Sweet Cuppin' Cakes of Doom
By Her Sweetness and The Long Name Ending In Cookie
Disclaimer: Neither I or HS owns Yu-Gi-Oh; there'd be a lot of changes if we did. And the title "sweet cuppin' cakes" was shamelessly 'borrowed' by me from the Homestar Runner cartoons.
Notes:Pairings are Marik/Malik, Tristan/Duke, Pegasus/Dartz and Kaiba/Alistair. Don't ask about the title, it's a long story and has nothing to do with the fic. This is the first time HS and I have collaborated, so if anyone notices any discrepancies between the spelling of names, or units of measurement (she's American and I'm Australian), or some such, let us know and I'll do a better job of proof-reading next time. Enjoy!
It was a dark, but not quite stormy, night. Clouds hung heavy over Domino, dampening the night with a fitful drizzle that sent the night owls scurrying for shelter. It was not a pleasant night to be out.
It was even less pleasant to be flying in it, but one determined group of people were doing just that. A private aircraft sped through the soggy air. It had a small plaque screwed to its side, displaying the aircraft's name. It read "The Benevolent Soul-stealing Ship of Non-doom".
"Cheers!"
At that moment, in the plane, three men clinked their wine glasses together in celebration. Only, their wine glasses weren't wine glasses at all but mugs, and it wasn't wine, but cheap beer. But this was a spur of the moment celebration and none of them had the funds for that sort of thing.
The oldest of the three (by 9,981 years) sat back down in his seat, making sure not to sit on his long blue hair as it was oh so delicate. "Well, fellows, it seems like it's been forever since I've last seen you! I must say you've all grown up quite nicely. Valon, you seem to have gotten much smarter since last year. And Raphael, you're not so ugly! Good for you!"
"..." Valon coughed, waiting for a reaction from the blonde sitting next to him.
A shadow passed over Raphael's face as he hid his grief.
Dartz took another large gulp of the warm beer, "And as for myself, I continue to grow in beauty and brains as the years go on!"
"Yeah, about that..." Valon looked at him, "When do you plan on dying?"
There was a moment of intense silence.
"Hey, hey!" Alister craned his neck, looking away from the controls and the plane's window for a moment. He narrowed his eyes at the sight of his cohorts having at least a little fun, "I've been driving for the past hour! When's it someone else's turn, huh?"
Valon nonchalantly flicked a fly out of his drink, rocking back and forth on his chair, "Stop complaining, Ally. We let you drive in the first place because you were afraid I would crash."
"You would crash. And stop calling me Ally!"
"... Ally, Ally, Ally."
"Stop it! Dartz, make Valon shut up! And tell him I wanna stop driving!"
The blue haired man nodded and said in monotone, "Valon, be a dear and shut up and Alister wants to stop driving."
"Alright," Valon said and went back to drinking.
Alister groaned, "That had no effect!"
Raphael, now fully recovered from the fact that he was ugly, looked up at Alister and said, sharply, "You shouldn't bother Master Dartz like that, Alister. If you can't handle driving, then maybe we should've left you home."
Dartz looked at him, "You don't have to call me 'Master' anymore, you know."
"..." Raphael blinked, "But I want to."
Everyone stared at him for a second before slowly turning back to their drinks.
"Okay, then." Valon kept tilting his chair back. He looked over at Alister who was turned back around and obviously sulking while he continued to steer their aircraft through the rainy skies, "'Ey, Ally, so who else do you see down there? Any fresh souls out there for the taking?"
"I don't see any... A-And stop calling me 'Ally'! It makes me sound... girlish."
"... You wear a belly shirt."
"It's not a belly shirt! It shrunk in the washer!"
"Suuure..."
"Now now." Dartz closed his eyes and shushed them both, "It's not the time to be fighting, boys. You two should be happy to be together! After all, this is a very special occasion. We won't be doing this every night, you know. We made a promise," he stated firmly and stood on top of the cardtable that Valon and Raphael were seated at. Dartz held a fist to his heart and stuck the other out as if he were a pioneer, "A promise to serve the world and do good for the rest of our lives, however short they may be!"
"... So if we're supposed to help people from now on, why are we out stealing souls?"
"Because. I was restless and my fortune cookie said 'A horrible doom will consume you'. So I figured I don't have very long... and what better way to spend my final hours than to be with my lovely used-to-be-minions and do what we love!"
Valon nodded and Alister rolled his eyes, but all three of them stopped and looked over to the left where Raphael was quietly sobbing into his flat beer. Valon blinked, "What's wrong?"
"... N-Nothing..." He wiped at his eye, "T-That was just a moving speech... O-One that I will hold close for the rest of m-my life...!"
Dartz was silently stunned, "Wow. Am I that awe-inspiring?"
"No," Alister answered, shifting the controls, "But Raphael is a big baby."
"A-Am not...!"
"Are too."
"Am not!"
"Are t—AHH!"
All conversation ceased as suddenly, the plane lurched violently to the left. Its occupants were flung from their seats and hurled towards the wall.
"Alistair, what the hell are you doing!" yelled Valon, his hair now damp with spilled beer.
"Shit guys, I just saw a—"
They never heard what it was he saw. All sound was drowned out by a roar like a cloud of angry bees on steroids.
Clearly visible through the windshield was another craft, bearing down on them. It was huge and shaped unlike any aircraft ever seen on earth—flattened and tapered towards the front, with huge swept-back wings like a manta ray, and engines bunched together at the back. From beneath it looked like a huge ace of spades, and that's exactly how Dartz and his minions saw it—from beneath. It zoomed overhead, buffeting the small plane in its slipstream.
"Hey, I'm flying here!" said Alistair, angrily, wrestling with the controls.
"We're all going to die! Save yourself, Master Dartz!" cried Raphael, throwing himself over the blue-haired man, protectively.
"Get off me, you big oaf! I can't breathe!"
Dartz was saved from being crushed by Raphael's considerable weight as the plane rocked again, rolling him away.
Valon staggered over to stand behind the pilot's seat as the plane regained some semblance of control. "Ally, where are we going?"
"I don't know, that bloody great spaceship knocked us off course. And stop calling me Ally!" he screamed.
"You're going the wrong way! We're heading out over the docks, you twat!" Valon whacked Alistair in the back of the head.
"Go and sit down, dammit, or I'll land us in the sea!"
"It's coming back!" yelled Raphael from behind them. Sure enough, the UFO had circled around and was behind them now.
"Everyone grab onto something," said Alistair, gripping the controls.
Suddenly, the UFO jerked forward, consequently bumping into The Benevolent Soul-stealing Ship of Non-doom and causing everyone inside said ship to go hurtling forward. Alister banged his head on the controls, pushing them forward and making the ship lunge forward again, this time with more force. Valon and Raphael went sliding across the tile floor one way while Dartz, no longer protected by Raphael's boulder of a body, went flying full-speed out of the front window.
"AHHHH!" he cried, sailing through the dreary nighttime air as The Benevolent Soul-stealing Ship of Non-doom moved further and further away from him as he freefell.
The UFO that had caused the jolt in the ship revved backwards and then zoomed forward again, going off into the rain. When the ship was seemingly stable once again, Raphael was the first to go running to the window that Dartz had fallen out of. He looked around frantically and called out, "Master Dartz! Wherefore art thou?"
"…" Valon looked at him, "You really need to stop that."
"He's gone; I can't see him." Alister observed, now looking out of the window as well.
Raphael turned to Valon abruptly, "This is all your fault, Valon!"
"Me?"
"Yes, you! You asked when Master Dartz planned on dying and now he's been tossed out of the window! We may never see him again!"
"Well, hey! Ally's the one with the faulty driving!"
"Don't you dare throw me into this! I didn't even want to drive! … AND STOP CALLING ME ALLY!"
Dartz had been falling towards the earth for nearly five minutes now and he started to wonder how high up they had been. That was, until he got closer and closer to the blue sea below him; then he started screaming again and before he knew it, he had landed. Though it wasn't in the water. He ended up landing on his backside on the rusty shingles of a roof. They broke his fall and he was sliding and bopping down the slope of the roof until he tumbled over the side and fell about ten more feet to a cemented balcony.
"Ahhh…!" he cried, cringing. His ponytail had fallen out of his hair on the way down and his blue hair was loose all around his shoulders and falling around his waist as he held his leg in pain and agony.
Pegasus was at his computer, in a corner of the large, airy room he used for a study. Propped against the wall next to him were some old canvases with early paintings of Duel Monsters card art. At the moment though, he was working on a different sort of "art" entirely.
He was doing some maintenance on his home a very successful pornographic website. It was more a hobby than anything else, though it earned plenty of money he didn't need. The "local boys" section was particularly popular.
Crash!
Pegasus jumped. It sounded like something had hit his balcony. But it was barely windy at all, how could anything reach the balcony?
He got up, and crossed the room to investigate.
The last thing he expected to find was a man sitting on the poured cement surface, gingerly extending his left leg out in front of him and wincing in pain, exotic golden eyes narrowed to slits.
"Hello there," said Pegasus.
The man looked up at him. He was quite stunningly attractive, and Pegasus started to wonder if this was just a fantasy brought on by too much wine. He was tall and lean, and his proud, high-cheekboned face was framed by long blue hair, casually tousled in what Pegasus considered to be a very sexy way.
Dartz thought it was a very annoying way. He hated his hair being messed up. He felt like an idiot too, in front of this tall, imposing man. But all these minor annoyances were pushed aside by the pain. His leg felt like it was on fire—it was surely broken.
"Hello," he managed, taking a few deep breaths to keep his voice calm and steady.
"Could you tell me who you are, and how you came to be on a balcony halfway up the side of my castle?" Pegasus then peeked over the parapet. "No, wait, I tell a lie—we're at least three-quarters of the way up."
"My name is Dartz, and I'm sorry for intruding, but due to my pilot's incompetence I was thrown from a plane."
"You fell out of a plane? Ooh, how exciting!" Pegasus' one good eye shone with glee. "Well don't worry, you can stay here tonight, and you can radio your pilot to tell him where you are and how much of a moron he is—oh, wait!" He came back to reality and looked down at Dartz's tense form. "Are you hurt?"
"Yes," Dartz replied. He nodded at his leg.
Pegasus knelt down. "May I?" He carefully rolled up Dartz's pants leg—he had long ago dispensed with the robes, which were so ten thousand years ago, in favour of his stylish purple business suit. There was a dark, deep, nasty-looking bruise on Dartz's left shin, suggesting internal bleeding, which in turn inferred a broken bone—but Pegasus was no doctor. In fact he really had no idea what he was doing.
"I'll be honest with you—I really have no idea what I'm doing," admitted Pegasus. "But I'll get you someone who does. Croquet!"
Just like an Igor, Pegasus' personal assistant appeared almost the instant he was summoned. In fact he probably was part Igor; that would explain his voice, and ugliness. "Yes, Mr Pegasus?"
"Have a doctor brought here immediately, and see to it that Mr Dartz here is looked after and has everything he needs."
"Lousy weather.."
"What?"
"Nothing. How're you doing back there?"
"Honestly? I'm cold, I'm wet, and I'm finding it hard to appreciate the scenery in the dark with a helmet on while zipping past it at 80 k's an hour."
Tristan sighed. Duke was right, this ride was a complete disaster. The rain had started before he'd even guided the motorcycle around the first corner, and it hadn't let up since. It made the road slippery and it splattered on the visor of his helmet, making it damn hard to see. He tried to wipe it clear, when he dared let go of the handlebar, but it didn't improve matters much.
"You want to head back?"
"Yeah."
Why hadn't they gone to the club like they did every Friday night? It was their routine--on Friday, Tristan would ride over to Duke's place and they'd take his car over to Pen Island, the hottest spot on this side of the city.
The first few times they'd been there, it had been to meet people and pick up. But gradually they had settled into a pattern. Tristan would sit at the bar while Duke headed for the dance floor—sometimes he would humour Duke and come dance, but he always returned to the bar before long. He'd talk to the other regulars and nurse his drink, because he knew he'd be driving home. Duke would flit back and forth, between getting molested on the dance floor and blind drunk at the bar. Their evening would end sometime after midnight, when they got their cue from the bartender. "I think your girly friend's had enough," he would say, unfailingly. Tristan knew they guy did know Duke's name, but he always called him "your girly friend". So Tristan would half-carry Duke back to the car, take him back to his flat and put him to bed, and then ride home.
But not tonight. Somehow, tonight Tristan just didn't feel up to being sociable whilst his senses were assaulted by bright lights and pounding music. He just wanted some space, where he didn't have to think about anything. This was where his bike came in—all he had to think about was keeping it on the road.
Mental exhaustion, that's what Duke had called it that afternoon. They'd gone back to his place after school, and Tristan had collapsed on the couch.
"That exam was a bitch!" he complained.
Duke shoved him out of the way so he could sit down. "Oh come on, it wasn't that hard."
"Says you, maybe. You know, not all of us are geniuses."
"You don't have to be a genius, you just have to come to class once in a while."
"Joey and I had to skip that class, until the teacher stopped being mad at us. He was going to give us detention—as if nobody else ever jammed a printer!"
"Not with a tortilla."
"It was Joey's idea! Besides, no one ever told us you can't print stuff on a tortilla."
"If you needed to be told that, you shouldn't have been in that class in the first place."
They'd had a short argument after that, but Duke then suggested that going to Pen Island would take his mind off school. Tristan had told him he didn't feel like going out.
And so they had ended up here, out in the miserable weather. Tristan was just beginning to sink into a truly bad mood, when Duke suddenly tightened his grip around his waist and startled him.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Shut up and listen!"
Tristan did so, straining his ears over the throbbing of the bike's engine. He heard it then—a humming, like a swarm of flies. A huge swarm of flies. It got louder, closer sounding.
"What the hell is that?"
"What? I can't hear you!" The sound was a roar now, and it was deafening.
"I said, what—" He was cut short as a massive black shadow appeared overhead. The noise was coming from it. Duke and Tristan craned their necks to stare in shock as the bulbous, heart-shaped craft passed overhead. There was a moment of ear-splitting noise and then it was gone, disappearing over the horizon.
Tristan snapped back to reality just in time to regain control of the bike, which had drifted across the road and was about to crash into a tree. He steered it back into the correct lane, gripping the handgrips tightly.
Duke was holding onto him equally tightly. "What in the name of all things sacred was that!"
"I don't know," admitted Tristan, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I think we just saw a UFO..."
"Great. Are we home yet?" Duke sounded like his usual, sarcastic self, but Tristan could feel him shaking.
"Almost." Tristan revved the bike and it leapt forward, the front wheel leaving the ground. They sped towards the heart of the city, in the opposite direction to the UFO.
Very soon they found themselves in Duke's flat, since Tristan had practically doubled the speed limit all the way back. Tristan hadn't even made it onto the couch; he was sprawled on the floor with his head resting against it. Duke was slumped over the bench, across the room in the kitchen area.
"Dude, we just got buzzed by a UFO," said Tristan. "Do we report it to the police, or something?"
"No way," replied Duke. "They'll tell the government and then before you know it, secret agents will come and assassinate us while we sleep."
"Well, should we tell the media, or some TV people? We could make money off our story!"
"No way! Eventually people will get bored of it, and I will not be reduced to being one of those sad, pathetic people with bad fashion sense on daytime TV and talk radio! Anyway, if we went public the secret agents would find out."
"You've been paranoid about secret agents for as long as I can remember. But okay, no TV. Can we tell our friends?"
"They'll think we're crazy. Or drunk; they know we usually go out on Friday nights."
"Fine, we don't tell anyone." Tristan ran his fingers through his hair, agitated. All he'd wanted was a peaceful night.
"We'll probably never see it again anyway. At least it didn't stop and beam us up—it could have been full of aliens wanting to give us anal probes!"
"Ugh! Don't make me think about that!" He sat up and put his head in his hands. "Wish we'd gone out tonight. I really need a drink."
Duke was rummaging in the fridge. He straightened up. "Catch."
Tristan looked up in time to avoid being brained by the stubby Duke had tossed him. The cold glass chilled his fingers when he picked it up. "Thanks."
"Cheers," Duke replied, coming over to sit on the couch as Tristan gratefully ripped the lid off his beer.
TBC