Author's Note: Yes, I am still writing this. I've been kind of caught up in my KH fic, but now back to Munchkin.

Warnings: Yami torture.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Munchkin

The Haunted Mansion

Atemu groaned as he came too. It was completely dark and he could feel the walls of something all around him. Like waking up in a sarcophagus. It was only then he recognized the smell. It was so familiar to him than he hadn't counted it as odd, but those spices, so essential in Egypt, were alien in modern Japan.

For a moment he nearly had a panic attack.

He was in a sarcophagus.

It was a nightmare he had occasionally, but he usually only had it on those nights he and Yugi stayed up late watching monster movies and he purposely hogged the chili-cheese fries to keep Yugi's sugar level manageable. This often caused fights, but once he understood exactly what diabetes(1) was, he'd been immovable on the subject. Plus he had Jounochi backing him up.

This was defiantly not one of those capsaicin-induced nightmares. He tried to move and was relieved to find his arms free. He pushed at the lid and was startled at how easily it gave way. He was also shocked by the sound of shattering glass.

That wasn't right.

He eased forward and looked around blinking his eyes rapidly to acclimate them to the light. It was just a thin gruel of light that had somehow managed to filter through the cobweb-encrusted windows, but it was still bright after the sarcophagus.

A library. He was in an ancient, decrepit library that had a number of Egyptian artifacts in glass display cases, one of which he'd just smashed.

Someone in this world he thought as he eased himself over the broken glass is a really sick cookie.

It occurred to him to wonder just what world he currently inhabited. There was a familiar tang in the air, just like the…

Shadow Realm.

Dammit Shadi!

That was it then. He was stuck in a Munchkin Shadow game.

He looked down at himself. He was wearing Egyptian clothes except for some reason he was also wearing an apron emblazoned with the familiar image of the Eye of Horus inside an upside down pyramid. Mercifully, he body seemed normal and not desiccated.

So, he was a mummy, big surprise. That meant Bites. And he seemed alone at the moment so that meant the rest of the group was out there in the mansion somewhere.

So were the monsters.

He looked around. In a corner he saw a baseball bat. Not the grandest of weapons but better than nothing.

888

Twenty minutes later he was wandering down a long corridor. He still hadn't found anyone, but he had found a frying pan and enough bats to fill a cave. He'd also found the end of his patience.

Where was Yugi? He knew the boy had inherited his title of the King of Games, but he highly doubted that this game would care. He hated the thought of his little aibou waking up the way he had or worse. The thought that he might wandering around this hostile game all by himself was unbearable.

He stared out a grimy window.

"Where are you Yugi?" he asked the world in general.

There was the noise of footsteps coming toward him. He spun around, but saw no one. They were very odd footsteps, kind of clicky and cloppy.

He still didn't see anyon—

"Hello? Is there someone out here?"

No it couldn't be.

"I thought I heard someone out here."

Please Ra, no.

"Yugi-boy! Is that you?"

Not him. Anyone but him.

The clacking footsteps started galloping towards him.

"It is you Yugi-boy! I'd recognize that hair anywhere."

Atemu did something very out character at that moment. Waking up in a sarcophagus, the horror of finding himself in a Munchkin shadow game, his growing concern for Yugi, his annoyance with Shadi, the endless stream of bizarre bats, it was too much. And now that he'd finally found someone it was fruitcake extraordinaire, Pegasus J. Crawford. He fell to his knees wailing.

"Arrrrrgggghhhhh! Kaiba was right! Ra does hate me!"

"Well that isn't very friendly," Pegasus pouted. Atemu turned at looked at him for the first time. And then wished he hadn't.

"Pegasus, I don't suppose I could trouble you to put on some pants?"

"Well, I did look Yugi-boy, but nothing seemed to fit over these legs."

Atemu shuddered, but looked back at the other duelist. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked again.

Pegasus's offending lower half wasn't human. It more like a stag's. He might have thought a goat like a fawn, except Pegasus also had a set of antlers sprouting out of his head. And what he had taken for a cloak was really a pair of furled, moth-like wings.

"Pegasus, you're a faerie."

The man come changeling glared down at him.

"Well I know I'm not your favorite person, but that's hardly any reason to call me names. Besides, I so sick of that one."

"No I mean a real faerie. You know, the fay? Dancing in circles, can't touch iron."

"Oh," he said slightly mollified. "It was just an observation. Well yes I guess I am. Yugi-boy what is going on? One minute I'm by my pool with a lovely red-wine spritzer and the next I'm naked in the most filthy room I've ever been in, trying to walk on deer legs and getting antlers tangled in the curtains."

Atemu groaned and stood up rubbing his temple.

"For starters, my name is Atemu. I'd appreciate it if you used it, it took me three thousand years to find it."

"Oh, you must be the intelligence in the puzzle. You look an awfully lot like Yugi-boy."

"He's my reincarnation."

The silver haired man nodded. He accepted the oddest thing so readiy. "Very well Atem-boy, where are we?"

The Pharaoh felt his eye twitch.

"It's a Shadow Game, can't you tell?"

Pegasus waved his hands dramatically. "Well it crossed my mind, but well how?"

"Shadi."

"Ah."

Atemu sighed. The man was at least intelligent. That was his only saving grace.

"What kind of game is this?"

"Munchkin."

"Never heard of it."

"Trust me. It's a bad thing."

"How do we get out?"

"Play the game of course."

"How?"

"I'll explain it. Look Pegasus, have you found anyone else besides me?"

"Well, yeah… erk!"

Atmeu had grabbed two handfuls of silver hair and pulled the changeling down to his eye level. His was amazed at his own strength. It was kind of cool.

"Who? Where?" he demanded.

"Hey don't pull the hair!"

"Tell me!"

"Okay okay, I found that little Egyptian guy, you know the one who gave you the god card? But I couldn't get him to wake up."

The Pharaoh sighed and released the taller man. Malik, oh well. It was a start.

"Take me to him."

Pegasus glared him with teary eyes at him rubbing his scalp. "Owww that hurt Atem-boy."

Atemu glared right back at him. "You lived, and I didn't pull that hard. Now hurry up or I'll yank something else that can't be fixed with expensive shampoo."

Pegasus shuffled away from him. "I never knew you were so violent," he sniffled.

"Look faerie-boy," he was pleased to see the man wince at the name, "We really don't have time for this. We have to find the others as soon as possible. This game is vicious. I have to find Yugi before something happens to him."

"Well alright, this way," Pegasus took off in the direction that he came from. "Incidentally, do you have to say faerie?"

"Well the card says changeling so I guess I'll try and use that."

"Good. Now tell me about this game."

888

It wasn't Malik. It was Mariku. In a coffin. Definitely a coffin, in a gothic crypt. The hinges creaked ominously.

Atemu poked the recumbent figure a couple of times. He didn't move.

"I tried everything," Pegasus said conversationally. "He won't wake up."

The Pharaoh shook his head, Mariku in full evening dress, who would've thought it? He was also a couple shades paler that normal. A large black umbrella was leaning against the side of the coffin.

Just to confirm his suspicions, he pulled back the other boy's upper lip.

Yup, fangs.

"I guess we have to wait for sunset," he sighed.

"Why?"

"He's vampire Pegasus, he won't wake up until the sun goes down."

Atemu sat down leaning against the opposite wall.

"You mean you're just going to sit here waiting? What about rushing to find Yugi-boy?"

"Look the more people we have the better chance we have. Besides I think if Mariku's here that must mean that Yugi is with the other hikari's"

"Sorry?"

"Look there's three, er, six of us. Sort of two versions of the same soul. Yugi, Ryou and Malik are the light side and Bakura, Mariku and I are the dark side. I think Yugi must be with the other lights."

"B-Bakura? The one with the white hair and the R-Ring?"

"Yeah that's him."

"H-he's h-h-here?" Pegasus looked around fearfully.

Atemu frowned. Why did the thought of Bakura…oh yeah, the whole yanking out the Sennen Eye thing. He grinned. Heh, so that lousy Tomb Robber was good for something after all.

888

Bakura woke up with a sneeze. Damn he was cold! He sat up looking around. A graveyard. A dark, dank, windswept, and mournful graveyard. He snorted in disgust. Could anything be more repulsively poser gothic?

Dammit Shadi!

He looked down at what he was laying on. It was a fairly large granite marker. He couldn't make out the name but the dates read:

1850-1897

1898-1933

1935-1989

1993-

That was probably a hint that it was time to leave.

He staggered to his feet. Damn it was cold! He rubbed his arms and his fingernails caught on the frayed edge of his sleeve. That wasn't right. He looked down. All his clothes seemed to be threadbare rags held together with string.

He never wore anything so tatty. The last time he'd worn anything so ragged…well, he didn't like to think about that. No wonder he was so cold.

He started looking around for any kind of direction, but the gloom was thick and getting thicker as the sun went down. As he turned into the wind he caught a scent. It was unfamiliar, and unusually acute. Well it was a direction, so he decided to follow it.

After a few steps he got the odd sensation that he was being followed. He looked around but no one was there.

A few more steps and he had to stop and hitch up his pants. Really, what was the deal? There was no waist at all to these pants. What the heck was holding them up at all?

As he reached around his fingers bushed something furry. He yelped. It wasn't everyday you found a part of you that hadn't been there an hour ago. Now that he was thinking about it, he could tell that his spine seemed to extend quite a bit further than normal.

He could move the thing. He curled it around his waist to get a glimpse. A tail. He had a long, white, shaggy tail. On an impulse he ran his hands up the sides of his face. His ears weren't where they were supposed to be. He found them nearly on top of his head. They tapered to points, and he found that he could move them all around. He could make the perk up, or droop, or completely flatten them to his head, and swivel them in any direction that he pleased.

They were soft and pleasant to the touch, and he had the thought that it might be nice if someone petted them. If it was someone he liked. That pretty much narrowed it down to Ryou.

"Well," he muttered, "I guess this explains my brand new sniffer too." And he set off in the direction of the scent he'd detected.

He wasn't too worried about the others. The only one he really cared about anyway was Ryou, and he was good at this game so he'd probably be all right. He did want to find the others, preferably before any monsters found him.

Damn! He'd never have believed that Shadi was this stupid.

He began to hear a faint "tappity-tappity" sound. He looked up and saw a ways away a small stone mausoleum. The noise was coming from the roof. When he got closer he could make out a vaguely wolf-shaped figure that was tapping away at a typewriter.

"You're name wouldn't happen to be Marv(2) would it?" he called up at the figure. The typing stopped and wolf leaned over the edge adjusting his glasses.

"Who wants to know?" he said in boding tone that sounded very rehearsed.

"Um…me, over here Marv."

The creature adjusted his glasses again. "Oh, you're a werewolf, well that's all write then." The creature made a snorting, choking sound that Bakura decided was laughter.

"Did you get that?" he chortled. "Write, right?"

"Yes, yes very clever."

"Really? You think so, 'cause I know lots of people don't appreciate word play…"

"Well, I certainly do, coming from such a master." Oh Ra please let him buy this BS.

The bespectacled werewolf preened. "So good to finally meet a fellow literary connoisseur."

Damn I'm good!

"Marv, I'm afraid I don't have time to hear anymore of you work right now, you see, I'm late."

"For what?"

Bakura scrambled for something appropriately ominous. "I must meet someone at the mansion, exactly thirteen minutes after sunset!"

Marv tapped his nose. "Gotcha."

"But the problem is that I got turned around in the cemetery. Could you point me in the right direction?"

"Oh of course, take this path, you can't miss it. It's covered in gargoyles."

"Thank you very much."

"Oh here." Marv tossed something black and heavy down to him. "That might help."

Bakura shook it out to find a large black trench coat. Sweet! He put it on. "Thanks man," he called out and set down the path.

Twelve minutes after sunset. He was standing at the door to the haunted mansion. Marv had been right. It was infested with gargoyles. He'd even killed a few.

Now with his lovely new Sword of Beheading People Just Like in that Movie, his Axe of Contrition of the Dead, his Spiked Collar and his Perfect hair he was ready to kick down this door. He grinned; the remaining light glinted off his elongated canines.

888

The boom echoed all the way down to the depths of the crypt. Pegasus leapt shrieking, Mariku sat up banging his head on the inside of his coffin. There was a muffled "Ow." He opened the coffin rubbing his forehead.

"Pharaoh? What the hell?"

Atemu ignored him in favor grinning evilly at the panicking Pegasus.

"He's heee-eeree."

To be continued…

1. At one point in the manga (Volume 5 I think) Yugi collapses when he's trying to prevent the Pharaoh from taking over. Jounochi, not knowing what's wrong, asks him if he needs his insulin. So that's where that came from. It's not mentioned again as far as I know, but I merely assumed the problem was minimized with both Atemu and Jounochi around to look after Yugi. It's not easy, looking after a diabetic, I know, I've done it.

2. Marv is a Munchkin monster.

I'll try to do better on updating this from now on.