The Toga Party

Miriku POV

By noon, almost everyone was at John's house. The characters were still under the disguise spell, seeing as how Mikey was there.

John sat idly at the kitchen table. Bakura was next to him, cracking random jokes. Dustil was on one of the couches, Malik next to him on one side and Yuugi on the other. Mikey sat on the second, talking to Terra, who sat next to her. Yami and Ryou sat on the coffee table, which had been cleared pending our arrival. Kaiba was leaning against a wall, secluded as usual.

"Where is she!" Dustil exclaimed, bouncing impatiently in his seat—and forcibly reminding me of my little brother, Stuart.

Dean shrugged. "Who knows?"

John yawned. "She'll be here. Right now, I'm waiting for the other person I invited to show up."

"Same here," I added. "Besides, I've never known Merekai to miss any sort of insane party—especially not one she came up with."

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Yami, who had brought whatever he was working on to the party, called, "Someone's at the door!"

"Well, answer it!" we all hollered.

"All right, already!" He darted over to the door, and looked through the peephole. "She's not Merekai."

"Let her in anyway!" John called.

Yami opened the door, allowing Jane Lynch to enter. Jane is fourteen, with reddish brown hair, blue-green eyes, and lots of freckles. She's about as tall as Merekai.

"Hi, guys!" she chirruped happily, setting her bag against the edge of the couch.

"Jane!" I exclaimed. "What are you doing here!"

"Weren't you supposed to be on vacation?" Terra asked curiously.

"We just got back yesterday," Jane explained. It was then that she noticed the YuGiOh characters—who, as mentioned before, were under illusions—and Mikey. "Who're you guys?"

Before we could answer, there was a shout from outside.

"MIRIIIKUUU!"

The sound of someone slamming headlong into the front door echoed through the house.

"Someone's at the door," Yami called absently again.

Everyone glared at him—including Jane. He held up his arms. "Shimeta, shimeta! I'll answer it!"

Grumbling, he made his way to the door again. "It still isn't Merekai. It's not even a girl."

"Just open the door," I told him.

The second he did, a boy came racing into the room. He was also African-American, and his hair was in hundreds of tiny braids.

"TERRANCE COSBY IS IN THE HOOOOUSE!" he shouted—before tripping over an extension cord and landing flat on his face. "…And that happened to hurt…"

All the 'real' people—except Mikey, who didn't know him—looked at me, shocked. "You invited him!"

I shrugged. "Hey, I figured it was time for some real insanity—we've had only Merekai for long enough!"

"I resent that remark," came Terrance's muffled voice.

He sat up, looking around. "Who're all these new people?" A half-evil, half-insane grin spread across his face. "Can I eat them?"

"No!" everyone exclaimed.

Terrance made a face. "That sucks." He shrugged. "Well, if I can't eat them, who are they?"

"I was wondering the exact same thing," Jane added.

Ryou nodded. "I'm Riku Ohkawa. That's my twin, Koran." He pointed at Bakura, who was now absently twirling a strand of his illusionary blond hair between his fingers.

Malik looked up. "I'm Takio Isihara. Over there is Sorien Miasawa. Don't talk to him—he'll snap at you. Hard."

Kaiba rolled his eyes.

"I'm Taio," Yuugi chirruped. "Taio Maroko. My 'nii-san, Ahkama, is the one who let you guys in."

Yami waved absently, ripping a piece of tape off the roll beside him.

"He's a bit preoccupied right now," Yuugi explained, laughing.

"Wait a second!" Terrance exclaimed. "Ahkama's a car!"

I rolled my eyes, knocking him on the back on the head. "'Nii-san is Japanese for big brother, you idiot—it's short of onii-san! I've told you this before!"

Bakura cackled evilly. "We've got another baka in the house!"

"Really?" Yami asked, with an innocent air. "I thought you were the only one! You have tripped down those stairs four times!" He brought his hand to his mouth in mock surprise. "Whoops, I forgot—you only did it three times!"

By now, everyone had cracked up—excluding, as usual, Kaiba.

"I knew you'd never let me live that down," Bakura muttered, sending us into laughter again.

Mikey smiled at Jane and Terrance. "Mikey Labrador. Pleasure."

Jane gaped. "Labrador? Like, the big company?"

"Don't remind me," Mikey groaned.

Terrance grinned evilly. "All I care is that she looks like Miriku." He gasped suddenly, a falsetto look of horror on his face. "MIRIKU HAS AN EVIL TWIN!"

"No," John and Bakura said at the same time. "Miriku is the evil twin!"

Everyone cracked up again.

"Hiya, people! What'd I miss?" Merekai stumbled into the living room, carrying a huge bundle of sheets and such.

Yami followed, an apologetic expression on his face. "You guys didn't here it ring—and I didn't feel like getting shouted at again."

Merekai dropped the bundle on the coffee table, which everyone immediately gathered around. "Okay, I brought lots of sheets—I can show you people how to put the toga thingies on. First off, though, the guys need shorts and we females need shirts and shorts."

"Already taken care of," everyone said at the same time.

Merekai clapped her hands together. "Awesomeness! Everybody'd better change, then—you know, into the tight-fitting stuff. So we can put on the togas."

So, one at a time, everyone changed. All the boys ended up bare-chested with shorts on; us girls ended up with tight-fitting shirts and the same type of shorts as the guys.

Merekai looked us over. "Perfect! Now, come here so I can help you guys into these—"

So that was how all of us—me, John, Dustil, Dean, Merekai, Terra, Jane, Terrance, Kaiba (with intense reluctance), Malik, Yuugi, Yami, Ryou, and Bakura—ended up wearing sheets wrapped around our bodies over close-fitting white clothing and pretending we were Greeks.

"And now," Dean said in his best announcer's voice, "the moment we've all been waiting for!"

"Movies!" everyone shouted. Kaiba simply rolled his eyes.

Terrence elbowed him. "C'mon, Sorien—don't be such a party pooper!"

"That would be practically impossible," Dustil said, sniggering.

"Anyway," I said loudly, cutting off the sharp retort we all knew was coming, "who wants dibs?"

"Me!" Terra shouted, waving her hand frantically around in the air. "I know it's not anime, but—I brought CSI movies!"

"You're kidding!" Dustil, John, Dean, Mikey, Merekai, Jane, and I exclaimed.

"I never knew you liked CSI!" I said excitedly.

"Of course I like CSI!" Terra admonished. "I like Numb3rs, too, but I don't have any of those!"

"All right," Malik interrupted, "now I'm confused."

"Like that's anything new," Bakura muttered.

Malik shot him a venomous glare, but continued. "What's CSI?"

I grinned. "Only one of the best crime shows ever made on TV—next to Forensic Files, Cold Case, Psychic Detectives, and Numb3rs!"

Terra began to bounce excitedly, nodding. "It's on every Thursday night, and I stay up to watch it. I've seen every episode, and I have them all on DVD, and I spent way too much money on them, and—"

"Onna!" Kaiba interrupted. "Shut up!"

Terra scowled at him, but quieted down.

"Arigatou."

By now, people all across the room were sniggering.

"Why don't we just watch the movies?" Jane suggested. She glanced uneasily between Terra and Kaiba, with an I-don't-like-where-this-is-going expression on her face.

"Good idea," Dean said loudly, popping in the first tape.

And so the afternoon passed. We watched CSI and different animes—enjoying the shocked expressions on the characters' faces when we played anything YuGiOh—and we also went in John's pool once or twice.

Finally, Mikey nervously cleared her throat. "I—uh—had something I wanted to show you guys."

She pulled a binder out from its hiding place under the coffee table. "These are some drawings I did."

Some was an understatement. The binder was almost as full of sketches as my story folder is full of in-progress fanfics—and my story folder is a jam-packed two-inch binder.

And all of them were of Ryou.

I watched his eyes slowly widen as we looked through sketch after detailed sketch. No two of the pictures were exactly alike—and they were all perfect in their shading and coloring. All sorts of postures; all kinds of emotions.

"These are…amazing!" Terra breathed. Everyone else simply shook their heads, stunned expressions on their faces.

Mikey shifted uncomfortably. "They're not that good…"

Ryou turned serious eyes to her. "Not that good, you say? The only word that can describe these…is perfect."

Terrance was the first to break the uncomfortable silence that followed. An evil grin spread across his face. "Can I eat them?"

Everyone sweatdropped.

Terrance made a face. "You guys are no fun!"

John shrugged. "Who cares? You're not eating anything except the food, and that's final."

Dustil looked down at his watch. "It's getting really late—maybe we'd better go home."

Jane looked around. "This has been really fun. I'd rather not."

Terra nodded. "Besides, we haven't even had a dueling contest yet!"

Everyone raised their eyebrows. "Dueling contest?"

Terra shrugged. "Sure, why not? I haven't dueled in a while—I need to make sure my skills haven't rusted up!"

Dean snapped his fingers. "I know! Why not make this a co-ed sleepover? Boys can sleep in one part of the house, and girls in another. That way, we can do all the duels and such we want!" He turned to John. "And since your parents are still on vacation, we can stay up as late as we want doing it!"

Mikey grinned. "Sounds cool to me!"

Terrance pumped his fist into the air. "Rock on!"

"Count me in," everyone else said at the same time.

Terra elbowed Kaiba, who sighed. "Fine. I suppose I'll have to stay, seeing as how Terra's here."

"Damn straight you're staying here," Terra muttered.

Everyone cracked up again. Terrance practically howled with laughter.

"Is he…all right?" Yuugi whispered uneasily to me, glancing nervously at Terrance.

"He's fine," I replied in an undertone. "That's the way he always acts. Like I said earlier—he's a real psychotic. Think Marik."

Yuugi shuddered. "Not a good image."

I grinned slightly. "Well—think Marik without the insane urge to destroy everything and become pharaoh of the world."

Yuugi shuddered again. "Still not a good image."

I shrugged. "Well, Marik was rated the fourth-baddest baddie in the whole series, according to my magazine."

"Really?" Bakura asked, his interest piqued. "Who were the others?"

With a flourish, I whipped the latest issue of Beckett YuGiOh Unofficial collector out of my bag—Issue #21, complete with a picture of the Cyber End Dragon on the front.

I opened the magazine—and knocked Bakura on the head as he tried to creep around behind me. "No peeking!"

"Damn," Bakura muttered, returning to the front with everyone else.

I reminded myself that I would have to read out the Japanese names—or the characters would never know who I was talking about. Luckily, the first one was exactly the same in both versions.

"Tenth place," I announced dramatically, "goes to—'Bandit' Keith Howard!"

Yami laughed. "Tenth place suits him perfectly!"

"A low rank for a low-life," Yuugi agreed.

I grinned, reading out the info box. "'This former American Duel Monsters champion was a vicious thug who nearly killed Yuugi. Heartless, what he couldn't win by cheating he won through brute force. A good thing he's out of the picture.'"

"A very good thing," Terra agreed.

"Keep going!" Dustil said impatiently.

"Ninth place," I continued, "is awarded to—Leon and Ziegfried, the Shroeder brothers!"

Kaiba snorted. "Those failures shouldn't even be on the top ten list. Their plan didn't even work properly."

"The point is that it worked in the first place," Dean explained. "Now shut up and let the girl read."

I grinned at him, and continued.

"'Of all the attempts to take over the Kaiba Corporation, theirs goes down as one of the weakest. Elder brother Ziegfried bullies younger brother, Leon, into becoming the champion of Kaiba's latest tournament. This is actually a tremendous bluff to destroy Kaiba's computer systems. Ziggy never really comes off as much of a threat—even Leon ends up 'betraying' him. After dealing with Gozaburou, the Big Five, and these two, Kaiba must spend a ton of time doing disaster-level backups of all his systems.'"

"I'll bet he does," Bakura muttered, glancing pointedly at Kaiba. Said CEO simply rolled his eyes.

Yami grinned. I could tell he was enjoying this. "Next?"

"Is Pegasus," I announced. I read the passage aloud;

"'Yuugi's first true villain was a good guy gone mad from the loss of his true love. Since losing the Millennium Eye, he's realized the error of his ways. Still, he did nearly cause the end of the world. That's got to be something.'"

Apparently, no one had any comments, so I continued on.

"In seventh place, we have the Big Five. 'These guys nearly succeeded in wiping out our heroes…twice! Proof positive that you can't keep a good set of heels down, the former Board of KaibaCorp really did earn this position.'"

Kaiba snorted. "Those wimps? Please."

"They did manage to nearly cream us," Yuugi reminded him.

I started, looking around. Neither Mikey, Jane, nor Terrance seemed to have realized Yuugi's little slip-up—which was a good thing.

"Six—Noa Kaiba. 'This virtual villain was as unstable as the bad software he was generated from. Yuugi's world was a safer place after he was virtually deleted.'"

Yuugi shook his head. "He might have been a pretty good person, too."

Yami nodded. "Too bad he deleted himself when he destroyed Gozaburou."

I grinned. "And, speaking of—Gozaburou got fifth. 'For making Kaiba the way his is makes him pretty evil as well. Yet when he went so out of his way to reshape the world in his own image, you have to say it's a good thing he's been wiped clean from both the virtual and real worlds.'"

"Too true," Yami agreed.

"You can say that again," Yuugi murmured.

Kaiba merely snorted.

"Fourth place," I continued, "goes to—Malik Ishtar!"

Everyone (except Mikey, Jane, and Terrance, who didn't know) glanced at Malik.

"'If you needed proof that parental abuse creates disturbed children, look no further than this bad boy. A tomb keeper gone truly rotten by an over-demanding father, not only does Malik kill his dad, he then tries to take over the world! Truth be told, he's really not very good at it, as Yuugi manages to thwart nearly every move he makes. His non-stop ranting also got more and more annoying with each episode. This was one baddie we were glad to see go by the end of his run.'"

Malik, meanwhile, had gone redder and redder with every word. About halfway through, he'd stood up and left, muttering something about needing to use the bathroom.

Bakura glanced down at the text. "So he's a 'disturbed child', hmm?"

Merekai grinned. "And you aren't?"

Bakura growled at her.

Malik returned at that moment. The color had faded from his face, and he was looking back to normal, so I continued.

"In third place—Anubis. 'Only seen in the movie, this ancient Egyptian gave out heroes one heck of a run for their lives. Just for the fact that he was a threat both five millennia ago as well as in the present earns him a lot of props.'"

"I am glad he's gone," Yuugi murmured.

Dean nodded. "He was an obsessive, if I ever saw one."

"I mean, the only other person we know with a five-thousand-year-old- grudge is Bakura," Terra continued. "And we already know that he's insane!"

Bakura growled at her.

"Second place," I continued loudly, "is awarded to Dartz."

"Only second!" Yami and Yuugi exclaimed.

Yuugi shook his head. "You mean there's someone worse than him?"

"You'll see," I said mysteriously. "Right now, though, Dartz is up. 'This former king of Atlantis nearly destroyed the world—twice. Each time, it took the combined forces of both our universe and the Duel Monsters' universe to stop him. Now that's evil.'"

"And to think there's someone worse out there," Ryou murmured.

I looked up from the magazine. "All right. Before I read this, I need you all to promise me something. No really excited jumping up and down or cheering, and no yelling. All right? No one really likes this character, which I know, so don't get mad because he was voted in first place by a landslide."

I looked back down at the page. "And the first place winner, the baddest of all bad guys in the entire show—so far, anyway—is; Bakura!"

Bakura let out a whoop, pumping his fist in the air. "Baddest of the bad! Give it up for—BAKURA!"

He cheered for himself. Everyone sweatdropped.

"Has he got a problem or something?" Jane asked, perplexed.

"No," I replied. "Bakura is his all-time favorite character. And, if you'll look at Ahkama, you'll see that they're exact opposites."

Yami was, in fact, glaring venomously at Bakura, who was still carrying on about how he was the 'King of Villains'.

Terrance grabbed him by the collar of the shirt. "Calm down! Let Miriku read the text, so we can actually see why!"

Grumbling, Bakura sat down on the couch next to John.

"Besides," I head John whisper, "you can use this info as blackmail later."

An evil grin spread across Bakura's face. "Good point."

Feeling slightly uncomfortable, I read the text box. "'You may think that this guy hasn't been much of a threat. Well, here's a spoiler; he helped trigger the fall of the Pharaoh five thousand years ago. Also, it seems that no matter how hard you beat him, he comes back for more. If that isn't enough, he still has the Millennium Ring and Eye in his possession. Tough, resourceful, heartless, and cunning, you can bet we haven't heard the last of this villain until the end of the series.'"

"Oh yeah!" Bakura shouted. "No keepin' me down! I AM THE KING OF BAD GUYS!"

At Mikey, Jane, and Terrance's stunned expressions, Terra quickly tried to explain. "He likes to pretend he's Bakura, for some weird reason. Don't ask me—I'm not a psychotic."

"Are you so sure about that?" Kaiba asked blandly. The whole room collapsed into laughter.

Suddenly, the TV screen began to glow.

I appeared to be the only one who noticed—it was a very faint shimmer. But it was a silvery blue.

Without warning, the character's illusion spells flickered and died.

Bakura, who had been standing on top of the coffee table and proclaiming his greatness to the room at large, froze. "Ah…yeah." He jumped off the coffee table. "Miriku, was this supposed to happen?"

I shook my head, shocked. "No! I didn't say the words—and only person who cast the spell can remove it!"

Mikey, Jane, and Terrance were just staring around at the characters. "No way," they all said at the same time.

Terrance marched up to me, and pointed 'the accusatory finger' in my face. "Miriku, you are an obsessive."

"I know that," I said patiently.

Jane just looked around. "Whoa," she kept saying.

Mikey, meanwhile, just stared at Ryou. Said boy flushed slightly, edging over towards the kitchen.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she demanded.

Terra shrugged. "We figured you wouldn't believe us."

Jane blinked. "Wait—you're in on this, too?"

"Oh, sure!" Bakura said easily, draping his arm around Terra's shoulders. "And so're Dustil, Dean, John, and Merekai!"

Terra reached up to her shoulders, grabbed Bakura's arm, and twisted it around so that if he struggled to get free, it hurt him even more.

"Do not touch me."

Bakura, who was wincing in pain, nodded. The second Terra let go, he darted to the other side of the room.

Terrance shook his head. "You guys are lucky. If I believed this, I'd already be trying to kill Yuugi."

Said boy "meep"ed, running to hide behind Yami.

John's TV screen had been gradually getting brighter. Now, it caught my eye again.

"Whoa, major déjà vu here!" I hollered. "Everyone outta the living room—the TV's turning into another portal!"

Everyone scrambled backwards, ducking behind couches. We heard a few muffled thumps, and then—nothing. I peered over the top of the couch.

"Oh…my…god!"