When Worlds Collide

Note: I have just had a brilliant (and evil) idea for this story, and therefore felt the need to rush to it before losing the courage to do such things. Here it is:

Disclaimer: I own neither Yu-gi-oh nor its characters, cards or events, or the Series of Unfortunate Events (title used below). I humbly accept recognition for Steph, Lily and the zany events that the creators are too sane to come up with. Now on with it:

Chapter Seven: A Series of Unfortunate Events

"So, now what are we going to do?" I asked Yugi, growing bored with inwardly plotting ways to push Mai off a series of different high locations.

"Do you two know how to duel?"

"Know how?" Steph exclaimed in astonishment. "I've defeated Lily dozens of times and am searching for a more worthy opponent… Ouch, Lil, you don't have to hit me so hard… You two duel?"

I sighed and poked her again for emphasis, listening vaguely to what Yugi's reply was.

"Then let's have a small tournament, okay?"

We nod in mutual agreement and toss a coin to see who'll face who in the first round. The match up is; 1st duel, Joey vs. Steph and 2nd duel, Me vs. Yugi. I settle into a chair to watch Steph no doubt cream Joey with her deadly Guardian Sphinx.

Steph, going first, placed two magic cards face down (I dimly note that one of them is likely the Flute of Summoning Dragons.) and placed one monster in face-down defense mode.

As is often the case, I paid little attention to the following duel and only to Joey (who, by the way, played Scapegoat at some point, making me very happy as I also save myself from Steph's wrath with that card.) Steph, however, did not draw her Guardian Sphinx and was defeated by Joey's Red Eyes Black Dragon (making me even happier as I too have that card as well.)

Smiling, I took Joey's former seat, and prepare to lose to Yugi. After all, I think, he is the king of games. How can I beat that?

"You can go first, Lily," Yugi said, and I was relieved to see no sign of Yami, who was clearly not necessary for the duel at hand.

"Alright, if you insist on bringing about your immediate demise," I said, forgetting that I wasn't dueling Steph, and that I should therefore be shy and silent. Then I remembered, blushed and drew a card.

Inwardly exclaiming in joy, I placed Wingweaver among the other cards in my hand and put Scapegoat and Malevolent Nuzzler face down, just in case. Then I looked over my monsters and randomly chose to put Mystical Elf in defense mode.

"Your move, Yugi," I muttered, lost in that part of my mind that comes up with strategy.

Yugi summoned X-head Cannon and placed a card face down. "Attack her face down monster, X-head Cannon," he exclaimed with slightly too much enthusiasm. I smirked and revealed my Mystical Elf, and Steph subtracted the necessary amount of life points on the piece of paper we were using to keep score.

Yugi shrugged. "Your move."

I drew a card and glanced at it with a mild amount of interest. It was Cure Mermaid, a useful card, true, but not a very good for the current situation. After playing Spirit of the Harp in face-down defensive mode, I leaned back to let Yugi make his move.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

A half hour later, after many twisting events that I won't bore you with, we came to a showdown between my Dark Magician Girl and Yugi's Dark Magician. Of course, girl power (and a few equip cards, such as Malevolent Nuzzler) prevailed and I, astonishingly, won the duel.

Steph stared at me wide eyed, as did Joey, who had clearly dosed off at some point (he woke to ask which of us had stolen his giant donut) until Yugi broke the silence.

"Then I guess it's a duel between Joey and Lily."

I stared at Joey, unsure of what I should say, and then collected my cards, forming them back into a deck.

"Shall we duel, then, Joey?" I asked, trying not to blush, an effort which was highly in vain.

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll do ya a favor and only cream ya by a little since you's a girl an' all."

I glared as venomously as I possibly could at Joey for making such a comment, and handed him my cards to shuffle.

"We'll see who goes easy on who, Joey, we shall see…" After grimacing slightly at my own grammatical error, I accepted his cards and relished the opportunity to touch them and not look insane. While giving them a very thorough shuffle, I thought back on Joey's past duels and started plotting a rough strategy.

"Dat's enough of dat, now let's duel," Joey said, earning a blush from me.

Narrowing my focus to winning the duel, I drew my hand of five cards and allowed Joey to make the first move, accepting no chivalry this time.

"Alrigh," He said, looking over his hand one last time, "I play Panthuh Warrior in attack mode, and dat's all for dis turn."

I shivered slightly from the sound of his voice and looked over my hand carefully. Panther Warrior, hmm, I thought. My eyes then fell upon Harpie Lady and my beloved Malevolent Nuzzler equip card, and I knew what must be done.

"I play the Harpie Lady in attack mode and equip her with Malevolent Nuzzler. Attack," I muttered with nervous enthusiasm.

"Aww, man, how can dat little bird crush my big ole Panthuh Warrior," Joey moaned, earning a broad grin from me.

"Easy," I whispered in my best confident voice, "she's a girl and your Panther isn't."

Joey stared at me, clearly dumbstruck, which was not really all that surprising. And then I detected the tiniest shred of respect slip into his gaze, making me blush even more deeply.

I smiled slightly and waited for Joey to make his move.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

A while later, things were not looking good for Joey. He had 100 life points left and no monsters on the field. I sighed and contemplated the manner in which I would beat him. I could either use my Wingweaver or my Water Omotics to take care of his life points.

"I'll attack with Water Omotics," I muttered, still somewhat lost in thought and still too shy to talk directly to Joey.

"Not so fast," Joey declared, "I play Scapegoat to stop your monstuh's attack and den I use Eternal Rest to destroy dem both!"

Oh crap, I thought, looking sadly at the cards equipped to both of my monsters. Since Eternal Rest destroys all monsters equipped with equip cards, that was the end for me.

"Nice move, Joey," Yugi said from the sidelines.

"It was," I confirmed, still trying to find a way to save myself. At least he had yet to summon a monster. "Your turn, then."

He drew a card and smiled, which I had to assume was bad news for me. "I play Axe Raider in attack mode and dat takes care of your life points."

I sat there in a decently amazed manner, staring numbly at Joey, who had just dueled me. It seemed to really sink in at that moment where I was and who I was only inches away from.

"Wow," I whispered. "That was… the most unsuspected comeback I've ever seen, and I write suspense novels."

"Eh, it was notin."

"Of course not."

I laughed meekly and glanced at Steph, who winked at me. "And now, it's time to award our champion," she proclaimed, showing us a trophy that she must have slipped out to buy at some point. That was very much not like her, so I knew she was likely to be up to something, but maybe I was just being my usual paranoid self.

She handed Joey the trophy and to my amazement gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He just sort of stared at her, to my immense relief. But that certainly didn't mean she wasn't really gonna get it the minute she found herself alone with me.

The door flew open and I instantly knew what had just happened, because in stepped the one and only Seto Kaiba. I gave Steph a piercing look that said, 'That was low, girl, even for you.' She shrugged and put on her angry glare.

"What do you want?" We both said in different types of rage, and were joined by Joey only a slip second later.

"I heard that Yugi's grandfather was planning on hosting a tournament here, and I plan to be the winner."

We all looked at Yugi, who blushed and put his hand behind his head. "Did I forget to mention that? Yeah, he is, but it's only a small one. He's letting me invite my friends and handing out a few invitations himself. Did he invite you Kaiba?"

"Of course he did," Kaiba snapped. "You can't host a tournament without inviting at least one good duelist.

I glared at him in cold-hearted cruelty. "Oh, so I suppose you revoked the invitation so he could give it to a real duelist?"

That may have been a slightly stupid thing to say, as I now had to deal with the wrath of two people who could easily beat me into the ground. I didn't know what had come over me, the shy one, that made me actually act on my anger, but there was no turning back now.

"Ha ha. I fail to see how that's funny. In fact, I hope you aren't coming, or there will be no real challenge."

"Actually, Kaiba, Lily beat me in a duel, so you could say that she's the one you'll have to beat to reclaim your title."

"What? You lost to this… this sad excuse for a duelist? She isn't even third rate!"

I pointed at Joey, hoping to bring the attention off myself. "But he beat me, so technically-"

"Naw, Lily, dat was just luck. You woulda won if I hadn't drawn dat Axe Raider, 'cause I didn't have any monstuhs in my hand."

"You beat me, Joey. You-"

"This is a waste of my time. I'll just beat you all."

"Fat chance, Kaiba, since you'll be knocked out easily by me," Steph threatened, obviously not happy to have Kaiba paying more attention to me and Joey than to her.

"I don't have time for this," Kaiba said. "I'm just here to register and then I have to run a company that's worth more than all of you combined."

I nearly lost it there, and probably would've punched him if Joey hadn't beaten me to it. Instead, to my dismay, I had to be a peacemaker and pull the boys apart to prevent the inevitable hurting of Joey's face.

"Stop it Kaiba! Don't punch- Oh, too late… NO Joey, don't- too late again. Oh this is silly," I yelled, grabbing Kaiba's shirt and pulling him away from Joey, who was being pulled by the combined efforts of Steph and Yugi. I'm not going to boast and say that I could've taken Kaiba any day, because I very well could not. Instead, I did the one thing I'm good at; I put words to work where little else would help me.

"Kaiba, do you really want to waste your precious time on beating up Joey? Don't you have a company to run?"

"I hate to admit it, but you are mostly right. This is a waste. Where's the old man already?"

"Looking for me, Mr. Kaiba?"

"Yes, I'm accepting your invitation. Now I've got more important things to do than hang around with you losers."

I glared after him, but knew better than to start a fight with the leader of a company that employed very menacing guards. I felt a glare on myself and knew that Steph was going to be mad that I'd argued with Kaiba more than she had.

"We'll talk later, Steph, okay?"

"Hey, I didn't say anything, Lil."

I shrugged and glanced at Joey, whose lip was bleeding.

"Joey, your lip… it's bleeding. Yugi, we need a wet washcloth or something like that for him to hold up to it."

As Yugi scrambled off to find a washcloth I pulled a tissue out of my purse, which I had luckily been touching at the time of our little trip into… well, wherever we were.

"Here, use this until he gets back," I mumbled, holding it out to Joey while trying to conceal the picture of him that was always in there.

"Eh, t'anks and all, for da save back dere," He managed from behind the tissue.

"It was nothing, Joey, nothing at all," I said in that far off tone I used when my mind was wrestling with a mystery.

"What is it?" Steph, who would know that sound anywhere, asked.

"I talked… to a person that I should be scared to death of… and you… flirted with a guy you don't even like… and the ninja said…"

"He said 'I see them hovering above you even now'. Can that mean… we have somehow attracted the attention of-"

"Some type of spirits," I finished for her.

"Exactly, and they clearly are spirits of the traits you and I lack most."

"Yeah, bravery for me and… girly sweetness for you."

Joey stared at both of us like we were nuts, but Yugi, who was back with a washcloth, nodded in agreement.

"That makes sense," he said thoughtfully, "Since you said that Lily is really shy, but she sure seems ready to pick a fight with Kaiba… and you know Joey, it could be that they have some type of, you know."

For a second, it looked like Joey didn't get it, but then he nodded. "I don' know, Yuge, they don look like dose kinda people."

"There's a kind of people?"

"Well, ya know Yuge, big hair and some kinda freaky gold item… it's always gold, isn' it?"

We stared at them, both finding it hard to pretend we didn't know what they were talking about.

"You wouldn't happen to be talking about the Millennium Items, would you?" I said, coming up with a lie to explain my knowledge.

"Yeah, how do you know about them?"

"I'm not a complete idiot, Yugi, I have expanded beyond the knowledge I get from reading out of date Historical fiction," I said. "And I watch the history channel and go to the museum."

"Oh."

I smiled and then shook my head. "I think we'd have noticed by now if we had any magical items, Yugi. After all, this has just started happening since we came here."

"It was worth a try."

I sighed and looked over at Steph, who had been uncharacteristically silent. Her eyes had this dreadful, faraway appearance as if something was making her very upset.

"Steph? What is it?"

She looked at me mournfully and without words I knew. Something had reminded her of home, of sitting and wishing that we could be in the place we were in right at that moment, but it was a broken dream now. For dreams like this are meant to stay as dreams so that they could keep us going then, as something that was happy to dwell on. This was not what we had expected; not what we had both dreamed of for so long, but just another place in the world where we two loners could not find what we most needed; someone who could love us for who we were.

"Joey, Yugi, I think that we need to be alone for a little while. Please go somewhere else so that we may talk in private."

Of all the things I had imagined I would say to Joey, go away had never been one of them. But there I was, and there he went. I knew how Steph was feeling, because I felt it too.

"I know, Steph. It hurts me too. I miss my home, and I miss the fantasy of what we wanted to have happen. Only here we are… and it just isn't the same."

"Kaiba is… exactly how I always imagined him to be, but at the same time, not at all."

"I know… he doesn't automatically know you, and instantly love you like in our fantasies. I feel the same about Joey, only worse 'cause I totally made a fool of myself in front of him, like, seven times."

She laughed and looked better already. It was at that moment that I realized we were changed forever, whether we liked it or not. I was learning to be braver, whether with the help of a spirit or not, and I would hold that knowledge with me for the rest of my life. And Steph, she was learning how to show what she felt on the inside to her friends, like myself, and it hurt her not to feel so strong.

"Look, he may like you much now, but there's always time, while we're stuck here. Besides, opposites attract. Maybe its better that you aren't as similar as you first thought."

"I guess… Are you getting hungry, because I am."

I nodded in agreement and we rushed off to find the boys and some food.

End note: Well there's that chapter. I'd love to know what you think and if you've gotany ideas (no garentee that I'll use them.) Thank you those that have reviewed already and I look forward to your future comments. Stay tuned!