!

Ok, so he wasn't extra-kind. But that's not the point. They then flew away, Seth crying out I AM SO TELLING ON YOU!, leaving our seven heroes alone in an awkward silence, broken only by Yugi's constant uncomfortable throat-clearing.

"Well," Marik said, shattering what was left of the silence, causing it to cry out in agony as it died an excruciating death. "I told you it was time for a deus ex machina. Who called it? Oh yeah, I'm good." And with that he showed everyone the reason why he was wearing such a short shirt: he began belly dancing. Twisting his lean, tanned, muscled stomach, he danced gracefully, showing his enjoyment at being right in an interpretive dance.

The dance had different effects on everyone: Yugi looked shocked, Ryou looked away in embarrassment, Seto rolled his eyes a second after Set did, Bakura drooled, and Yami looked just plain confused. "Uh…Why is he dancing?" he asked no one in particular.

Set shrugged. "Probably for the Yaoi freaks or something. Who knows?"

"Ah. Well, he's quite good at it," Yami observed, watching the sandy-haired teen's shameless movements even more closely.

Stiffening, Set said, "I suppose…"

Yugi, coming out of his shock, walked up to the object of everyone's attention and shook the lithe teen roughly. "Stop it! New rule: No more pointless dancing!"

Marik shrugged and threw him a playful grin. "What can I say, I like the attention." With that, he turned from little Yugi and walked off, brushing by Bakura and slapping closed the thief's openly hanging jaw, getting some drool on his hand in the process.

Yugi sighed and gathered up Ryou, Seto, and Bakura, and followed him.

Leaving Yami and Set alone.

And a little red bottle lying forgotten in the sand…

END

Eh hem…So, I like footnotes. So sue me. …Ok, don't really…

(1)Leeched-out: Ok, yeah, in ecology, this was a term that meant when water ran through the soil and took out all the nutrients (or something like that…) Yeah, me and a few friends now use it to mean you're high or drunk and stuff like that. Not that we do any of that stuff. No, believe it or not, I am straight-edge.

(2)Ok, so I don't really know anything special about cows. Nope, nothing. I just picked the breed Holstein because it came up the most and it looked like the typical black and white milk cow.

(3)Deus ex machina: Literally "the god from the machine." In Greek drama, when the main characters were in danger, one god or another would swoop in and save the day. Yes, I did pay attention in English class.

(4)Right, you've got to have heard of Horus. Head of an Eagle, body of a man and all. Seth was the uncle of Horus and they were just really bad enemies. Enemies as in "GRR! I KEEL YOU!" Anyway, Horus was God of the Sky, according to my sources. (No, I am not an expert on Egypt, I only do some research. I hope you all appreciate this!) Pharaohs were believed to be the "living Horus" or "Horus on earth" and such. Yeah, so you know how I said he and Seth were enemies? Well at one point, they fought for the throne of Egypt and Horus lost an eye. O.O But it was restored to him! And that became a symbol of protection (the eye we see whenever we pick up a book about Egypt). I could go on, but I won't. I'm sorry if I ramble, but I really do find this interesting!

Er, right, so there's chapter three for ya. Lovely, ne? That was rhetorical, no need to answer. Unless, of course, you want to. Gods, what a strange chapter. Don't you just love my mindless ramblings at the end of every chapter? I do! So, go do that thing you do and see you next time! And may the Force be with you! (Bows)