Disclaimer: IMPORTANT! Besides the fact that I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh, I state here and now that this story is not meant in any way to be sacrilegious, nor is it meant to be an accurate representation of the true Biblical story. I write this purely for entertainment purposes only, and by no means have I intentionally set out to offend anyone by my works. It is asked that you keep an open mind while reading this, and I remind you that you, if you are truly offended, do not rally against this story because there are others who read this as well. Any comments or concerns are to be addressed to me in a review. This shall only be stated once in the story, as one who is truly against reading a story like this is unlikely to get past the first chapter.
D/N: Whew! I hope that disclaimer sounds nice and businessy. Anyway, I'm glad you've all managed to find your way here from the first book. (Eriso: You fools. You should've run when you had the chance.) ... ... ... (Eriso: ... I'm just... going to stop talking.) Great idea, 'Riso.
To all new-comers - There will be a short recap of the previous story for your convenience, but it is suggested that you read the first story before beginning.
Wow! Two businessy things in a row! I'm on a roll today, baby! So, just to let you know, all those who have gone to Religion classes and stayed awake, I want to address something quickly. ... Okay, let's go a little more casual. I wanna say something real fast: There's no Dinah in this story. I'm well-aware that Leah gave birth to a daughter, but as I'm too lazy to change Dinah's name to Serenity - and anyway, Dinah's older than Joseph if you've kept track of the ages in the Book - I'm just going to X her right out. Besides, she wasn't in the musical anyway. Hardly anyone knows who she is.
ALSO! I just want to know something. If anyone's keeping track of names in Dawn of the Duels, can you let me know if any of the characters' names are different in their past life? I know it's not going to be accurate anyway (It's an AU, people! I said it for a reason!) but I'd like to avoid any sudden screams of, "THAT'S NOT HIS NAME IN ANCIENT EGYPT!" So, let me know.
Review Response from Chapter 17 of 'Of Dogs and Men':
Lady-Crymsyn: Haha, not too weird I hope! And if it is... well... it's just going to get weirder!
Anaraz: I know I'm right! I'm always right. For shame on you for just noticing. Anyway, I hope this was a fast enough update. ... It probably wasn't, but whatever.
Bluebelle: I was going to tell you the title, buuuut... if you're already here, you don't really need it anymore, now do you? Which saves time and effort on my part! (Eriso: Not really. You wont stop talking.) ... I thought you said you were going to. (Eriso: Yes, yes I did. And so I will.) ... Quite.
Baada: Ahhh! Good! I was wondering if anyone was actually going to get it... Wow, you really like the way I write? Coolness!
R.F.K.a.'...': I have tried hamsters, actually. Only problem is... they're easily distracted. And lazy. I can't get them to do a thing! Yes, copyrights can be a troublesome little thing... But money's pretty persuasive too. I wouldn't mind having this animated, but I doubt anyone would mind having 4Kids do up their fic. At any rate, I don't think it's very likely. Too bad. I'm just such a good writer. ... Maybe if I wrote something original I could get it published, but that's just so much work. And I'm that lazy. And your questions made me realise that... they were good questions, so I've answered them later in the story. ... Sort of.
Yami Koibito: The YGO spark will not die for a long time in me, and I hope it doesn't go poof in you either. Darn! It's so sad! I haven't watched the show for such a long while... and what's up with that GX crap? O.o
Thanks again to everyone who reviewed last story!
OooOOO On with the show! OOOooOJoey realised his head hurt as he pried his eyes open. It was a remarkably simple thought, it wasn't anything that would confound most scientists and it was a conclusion that children could come up with. Nevertheless, it was a very accurate realisation. His head did hurt. Of course, that was to be expected when a blue-haired girl of questionable sanity beats him in the head.
His eyes were open by this time, open, but far too blurry to see at so early a time. Beige was all he saw. Or maybe it was tan... or heck, maybe he was just thinking to hard and it was standard brown. Whatever. It didn't matter. The point was that Tartra must've destroyed the part of his brain that let him see. Well, as long as he was going to sit here semi-blind, he may as well get thinking. So many things had happened over the past little while, some going far too fast and being far too random to think out properly at the moment. Now was as good a time as any to get sorted out.
Right, well, first, to start everything off, there was that bloody 'get to know your partner' project that he'd been forced to do with Kaiba. That was... well, as of yet, to be completed, but one can't be expected to focus on a project when they're being chased by a crazed freak who wants blood for the death of his loved one, right? And then that temple thing and time trip backwards with Tartra and why'd she have to hit so hard and couldn't she have just warned him or something?
Alright, that wasn't really sorting things out in a calm and civilised manner. Mental deep breath, and... begin again!
Project with Kaiba. That was first. Then the trip back home, where he found that brown dog which was then abruptly adopted into his home.
Okay. That was good. That was normal. That was easy to understand.
Kaiba spontaneously changed into rat.
... Alright, getting a little bit more complicated, but still, not the worst he'd been through for the past little while. ... Although it wouldn't hurt to go over it a bit more.
Kaiba had come over Joey's house to work on the project after he'd adopted the dog. He'd left the kitchen for a little while, came back, boom! Kaiba was a rat. Fitting, and now he was able to think about it calmly.
After persuading Kaiba to stay in a pink dollhouse until he - Joey - could figure out what was going on, Yami was called, and Bakura sort of arrived on his doorstep.
Good. Nice and calm. Yami, Bakura and Kaiba, all there.
Heard a nice story from Bakura about how a guy named Razatul fell in love with a chick named Gaelia and how she died. Also heard about how Razatul tried to revive Gaelia, but failed miserably. Then the guy went insane, attacking the High Priest for teaching him a Shadow Magic spell that brought his lovely back to life as a gross, corpsified mummy and attacked the Pharaoh because... he wanted to. Apparently, he was stopped by the Pharaoh and some sort of incident Bakura never really got around to telling him about... He supposed it was that muffin or something.
Think about muffin later. That's getting a bit ahead.
A few more minutes, and boom! There was Razatul, in the flesh, standing in front of them and demanding revenge on the High Priest and Pharaoh... even though technically Razatul had already turned Kaiba into a rat and the Pharaoh... hadn't really done anything to Razatul to be avenged other than stop him from destroying Egypt.
Right. Moving along... Big puffy cloud of colours and they were in some sort of desert that was apparently Razatul's own, personal realm. Sort of like the Shadow Realm only more... deserty...
Big chase scene, Joey wound up sword-fighting with Razatul for a few minutes. Big fight sequence, Razatul kind of... electrocuted himself or something on a wall of light, and woke up with a sudden hallucination of Kaiba being Gaelia, having miraculously been changed back to his old self thanks to Bakura.
Kaiba was quite sick.
Anyway, after a while, Bakura came up with a great plan to get rid of Razatul. He fed the psycho a muffin. Razatul collapsed, everyone was happy for a while and were all set to leave until he suddenly jumped back up again and gave Bakura a nice stab to the gut. Luckily - or unluckily, whichever - Bakura was immortal, so he was still breathing.
After they all began running away, they decided to find a sort of... 'Temple of Fears' hidden somewhere in Razatul's realm. Supposedly, it was supposed to hold the supposed key to the supposed destruction of Razatul, Bakura supposed. In a way, it did. It held a very odd key.
Long story short, they found the temple, and there they met Tartra, who explained to them in a complicated manner that she and her brother had a very strange ability due to the fact that they were both born at the Apocalypse, and, since they committed no fault yet, were granted a sort of wish. The angels gave them the ability to see everything backwards through time, but at the same speed everyone else saw things go forward, like watching a movie backwards. Eventually, they reached the dawn of time, where God gave them two special keys: The Opjant Key, which belonged to Tartra, and the Tampvo Key, which belonged to her brother, Trawmi.
The keys allowed them to cancel out their current time direction and move in the opposite - forwards. The only problem was that Trawmi had lost his key in Ancient Egypt, coincidentally during the Pharaoh's Reign. So, after promising Joey to take care of Razatul in return for the retrieval of the key - since she couldn't do it for one reason or another - Tartra went through some complex movements and shuffling of the Opjant Key to get Joey back to the time where Trawmi had lost his key.
So here he was, staring blurry-eyed up at a brown, tan, sandy, whatever colour roof. Man, he never could remember the names of all those colours and he'd probably never know how women could. Not only that, he was quite certain he was still in that horribly, itchy, ratty robe thing that Tartra slapped on him.
Slowly, feeling began to make its way back into his fingers. Strange. He hadn't even known it wasn't there in the first place, but it explained why he couldn't move and stumble around. Well, at least this way he knew Tartra hadn't paralysed him.
He blinked his eyes several times, before he suddenly realised that the only reason he wasn't able to make out anything but beige or whatever was because the entire room was beige. Or the... well, it wasn't exactly a room as it was a tent. Very well. The entire tent was beige.
Joey stiffly pulled himself up to a sitting position, looking down in disgust at the tattered 'bed' he had been lying on. Oh, God, how many things were in his hair now? Oodles of bugs, right? Lice were probably the least of his worries. Great. He was going to die of some weird, freaky disease and he couldn't even get it cured because this was Ancient Egypt.
Eventually, he looked down at himself. He didn't see to have changed too much - his skin was a shade darker, but other than that he looked generally the same. He supposed, anyway. He didn't exactly pack a mirror with him.
It suddenly occurred to him that not a moment had passed by that the possibility of this all being a dream had opened up as an option to him.
Were things like this really getting so commonplace for him?
"Joseph!" An impatient voice snapped in the distance. "Get up!"
A sudden wave of annoyance washed over him. Not ten minutes - he was guessing - had passed and already some guy was giving him a hard time. That was lovely. He ignored his urge to snap back, instead checking to see if Tartra had left him anything in his holey pockets.
A small jolt of surprise came over him as his fingers came into contact with two objects, one made of cool metal. He picked out the thin, gold chain Tartra had given him. Right. That was the one with the 'essence of the Opjant Key' and was supposed to bring him into the past later. The other was a round, blue gem - almost a marble.
He was staring into it intently for just a moment before its innards began swirling with a strange smoke.
"Hey! You're awake already, kiddo?" Tartra's over-cheery voice said in his head. She seemed to have sensed the sudden alarm that sparked through Joey, because she added, "Relax, Jojo. It's just lil ol' me."
Joey stared at the gem, quiet for a moment, before cautiously saying, "... Uh... hi?"
"Hi!" Tartra's voice replied, bubbling with pleasure.
"Where are you?" Joey asked, looking around himself.
"I'm chillin' back in that dingy Temple of Razatul's." came Tartra's response. "Man, have you ever seen a sadder place? I mean, it doesn't have to be fixed up all the way, but a few skylights never hurt anyone..."
"The others with you?" Joey said, feeling slightly foolish for standing in the middle of the tent, talking to a marble. "And... where am I, anyway?"
"Uhhhhh..." Tartra said, clearly thinking hard. That was definitely not a good sign. No one wanted to be dropped off somewhere at some random point in time and have the person who dropped them off not remember where they put their passenger. A long while of 'uhhh-ing' passed before Tartra chipper voice cried, "Canaan! And yeah, the others are here. Gee, that Pharaoh's a nice guy. Yami's his name? Weird. What a weird name. But I'm called Tartra, so I can't-"
"Canaan?" Joey repeated, interrupting 'master of time'. "I thought you said you were puttin' me in Egypt!"
"Did I?" Tartra said. "Well, you didn't start off right away in Egypt, kid. You were brought over."
"Brought over?" Joey echoed. "By who?"
"Your brothers."
"I got brothers? What about Serenity? Is she here?"
"Sorry, babe. Ol' Sissy-head's with a different family in her past life. You've got eleven brothers, and - hey! Good news! They all hate you!"
Joey nearly collapsed. "That's good news?" He cried.
"Sure is! You wouldn't want eleven brothers who had absolutely nothing in common with each other, now, would you?" Tartra continued on, smoothly cutting off any of Joey's possible replies. "Now, if only you were a suicidal maniac... then you'd all love to hate the same thing! Oh well. Eleven out of twelve's not bad."
"Wait, wait, wait! I got eleven brothers... and they all hate me?" Joey said, stuttering slightly. "Tartra, why'd you bring me here?"
"Hey, that's how your past self grew up, Jojo."
A thought suddenly rose past the multiple complaints and comments and bubbled to the top of his head. "Hey, Tartra... If I got a past self, ain't there two of me runnin' around?"
"Nope."
"... Then I'm my past self?"
"Nope."
"Well, thanks for clearin' that up." Joey snapped. "What'd you do with the other me?"
"Gagged him, beat him, stuffed him in a closet - what's it matter?" Tartra said, nonchalantly. "The point is he won't be bumping into you. You're there and he's... hmm... Where did I put him?"
"Oh, God..." Joey moaned, shaking his head. The girl was completely insane. "Alright, what am I supposed to do?"
"Uhmmm... piss off your brothers, if I remember correctly."
Joey's eyes widened. "Don't you think I'd want to stay on their good side?"
"Ha, ha, ha! Of course not! You want to get them as annoyed as possible, otherwise you'll never find your way to Egypt!" Tartra giggled. "Hmm... have any dreams while you were knocked out?"
"Dr - what? Tartra, what's dreams got to do with anything?"
"Uh, only everything" Tartra said. "Look, did you have any dreams when I knocked you out or not?"
Joey opened his mouth, but shut it just as quickly. A strange remembrance of... bent corn and bowing stars prodded him. "Yeah. Stars and corn."
"Ahh! Right on time! Great!" Tartra squealed, happy, like usual. "Alright, just pop this little sucker back into that robe of yours - don't worry, I've pulled a quick enchantment so it can't get separated from you - get on out there and greet your pa!"
"My pa?" Joey repeated, raising an eyebrow at the jewel. "What is this? Little House on the -"
"Joseph!" That same, harsh voice growled, closer this time. A opening appeared in one of the walls of the tent, as a tanned, tall, ratty-robed man came storming in, his hair black, long and a mess of tangles. "I thought I told you to get up."
Joey stared at him in stunned silence for a moment. Was this one of his brothers? They looked nothing alike. "Uh... You did? I... didn't hear." Oh, God... he wasn't even speaking English any more! This was a new, random language he'd never heard of and couldn't name and now it was just flowing out of his mouth like though it was his mother tongue.
The man stared at him strangely. "You sound different today. Your voice - it's off."
"Ah..." Joey raised a hand to his throat. "Just a little sore today is all."
He narrowed his eyes slightly, before turning to leave. "Come on, Joseph. Father said he had a gift for you."
"Really?" Joey couldn't help asking excitedly. Wow! Alright, so he was snapped at a little, beaten in the head, and forced to sleep on really dirty mattresses and wear really itchy clothes, but now he was getting some gifts. That counted for something. "Cool!"
"What is?" The man said shortly, looking at him sharply.
"I said... oh." Ancient Egypt. He had forgotten again. He was in Ancient Egypt now, he couldn't go around using words like 'cool'. "Yeah, 'oh'. As in... 'Oh, that's great.'"
This time the man gave him a look that was definitely one of suspicion.
"Alright, what're we waitin' for?" Joey said, trying to act natural. He walked briskly past the man. "Let's go get dad and get my present!"
"You're acting far more strangely than usual." The man said, taking the lead. Joey was grateful for that. He had no idea where he was going. "You've never called father... 'dad' before."
"Oh... I haven't?" Joey said. Well, he wasn't blending in very well. And of course he was acting strangely - he didn't know how his other self would have acted. "Well... okay. Uhm... did you want me to call you anything specific?"
"My name."
"... Right..." Joey said, weakly. Then, cautiously, in a voice barely above a whisper, he asked, "... And that was... ?"
The man whirled around. "Have you completely lost your mind?" He cried. "I knew you were stupid, but not absent minded. You seemed to be able to prattle on about your pathetic, little dreams for hours."
"Ha, dreams, yeah..." Joey said, taking a step forward and hoping it would encourage him to walk as well. "I got a good one for you later."
He received an eye-roll. "Wonderful." With that, he stomped ahead, not looking back. Remembering what Tartra said, Joey realised that without a doubt that he was one of his eleven brothers.
"Eleven..." Joey muttered. "What kinda guy had eleven brothers? What kinda woman wants to give birth to eleven kids?"
It was at that moment that three women walked past, chatting amongst themselves as they carried baskets of clothes.
Joey stared at them in slight shock, as they waved at him.
"Dude... three wives." Joey said, shaking his head slightly. "Okay, they may kinda smell and have crap clothes, but any place that lets you have more than one chick is alright with me."
OooOOOooOOOOOO
OOOOO
D/N: (Eriso: Typical male. Only thinks about one thing... ) He's a teenager. He's full of raging hormones. What do you expect? (Eriso: Purging of the lesser gender.) ... Tomorrow, maybe. Anyway, that was the first chapter of the second book! I hope all - if any - newcomers found the recap somewhat useful. I tried to explain it as simply as possible. Anyway, leave me some comments, and I'll get back to writing the next chapter and revising Of Dogs and Men.