Chapter 15: Masks

The Queen of the Rare Hunters drew her head back and slammed it into the wall. ::THUNK::

"WHY, WHY, WHY, are all of my servants TOTAL #(&$ MORONS?" She roared. "Oh, by the way, did you all watch three hours of 'Teletubbies' and have a hearty dinner of pixie sticks?"

"WHEEEEEEEEEEE! YUM YUM!" A Rare Hunter shrieked, running in circles around the room. Then he collapsed and started flopping around on the floor, clutching his chest.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Well, I may have lost one of my Egyptian God Cards, and my minions may have not so much 'destroyed Yugi and reclaimed my artifact' as 'totally not done anything at all', but there's nothing to do but move forward. Nobody conquered the world by giving up easily! Why, just look at every villain in every comic book ever made! They NEVER surrender, no matter how many times they get horribly dominated and crushed and… okay, that's a bad example, but the principle is sound. Now, Vincent, how many Rare Hunters do I have left?"

"Um… your majesty… I'm Charlie. You had Vincent executed for looking at you too hard."

"Oh. Well, you're the new Vincent, now. So, Vincent, how many Rare Hunters do I have left?"

"Well… me. Bob, over there, who's having a heart attack. And Umbra and Lumis."

"… You're telling me I have THREE minions left?"

"Well, four until Bob bites it."

"… and you're not worried that I'm going to have you executed for bringing me bad news?"

"You had the executioners executed for not executing fast enough. So no, I'm not worried."

"Crap."

"Y'know what? I'm going to go home, maybe become a dentist like my mom wanted. Bye."

"… crap, again." The Queen said as Vincent left. "Okay. I think it's time for me to get personally involved, here. UMBRA! LUMIS!" she roared.

"They already left!" Vincent shouted from the next room.

"DAMMIT! WHERE'D THEY GO!"

"DOMINO!"

"WHY?"

"YOU TOLD THEM TO! YOU'RE NOT VERY GOOD AT THIS EVIL THING, ARE YOU?"

"WELL… NO! I'M NEW AT IT, ADMITTEDLY! BUT STILL, I'M TRYING! DOESN'T THAT COUNT?"

"NOT REALLY! BYE!" the newly re-named Vincent said, going off to dentist school.

"Okay. I'll… I'll call them. I've got a phone. And THEN, I shall unearth my great Egyptian God Card which… I don't have. Crap, that little twit Malik took my Ra card! Nuts. Well, maybe I can get a cheapo fake one, use it to intimidate people. In any case, it's time to pack up the ol' sarcophagus and get going!" she said, grabbing the giant coffin and tugging on it.

It didn't move.

"Um… well, transportation COULD be a problem. Better go find that phone, first."

"Yeah… uh-huh… okay, sure. Got it." Umbra said into the phone. "Well, Lumis, it seems our esteemed Queen wants us to, and I quote, 'watch the Care Bears so that we may seek inspiration on a totally groovy plot to get her artifact back'."

"Uh-huh." Lumis said. "Kidnap Mokuba, kidnap various friends for brainwashing purposes, lure everyone into a big battle on top of a glass ceiling for their cards, kill the losers?"

"That's what we usually do in these situations."

"… which, when you think about it, makes me really glad we've never lost."

"You may have a point there. Maybe we should drop that 'death to the loser' thing?"

"HEY! I didn't say that. We HAVE to kill the people we beat at cards. It DEFINES us!"

"But…"

"DEFINES!"

"I… ya know what, I don't even care. Let's just get kidnapping."

"So, Steve, as I was saying, I really enjoy pineapple milkshakes." Kaiba said solemnly.

"Seto, for the LAST #(&$ time, my name is NOT StWHOA!" he shouted as a hook descended from a passing helicopter and kidnapped him.

"Well I know THAT. Stwhoa isn' even a word, Steve! Man, you're such a character…"

A girl who may or may not have been named Tea was skipping merrily down the street. Humming a happy song about friendship, she offered a cheerful smile and a happy greeting to everyone she passed by. And then, as she continued her happy jaunt down the road to happiness, she encountered a cardboard sign. Ordinarily, such a sign would not terribly interest her, but this one was special. It read 'FREE FRIENDSHIP, THIS WAY. (Not a Trap)'.

"OH, I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE FRIENDSHIP!" she squealed, following the arrow on the sign… right into huge, plainly visible cage. "Hey, there's no friendship in here!" she complained.

A few minutes later Joey, in his wheelchair and still nursing his shark wounds, rolled up the hill panting. "Tea… what… the… Hell? You were s'posed to be helpin' me! Hey, whadda we have here!" Joey said, seeing a sign saying 'FREE MONEY, THIS WAY. (Not a Trap).'.

I think you can guess where he went.

Umbra watched Joey enter the cage, and shook his head sadly. "Y'know, that was just the tiniest bit too easy."

"YUGIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" Kaiba roared. "Return Steve, NOW!"

"… … … who?" Yugi said groggily, waking up with a monstrous headache.

"YOU KNOW WHO!"

"No, really, no idea who Steve is. Stop shouting."

"STEVE! Y'know, my pet monkey with the kick-ass magical powers?"

"… huh?"

"Oh, Steve has astonishing powers. He can cast fire and lightning from his fingers, and speak human languages with his monkey tongue, and when travelling in public he takes the shape of a mortal child with spiky hair. Steve is my most trusted advisor. Advisor. AD-vi-SOR. God, that's a fun word!"

"Have you been taking psychoactive drugs of some kind?"

"What?" Kaiba said, his eyes quite suddenly shifting to focus in two directions at once. "Whoa!"

"Drugs! Taking! YOU!"

"You mean, have I been injecting mind-drugs into my own self body arm?"

"YES!"

"A little bit, yeah."

"Well, that does explain quite a bit. Next question… do you have anything that'll suck the agony out of this hangover Yami saddled me with?"

Without a word, Kaiba pulled a needle of prozac out of his coat pocket and injected it into Yugi's neck.

"Ooooooooh, STEVE! I remember Steve! He's a funny monkey-boy!" Yugi giggled. "Nope, I haven't seen Steve since the elephants had a tea party!"

"Aw, that long?" Kaiba moaned. "I'll NEVER find him!"

Joey awoke in the darkness, tied to a chair. "What's goin' on? Where's Tea?

"Hee, hee, hee… I am the heart of darkness and evil, Mr. Wheeler. Welcome to my lair…" A female voice said.

"Oh, no… you must be the dark maste' of the Rare Hunters!" Joey said, terror-stricken.

"Indeed, my young friend! Indeed I am. I am the ultimate manifestation of Darkness and Destruction, a master of terror. I have MANY questions to ask you… for starters, have you recently, in your Battle City experiences, have you encountered an ancient, Rune-covered sarcophagus?"

"Noooooooo… why?"

"Each of the five coffins hold a crucial piece of an ancient artifact, a weapon that shall grant me limitless power and control over the minds of others. I possess the first, and one each is held by Yugi, Kaiba, and Bakura. I know not where the fifth piece is. Have you, by any chance, encountered it?"

"Um… nope."

"… Well, crap! Who else could have it, HUH? I mean, it's not like there are that many 'special' people to go around, here! I swear…"

"… Did ya try Malik?"

Silence.

Meanwhile, at Malik…

"Now, what am I going to do with this?" Malik asked, looking at the giant coffin that had fallen out of the sky in front of him addressed, 'To Malik'.

"OH GOD IT CRUSHED MY LEG!" Odion screamed.

Back at Joey…

"… Yes. Yes, I looked there. I was… I was just testing you. Evilly."

"Sure ya were."

"Okay, okay, who was testing who is beside the point." The Queen said. "The real reason I brought you here is for brainwashing, in any case."

"Really? But… um… how?"

"With my Millenium Rod!"

"… ya don't have one."

"Yes I do, it's right here!" she said, holding up her empty hand.

"Okay, miss, I want ya to take a look at your 'Millenium Rod'."

"Okay."

"Now, I want you to answer me. Is it a 'rod', or is it 'nothing'?"

"… … … I don't have to answer that."

"C'mon, dear. What is it?"

"… It's… It's nothing." She said softly.

"Good girl."

"Yeah, Malik kinda took the Rod. And Ra. And the only car. And most of the money. And the only servant who didn't suck. … Yeah, he pretty much took everything worth having."

"That's too bad. I'm sorry."

"Aw, it's nice that you say that. Don't worry, I can still brainwash you with five hours of that 'Pokemon' cartoon."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Soooooo, I said to Steve…" Kaiba began.

"Oh, what did you say? Huh? I LOVE stories about Steve!" Yugi said anxiously.

"I said, 'Steve, you're a GREAT GUY.'"

"And that's so true! Steve is a GREAT GUY."

"The GREATEST."

"The GREATESTEST."

"Steve is SO cool! Almost as cool as that green giraffe." Kaiba said, pointing to thin air. "I can't IMAGINE how I would have pulled off this tournament without Steve. He is my ANCHOR. Steve keeps me tied DOWN TO EARTH."

"That is SO TRUE."

"I wonder why he keeps telling me his name isn't Steve?"

"Oh, you know Steve. Always Joshin'. And jokin'. And… and… and… my HANDS are really SMALL!" Yugi said, then started laughing. "I love Prozac."

"Isn't it cool?"

"As cool as DEATH?" A cloaked figure said, emerging from a nearby alley. "Yugi Motoh and Seto Kaiba… I have something that belongs to you."

"Is it my Cards?" Kaiba asked, suddenly all business. "Because I know each and every card in this deck by heart, and if even ONE is missing, I will rip your liver out and make you eat it."

"Um… no… not actually. I took… something SLIGHTLY more valuable."

"… so… what, MORE cards?"

"More valuable than cards, dammit!"

"… quit joking around!" Kaiba said, smiling. "I should know, cards are the most important thing in the world. There's nothing more valuable than cards, except 'more cards'. So obviously, you don't really have anything."

"He's got a point." Yugi said helpfully.

"No, no, no! I took from YOU, your little brother Mokuba!" Lumis proclaimed.

"… … … … Who?" Kaiba asked.

"Oh, for the love of… little guy? Kinda femmy? Spiky hair? Wears an orange vest-thing? You LIVE with him!"

"I'm sorry, that doesn't…"

"Kaiba, WAIT!" Yugi broke in. "Would he by chance be a monkey with magical powers?"

"Um… well… I don't think so?"

"HA! Your indecision reveals your bluff! Kaiba, they've kidnapped STEVE!"

"WHAT? NO!"

"Who?" Lumis asked.

"How DARE you take Steve? I shall not rest until you pay with your worthless life!"

"… Huh?"

"NAME YOUR BATTLEGROUND!" Yugi roared.

"… … …well, whatever works. How about the roof of that building, over there?"

"NOW, YE SHALL LEARN THE FOLLY OF STRIKING AGAINST US THROUGH OUR MAGIC MONKEY!" Yugi and Kaiba roared in unison.

"… See you there in five minutes." Lumis said slowly, then started walking away. "Freaks." He muttered.

Five minutes later, when the four duelists had gathered atop the glass ceiling of the nearby building, Lumis and Umbra revealed their sinister scheme.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Yugi, Kaiba, greetings! Know now that defeating us is the only way for Kaiba's little brother Mokuba…"

"Steve." Kaiba said.

"… what?" Umbra asked.

"Dude, just go with it. It's not worth the headaches to argue with them." Lumis advised.

"Um… okay. Sure. Steve. Defeat us and we'll return Steve. But should you LOSE, the glass beneath you will shatter, casting you down onto the very, very hard floor. And your Egyptian God Cards shall be OURS! BWAHAHAHAAHA!"

"Well, isn't that a little excessive?" Yugi asked. "I mean ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL RIGHT!" Yami roared. "CAN YOU SMELLLLLLLLL WHAT THE PHARAOH'S COOKIN'? I AM FINALLY IN MY ELEMENT! PREPARE FOR ROCKIN' DUEL BATTLE! And just so we're clear, when you say this is a completely serious, death-to-the-loser duel, you had BETTER MEAN IT. Kay?"

You really aren't supposed to be so excited about how you might die, Yami. Yugi thought.

-SHUT IT, you little bastard! I've been waiting for this moment for almost a solid year! I want to make damn sure that IF I lose, I will die horribly!-

"Oh, we mean it." Lumis interjected. "And frankly, good riddance."

"No, if we could begin?" Kaiba asked. "I have a tournament to host, a company to run… and a magical talking monkey to rescue."

"Very well. Yugi, you may begin." Umbra said.

"YES! OH, GOD, YES! THAT FEELS SOOOOOOO GOOD! YES, YES BABY!" Yami screamed.

"… Okay, what the Hell is wrong with…"

"Dude, what did I tell you? Just go along with it." Lumis advised.

"I play Beta, the Magnet Warrior! OH YEAH, DUEL ME JUST LIKE THAT! YES, YES, YES!"

"Um… yeah. Okay. Me, now." Lumis said. "I lay seventeen cards face down."

Kaiba raised a hand. "Now, I'm not the most lucid guy in the world, but even I know that's against the rules. And how did you even HAVE seventeen cards in your hand?"

"I AM ABOVE THE LAW!" Lumis shrieked. "RULES DO NOT APPLY TO ME!"

"… oh?"

"Yes."

"Well, sure. Why not? I play the Vorse Raider…"

"HA! You've activated all seventeen of my face-down cards!"

"WHAT? NOOOOO!"

"YES! First off, is the mask of Life! It takes the total of everyone's life points, adds the square root of the divisor of the combined total of the monsters on the field, divides by seventeen, translates it all into binary code, and adds the number to my life points after multiplying it by zero, adding nil, and subtracting negative .0!"

"But… that's just zero. That card didn't do anything. Anything multiplied by zero is zero. That was a waste of two solid minutes while you explained NOTHING." Kaiba said.

"HA! Indeed, you seem to have realized our strategy! Every card in BOTH our decks is a mask card with a description that takes several minutes to read! We bore our opponents into submission!"

"WHAT? That is the stupidest thing I've EVER HEARD! It'll never work!" Yami said incredulously.

"Really? Consider that just one card took two minutes to read… and I have SIXTEEN MORE to go. Now consider that the 'Mask of Life' was by FAR the least boring card in my deck."

Yami and Kaiba gulped nervously.

"Next up is the Mask of Unnecessary Exposition! When played, this card reads an entire issue of The Wall Street Journal…"

One hour and thirteen minutes later…

"… and finally, the Mask of Cookies will also give me a sandwich!" Lumis said, eating a sandwich. "I guess my turn is over."

"Hee… hee… hee… soooooo many masks…" Kaiba groaned.

"What? Huh? Is it over? Did we win?" Yami said, shaking out of his mask-induced stupor.

"It has barely begun, child!" Umbra crowed. "Now, it's MY turn, and I play the magic card Masquerade!"

"That doesn't sound bad." Kaiba said hopefully.

"… Which allows me to play no less than TWENTY-THREE mask cards from my deck!"

"Oh, you must be joking…"

"Let's start with the Mask of Joviality, which tells EVERY JOKE EVER WRITTEN…"

Seven hours later…

"My… God… this… sucks…" Kaiba growled. His eye was twitching wildly, and a thin line of drool was running down his chin. His prozac had worn off, but Inner Yugi had quickly been worn down to senseless muttering by seven straight hours of mask-reading.

Yami shrugged, looking up from War and Peace. "I'm just glad I brought a book. And it's not all bad… the Mask of Giving Everyone a Pizza was pretty good. Although I think it put too much pepperoni on mine… Oh, I'm sorry, is it my turn? I play Alpha, the Magnet Warrior. Now, my two magnets will attack Lum-"

"HA! You've activated my Mask of the Graveyard, which let's me replay every card in my Graveyard pile that has the word 'Mask' in it!"

"SON OF A BITCH!" Yami roared.

"Pokemon… gotta catch 'em all. Pokemon… gotta catch 'em all." Joey muttered mindlessly.

"Wow, Pikachu, what's that?" Ash said on the T.V.

"Pika pika!"

"Oh, you're so funny, Pikachu!"

"This… is… the worst… show… EVER." Joey moaned.

Watching from the other side of a one-way mirror, the Queen smirked. "Excellent. He still resists, but he begins to crumble. I truly didn't think any man could withstand eight hours of Pokemon, but his strength of will gains him nothing. Eventually, he will be broken to my will.

"I think it's time to play the episode with that little… egg… thing. Heh, heh, heh, heh…"

The Next Morning, Yami lay on his side, twitching uncontrollably. Amazingly, it was practically impossible to sleep on top of a big sheet of glass while an idiot in a mask ranted at you. "Oh… my… God… please… let… it… end." He moaned softly.

"… and it will also create a series of 'mask tokens' that each create a second, smaller token that eats the first token and paints a recreation of 'The Mona Lisa' while singing disco and then they'll all explode. And that's all of them! Your move, Kaiba." Lumis finished his eight-hour speech.

"Hmmm? Five more minutes, mommy." Kaiba said, rolling over and pulling his trenchcoat over himself like a blanket.

Yami's eyes turned red, then yellow, then green. "HOW CAN YOU SLEEP?" he roared. "THEY TALK ALL THE TIME! IT NEVER ENDS! NEVER! BWAHAHAHAAAHAAAHAHAHAHHAA!"

Kaiba rolled to look at him, eyes wide open. "Sleep? You're SO silly, Mommy. I couldn't sleep because the mask-man was talking. I wanted five more minutes to play this wonderful trombone!" he said gleefully, holding up empty air.

"Oh. You've snapped again." Yami said sadly. "Just what I needed. Listen, Kaiba, I didn't think much of it at first, but there's definitely something to this 'bore strategy'. If we don't find a way around it, we're definitely screwed. Can you penetrate that thick, disgusting void of insanity that surrounds your brain and give me an IDEA? Anything will do!"

"I pass."

"Huh?"

"My turn. I pass my turn." Kaiba said. Immediately, Umbra began to describe the hundreds and hundreds of masks this activated.

"But, for God's sake, what good does that–"

"None. But that's because NOTHING will do any good, because there is no victory, Yugi." Kaiba said soberly. "I have run through this scenario a thousand times in my mind, but nothing I do makes any difference. Every move possible leads to me jumping off this building in three hours to silence the voices. We cannot win. I'm sorry, Yugi."

"But… but… but… NO."

"What?"

"You are SETO KAIBA. You are the man who kidnapped and endangered the health of a SENIOR CITIZEN in order to get a playing card. You are the man who was willing to KILL HIMSELF to beat me in a card game. You are the man who set up a MULTI-MILLION dollar tournament specifically to HUMILIATE ONE PERSON. And while we cannot win fairly… nobody could win fairly, against these monsters… there MUST be a cheap, ruthless, vicious, underhanded way to win. And YOU WILL FIND IT. CHEAT AWAY, BIG GUY!"

"Ch… cheat? Do something horrifying to them? Really?"

"YES!"

"Can I kill them?"

"DAMN STRAIGHT!"

What? You can't kill them! Yugi thought.

-IT'S THEM OR US! VICTORY OR DEATH!-

"Well…" Kaiba said, that old evil light coming back into his eyes. "That changes things."

"… and then my Mask of Large Names for Cheese will…" Umbra said. Just then, Kaiba withdrew a gun from his trenchcoat and fired two shots at the glass below Umbra's feet. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIR…" :SPLAT:

Kaiba shifted his aim to Lumis.

"I… um… I forfeit?" Lumis said.

"The spell is complete. Release him." The Queen proclaimed. Then, remembering she didn't have any servants left, she got up and released him herself. "Are you all prepared to destroy Yugi, my mind-slave?" She asked.

"I choose Pikachu!" Joey said cheerfully. "My mind is an easily influenced pile of mush, and I'll do whatever you tell me! I like Pokemons!"

"Good boy."