I Think I'm Starting to Understand... Wait, No, It's Gone Again.
Disclaimer: I don't own YGO. EVERYONE MUST KILL HARPER LEE!
Eriso: She's already dead, genius.
Disclaimer: Ah. I see. Well, that takes care of that.
D/N: This is horrible. Absolutely horrible. I have to do a stupid, pointless, irrelevant, annoying, time-consuming, frustrating, incomprehensible, 800 word essay on poverty in 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. You know what? I'm gonna write a book. And it's going to be called 'To Kill A Bald, Fat Teacher With Idiot Glasses Who Assigns Pointless Essays That No One Cares About and That he Criticises Every Three Seconds and Who Simply Must be Destroyed for Thrusting This Idiot Essay Onto Me and Making it Due for Tomorrow With a Giant, Huge-Ass Hammer.' What do you think? Think it'll be a hit? I do. I really do. I'll hand it out to all the kids in my English class, and we'll have a blast. ANYWAYS! I really should get back to work... It's already 10:06pm, and you know what I have done so far? The thesis. And even that's crap. Wow, for a self-proclaimed, insanely genius writer, today is definitely not my day... Oh well. Hopefully this'll be enough to... I don't know... unclog that drain that's keeping all my brilliant writing skills at bay. AnYwAyS, I'm pretty sure by now you've either scrolled down or have died of complete, utter boredom at having to trudge your way through my rant which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. That is to say, this story. So... yeah, I'm done.
Ah, Screw the Fanfiction Rules. Here's Your Replies:
Lady-Crymsyn: Why thank you. I thought so. :D
Mandapandabug: o.O Oh great, now I have to think of a reason! Uhm... well, because I was saying, 'Good-bye until next time,' and 'ciao' rhymes with 'now,' therefore 'ciao for now' works perfectly! Sheesh! Quit makin' me think! My head hurts enough as is... And what do you mean you hate it when people bow to you? That's the greatest thing in the word! Because you can throw stuff in their hair and no one will see it because they'll all be looking at the ground! Ha, ha! I'm so clever at think up devious plots like that... yeah, no.
Prozac pandA: I'm back to replying! I figure you all need my good words to brighten your days, so here they are:D No, I'm not conceited. I just think quite highly of myself. ANYWAYS, yeah, finals do suck. Badly. And don't worry about the whole Tartra and Trawmi biz-e-niss, because I'll be explaining it all next chapter. Bakura and patience... yeah, not an everyday thing, but I figure, 'I threw the guy into a realm to get tortured by a random psycho dude who eventually stabbed him, ridiculed his cooking abilities and sent him on a wild goose chase for a temple that could have been non-existent. Making him listen to Future Joey doesn't seem too farfetched.' And hopefully it isn't. And of course no one can understand it. I've got a brain the size of a watermelon! ... I just shrunk it so it could fit into a normal sized head. :D Child, orthopaedic shoes do not make ANYONE happy. They annoyed me terribly, and I am quite happy that I accidentally-on-purposely stuffed them into my old boots and chucked them out. And sorry, Razatul isn't in this chapter either. And he probably won't be in the next chapter. And I doubt he'll be in the sequel. But he'll definitely be back in the third chapter of the trilogy! Wow... I should really start using paragraphs for replies...
BLUEBELL: Yes, don't worry about the keys, they'll all be explained next chapter. And I'll try my best to keep as under the radar as possible with reviewing in order to avoid any kill-joys who'll be like, 'DURR, THAT CHICK IS URR... BREAKING DA RULES!' and the report me. ... That's why I stuck at the top. For everyone to see. Oh, dear...
Anaraz: :D Oh, believe me, not only do I know it, but I shout it to random people on the streets as well. I find it adds onto my character as a person. Anyways, glad you liked the chapter!
R.F.K.a.'...': Oh, yeah, don't worry. I'd never bring up something as big as that and then forget all about it and leave you guys going, 'What the hell was she talking about, anyway?' The whole bit about having to look like Gaelia will be looked after in the sequel, so don't worry about that either. And I made this chapter n-i-i-ice and long, just for you:D ... You do realise I'm going to have to find another creature to attack you? ... Yes! That's it! GO, MY MONSTERS OF CHEESE! ATTACK WITH YOUR CHEESY CHEETOS CHEESENESS! God I hate that word now...
Yami Koibito: Yes, I know. Ew. Major ew. Imagine if he started losing control of his bladder... That's not a good image. Aaaaaaand now it's stuck in my mind. Lovely. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
OooOOOooO"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Tumbling, twisting and turning, Serenity fell towards the desert sand, picking up speed as she plummeted.
Somehow or another, she had found the strength within herself to try and see where it was, exactly, that she was going to land. Turning her head forcefully, she looked down towards the flat, oncoming ground. Something sparkled below her, getting larger and more in focus the closer she got.
"Is that a sword?" she shrieked.
Sure enough, there was Joey's abandoned sword, pointy end up, and the only thing stopping her from hitting the ground at breakneck speed.
"Oh, what the hell!" she cried, and promptly began flapping her arms. (You never know. Evolution makes dramatic leaps.)
Unfortunately for her, evolution did not decide to leap at that point in time.
OooOOOooO"Joey, will you wait up? Or at least help me with this one?" Yami called to the blonde, quickly disappearing over the sandhill in front of him. Yami trudged up to the top, the CEO spouting gibberish and other incoherent noises.
"My sister," Joey yelled over his shoulder, "Is about to hit the ground and die!"
"Relax." Kaiba said, taking a break from his insanity to string together a sentence. "It's not like you'll reach her in time."
Joey let out a wild moan of terror, urging himself faster.
"Nice going, genius." Yami snapped.
"Flying ju-jitsu catfish!" Kaiba replied, breaking out of Yami's grasp and running to catch up with Joey.
Yami sighed and shook his head, continuing forward at his same, almost leisurely pace. "I swear... I need a leash of some sort. Or a tranquilliser."
Finally, after a few more moments of grumbling, he too broke out into a run.
OooOOOooO"AAAAAAAAAAHHHH- Oh!"
Bounce.
Bounce.
Stop.
Begin Hyperactive Breathing. (Accelerate! ... Yeah, no.)
Serenity finally opened her eyes, looking around. She had missed the precariously positioned sword by a mere four inches, judging by the dent of her first bounce. Standing up and brushing herself off, she checked herself to make sure she was alright.
Fortunately, she was. (Dammit. Don't worry, guys. I'll get her next time.)
Looking around, she began to get her bearings. Or at least, attempt to. There didn't seem to be a sun overhead to figure out what direction she was facing. She had ever so conveniently landed on her watch, so that was gone too. Finally, she was quite certain that there was no place on earth that had a blood red sky and yellow sand and had a random sword sticking up out of the dirt. (Eriso: Well, technically - Me: Don't you start with your damn technicalities, woman!)
So, without much else to do, and with no apparent risk of sunburn or maiming and/or fatality from random monsters, due to lack of both, she laid down on the gently warmed sand and went to sleep.
Because that's what all smart people who dropped out of the sky and just missed being impaled by a precariously positioned sword and defy the laws of nature by surviving a drop that high and land in random deserts do.
Really.
Hours passed until she was shaken awake.
"... Serenity... Serenity..." A voice was calling to her.
She grunted something, but after the persistent voice refused to leave her, she opened her eyes. "Wha... ?"
"Serenity!" Joey cried, hovering over her. "You're alive! You're not dead!"
"That's what 'alive' means, idiot." Kaiba said, before returning to his rather one-sided conversation with the invisible shoemaker about how pointless rhetorical questions were and explaining that the only reason Wil E. Coyote didn't buy himself dinner and insisted on pursuing the roadrunner was because it had become a matter of pride. (That's one mystery of life solved!)
"Huh ...? Oh... Joey, hi. Yeah, you're alright, right?" Serenity asked, still groggy.
Joey shrugged. "As good as it gets with a self-proclaimed, spiteful, psychopathic villain bent on revenge who has an unending thirst for self satisfaction and gratification after you." (Thank-you, Prozac!)
"Well, that's nice." Serenity murmured, a drunken smile on her face. "I just fell out of the sky and missed getting impaled by a sword ever so conveniently placed in the general location of where I was about to land after being sent to this place by some crazy, magic, princess person." She suddenly squinted at him. "What the heck happened to your hair?"
"Let's not talk about that right now..." Joey muttered, mourning the loss of the entire front of his beloved, blond locks.
Yami was looking around, turning repeatedly in slow circles. "Joey, we have to find the rock chair."
"How?" Joey asked. "We don't know where it is. We need to find the sword... oh. Well, that was fast."
Serenity groaned, getting up stiffly. "Alright," she said, "I'm here now. So what am I supposed to do?"
"How'd you get here, anyway?" Joey asked her.
"I told you. Some crazy, magic, princess person sent me here." Serenity said, stretching. "She said you were in trouble and I had to help you." She looked around again. "There was someone else who was supposed to come with me too. Bert... Bob... Brandon... I don't know. He told me it, but I guess the fall must have scared it out of me. It was weird sounding, anyway. Something with a 'B'."
"Was he loud, rude, obnoxious and a complete know-it-all?" Yami questioned.
Serenity nodded.
"Bakura."
"That's the one!"
"Yami! Is that it?" Joey called to the pharaoh, pointing to a microscopic, (OH MY GAWD! DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THAT SHOW GHOST-WRITERS! I think they had a few books too... I remember they had to write this letter thing with invisible ink that could only be seen in certain lights, and the teacher said that they weren't allowed to just hand in a blank piece of paper and call it invisible because he'd fail their lying asses, and then at the end this guy leaves the Ghost-Writer headquarters and shines a flashlight on this sheet of paper and the paper reveals some writing and he's like, "Cool!" and then leaves! ... Anyone? ... No? ... Alright.) nearly undetectable by anyone with perfect vision, tiny, midget-sized blip on the horizon.
"It's... possible that that might be it!" Yami said, then added excitedly, "Yes! Yes I think that's it!"
"What're we looking for?" Serenity asked.
"A rock chair." Joey told her.
"Like that one over that way?" Serenity pointed to a small rock chair not too far off in the other direction.
Yami looked at it in disbelief for a moment. "... Yes."
"Okay, then!" Serenity declared. "Let's get going!" And with that, she marched off towards the rock chair, Seto Kaiba close behind.
OooOOOooO"Alright, Joey." Yami said, leaning on the rock chair that he had had the distinct displeasure of being attached to for quite an unreasonable amount of time. "We're here. Where's the temple?"
"I didn't say it was at the rock chair. I said it was between it and the sword." Joey said. "Alright, well, let's get to work finding this thing. Remember, silver, polished, pointy. Like a pyramid." Joey winced slightly, and almost ducked. The fear of having Bakura pop out of nowhere and beat him again lingered in his mind.
"So we have to check all that?" Serenity asked. She looked at the long stretch of sand between the chair and the sword off in the distance, barely noticeable and glinting under the light of the realm. "That'll take forever!"
"No. Just run." Joey said. "And besides, we only have to check near the middle and go in a straight line. It shouldn't take that long."
"Where's Kaiba?" Yami suddenly asked.
The other two snapped to attention, looking around, trying to pick out the shape of the recently snapped CEO. Instead, they found sand being flung up into the air.
"That's him." Joey said. "That's gotta be him. No one else could be flinging sand around."
"It could be Razatul." Yami pointed out.
"Who's Razatul?" Serenity wondered. "Not that crazy, psycho guy?"
"Yup." Joey nodded. "That's him. And that's not him. In the sand, I mean. If it was Razatul, Kaiba would be here, and since he's not, then that's Kaiba."
Yami sighed. "There are so many questions I could ask that would make you realise that your logic has no ground to it, but frankly, I don't care right now. Alright, let's go get Kaiba then."
OooOOOooOD/N: I'm sure by now you're wondering one of two things: a) Why on earth are there so many magical scene changing, bold, capital, lowercase, lowercase, capital, capital, capital, lowercase, lowercase, capital 'O's' in this chapter and b) Why aren't we hearing anything besides small, minor mentions about Bakura/Gaelia?
Well, first of all, I really don't feel like writing, 'And then they walked there... and then they walked to that place... and then they walked back there... and on the way there...' I'm much more of a 'GET TO THE DAMN POINT!' person, ergo, there are lots of c.l.l.c.c.c.l.l.c, bolded 'O's'.
Secondly, the reason why there is only a little blurb (ehehehe... blurb...) in which Bakura is mentioned like... once is because he's done. Gone. History. Literally. And I'll get more into that in the second part (a.k.a sequel, which is now officially guaranteed because not only do I not feeling like having a 40 chapter long story or summarising basically everything in another ten chapters, I've already got the titles picked out.) of the trilogy (Yup. Another two are on their way. You're in for a long period of chapter delays and annoying cliff-hangers.) so there's no point in explaining what it is I mean by 'History. Literally.'
Thirdly, why is there no mention of Gaelia except two little sentences? Because I don't feel like making Serenity talk about her, that's why.
My OC's don't get a lot of attention, nowadays.
Well, except for Razatul, but Razatul doesn't count.
ANYWAYS...
Oh dear... A big, black screw just fell off of my chair and I've no idea where it came from. If this thing collapses on me...
OooOOOooO"See?" Joey said, pointing at the CEO in a foot-deep pit. "I told you it wasn't Razatul."
"Why's he... digging like that?" Serenity asked, peering at Kaiba who was madly digging into the sand... doggy style. (I don't know what else to call it.)
"I found it!" Kaiba called up to them. "The temple! I found the temple!"
Joey looked around. "I don't see any temple."
"It's under here." Kaiba said, continuing to dig. "It's underground. He hid it, you know. So no one would find it. But I did."
"That's very good, Kaiba." Yami cooed, reaching a hand towards him. "Why don't you stop scratching in the dirt and get out of that hole-"
"No!" Kaiba snarled, baring his teeth at the pharaoh who couldn't pull his arm away fast enough. "I've been in this place all day - maybe even longer than a day! The only way to get out is via the Shadow Realm, and apparently the only other person who can get us to the Shadow Realm has already used that route. I want out! I'm tired of walking around all day! I'm tired of staring at sand! I'm tired of old men hitting on me, even if I am a sexy, young thing! So I'm going to get out of here, and Bakura said that the only way of getting out is through this temple! And God help you if anyone tries to get in my way!"
Joey blinked at him, then turned to Yami. "I don't get it. Is he smart again?"
"Turkey-flavoured Popsicle!"
"No." Yami replied. "I don't think so. He just has these moments..."
"Hey! Is this what everyone's looking for?" Serenity said, pointing towards a small, triangular piece of metal protruding from the ground.
Joey looked behind him. "Yeah! That's it! That's what I tripped over!"
Yami crouched down and studied it, running a finger along the polished edge. "This could certainly pass for the top of a pyramid." He nearly toppled over at the sudden attack of a sandball hurled at his head.
"Temple!" Kaiba snapped, then got back to work.
Yami growled at him, then turned back to the temple's tip. "Well, Joey, if this is the temple, then I'm afraid we're out of luck. We can't get to it."
Joey frowned. "But there's gotta be a way! Remember? Bakura said that these temples can't be completely hidden!"
"It's not." Yami said. "I'm staring at the tip right now. Besides, he said it couldn't be completely hidden. Not that it couldn't be impossible to get to.
"That's a little unfair." Serenity said. "I'm sure there's some kind of path to the door..."
"I'm making one!" Kaiba hollered from the pit.
"Yeah, keep up the great work." Joey told him. He sighed, sitting down on the ground. "Well, this was a waste of time."
Yami and Serenity sat down as well.
The girl, however, decided to take a closer look at the piece of metal. Thin, nearly invisible lines were etched onto its surface, but completely unnoticed when felt. It was as if someone hid them behind a pane of glass, so you could touch the glass, but not the grooves of the lines.
She stared deeply at the lines. They created various shapes and symbols that she eventually decided were some sort of Egyptian writing, due to the random birds and eyes covering it. But most importantly of all, there was a thin, impalpable arrow pointing downwards. Serenity reached a finger to it, but once again, felt nothing but a smooth surface.
Bored of having nothing better to do than listen to her brother whine, Yami remaining absolutely silent, and Kaiba constantly assuring them that the tunnel he was burrowing into would be finished soon, she began to scratch away at the sand below the arrow.
Almost immediately, she felt a bump on the surface.
"... never going to find that stupid door!" Joey was saying. "We're going to be trapped in this place forever!"
"Uh-huh." Yami grunted.
"I mean, this temple is buried under the ground. It could go on for miles." Joey growled. "There has to be... some sort of... I don't know, switch or something."
"This place is a giant metaphor, Joey." Yami said, waving his hand around. "'A desert of hopelessness'. That's what we're in now. And this temples - which symbolises his fears - has been buried. He buried his fears. Besides, who wants their fears roaming about their personal realm?"
"I still say there should be a switch." Joey grumped. "I want to know where that door is so we can get in and get out of here! I don't even care about stopping Razatul now!"
It was an eye. The all-seeing eye, actually, Serenity realised. The pupil was raised, with a very thin but touchable ring of space around it. Like it could be moved.
"Where's that stupid door?" Joey roared, punching the air.
Serenity pushed the pupil, shocked that it moved inwards though it was what she hoped would happen. Almost immediately, the ground underneath them began to shake.
Kaiba jumped out of the pit with lightening speed, rushing off towards the nearby sand hills, while Yami and Joey sat up very straight.
"What's going-" Yami began, but his words were lost in the sharp crack that resonated throughout the desert as the ground began to split open.
"Get on the hill with Kaiba!" Serenity said, rushing up to get off, but the ground suddenly fell away from under all three of them, and soon they were all falling into a deep, dark, underground cavern.
Kaiba jumped in after them, screaming something about being the new Christopher Columbus of tissue paper and yelling at his shoemaker friend to stop contradicting him.
After the sand finally stopped caving in on them and the dust settled, the four slowly sat up, now quite aware of the great, silver temple looming over them, the entrance dark and ominously open and unguarded.
"Oh," Joey coughed. "There it is."
As the four got up, brushing themselves off, Yami asked, "Well, do we go in?"
Kaiba answered this by running straight into the temple.
"Just give him a moment." Joey said. "If he dies, we'll know it's not safe."
OooOOOooOOOOOO
OOOOO
D/N: Yes, there! I'm done! So, I just thought you'd all like to know why exactly, I won't be able to update over the Christmas vacation. - -;; Because I get to go to Nova Scotia to chill with my grandparents, uncle with a crazy wife, and other uncle who, at age 30, still lives with his mommy and daddy. (My mom's the only one who actually went out and got a life. A good one, I mean.) So, yes, I won't be here. But the delay shouldn't be anything too new for you guys. So, I went and updated all my stories just so you'd all have something to read over the break. Enjoy it, you guys!
One (or possibly two, but I doubt it) chapter left before the second part comes out!