A/n: Hello there, wonderful readers of mine! You are probably staring at this update right now. Why? Because it's early!
Bunni: Gasp!
Mystic: I know, surprising, isn't it? So anyways, I shall not dilly-dally any longer! Go and read!
Bunni: Dilly-dally? Is it even legal to use that phrase?
Disclaimer: I don't own Yugioh! Get over it!
They all smell the same, museums. The extreme cleanliness that slowly dwindles away as the day goes on and visitors contaminate it. If it weren't for those glass cases, then maybe the old, ancient scents would come out, and it would smell like a museum should smell like.
Not to say that I don't like museums or anything, but seeing things that don't have a scent just seems… Unnatural.
As you might have guessed, we were currently in the Domino City museum, which was strangely crowded for this late at night. Oh well, it makes it much more easier to slip into the obviously forbidden basement.
"I wonder what would happen if a security guard saw us sneaking down here," I whispered to Kitty as we slipped through the dark doorway and down into the lower level.
"Of course that won't happen," Amanda replied, faux seriousness covering her face. "How else are we supposed to learn about the terribly interesting story of Kitten's past?"
We collapsed into a fit a giggles that had to be stifled quickly as we followed Tea and Kitten into the main room.
Right before we entered, though, Kitty glanced at me, stared at my forehead, and then shook her head, and then rolled her eyes at herself.
"What is it?" I whispered at her urgently.
"For a moment there, I thought I saw…" she replied, trailing off. "Anyways, it was probably just a trick of the light or something."
"Or something," I murmured as we walked into the open space. "More like you're mind trying to compensate for the lack of brain tissue and failing."
"Hey!" she said, but I rolled my eyes and ignored her, concentrating on something else.
I could feel something down here, a sense of power. Those stones – they had seen many things come to past, many things that weren't of this realm. Their story had been recorded on their faces – Or had it? Suddenly I got this overwhelming feeling that that story we could see wasn't the truth, nowhere near the truth. In fact, it might even be a cover up, built so that people searching for the answers would be led down the wrong path, because the true answers would be far to dangerous to find…
I was snapped out of my reverie by Tea exclaiming about how Kitten looked so much like the Pharaoh on the tablet. I soon forgot about what I had been thinking of, for an idea had just popped into my head.
"Or maybe having gravity-defying hair was just a fashion in Ancient Egypt," I retorted, and then looked slyly at Kitten. "No, you're right – definitely a privilege reserved for only the Pharaoh himself."
Kitty snorted at the look on his face, which was pretty priceless – and it was good thing Ishizu decided to make her entrance then or else the overly-clichéd term "looks can kill" might have become a reality.
"My Pharaoh," said an oh-so-mysterious voice behind us. "I have been expecting you."
"Who are you?" Kitten asked, sounding suspicious yet again. It seemed to be an ongoing trend with him.
"I am Ishizu," she said, and I zoned out, barely paying attention to the "blah blah blah" about things which where extremely obvious. Kitty looked like she was about to fall asleep, and since the both of us were currently being ignored it probably wouldn't matter if we did fall asleep.
Because, let's face it, the whole entire ancient Egypt speech was boring. Not because I wasn't interested in it the first time that I had heard it, and by itself it was pretty fascinating, but in the actual series you hear it several times – Over. And over. And so hearing it one more time in real life was like watching politics on TV, one of the most boring things in the world. And then Kitten said something that made both Amanda and I come back to reality, looking at each other and grinning.
"How do you know that the world is in danger of being destroyed again?" the spirit asked.
"Well," Kitty started, calling attention to us for the first time. "First of all, she has a Millennium Item that can see past, present, and future."
"And secondly," I continued, knowing exactly where she had been heading. "The world is always about to be destroyed. You don't even need magical powers to know that it's in danger, just say that it is and I can guarantee that somewhere, somehow, somebody is formulating a plot to destroy the world."
This of course, provided a great many stares. Just what we needed. Fortunately, everyone was distracted as Ishizu suddenly touched the Millennium Necklace. I felt it activate.
"Oh my Pharaoh," the Egyptian said, sounding resigned. "The events of the past will occur once again, and the same great evil will return to threaten us once more."
"That didn't sound like a prophecy at all…" Kitty murmured softly to me. I snorted, and then returned my attention to what was being said.
"I also know that a Duel Monsters tournament is beginning," Ishizu was saying to Yami as she turned to leave. "If you win it you will find your answers. Farewell, King Yami."
"Well at least you know that you won't have that much pressure on your to win the tournament this time," I commented sarcastically.
"So you're name is Yami?" Tea asked Kitten curiously.
"And hedgehogs can fly," I said to Kitty, who looked at me strangely.
"Well if you count the helicopter incident in episode 70..." she said.
"…Mokuba didn't sprout wings, did he?" I asked sardonically.
"You never said anything about wings."
"It was implied."
"Touché."
~*~
"Don't these people ever go to sleep?" I asked Kitty as we walked through (the very crowded) Domino Square.
"Most of them are here for the tournament, genius," Amanda replied, rolling her eyes at me.
"Shut up," I said, and then suddenly looked up as an extremely sadistic laugh rang through my head. I noticed Kitten looking up, too, it seems that I wasn't the only one who heard it.
Marik!
And of course, it happened to be Kitten who got my thoughts.
What did you say? he asked incredulously.
Mar-Marshmallow. I said, and cringed inwardly - that mental image was going to haunt me for a long time… I said marshmallow. And don't ask how I can talk to people with Millennium Items like this, because I don't know.
At least this confirmed that it was the Millennium Item thing, I had been afraid of a special connection with Bunni or something… That would have just made my day.
"What's the matter?" Tea asked, looking concernedly at Kitten.
"Nothing," he said, of course not revealing anything.
"Hey, it's Yugi!" exclaimed a very obnoxious voice.
"Oh, joy," Tea said sarcastically as we turned to see Mai Valentine running towards us.
"For once I actually agree with you, Tea," Kitty said.
"I know you guys missed me!" said the blonde idiot, coming to a stop in front of us, and then looking curiously at Kitty and I. "Oh, hello there! I'm Mai Valentine. Who are you?"
"We really need to start charging money when people ask us that question," I whispered to Kitty, who snorted.
"These are our new friends, Kelsey and Amanda," Tea said, annoyingly cheerful as always.
"I assume you've come here for the tournament?" Kitten asked in a very robotic tone, not sounding too pleased about the sudden appearance of Mai.
"But of course," she replied. "I presume you've got an invitation also?"
"He's the friggin' King of Games," Kitty said in a tone that sounding a little… mocking. "That, and the fact the Kaiba is pretty much obsessed with beating him pretty much earns him a spot in the tournament finals."
"How do you know that Kaiba is the one sponsoring the tournament?" Kitten asked, surprised. "The invitation was anonymous."
"Who else would have enough money and enough card game fixation to do it?" I explained. "And since Pegasus is AWOL, it's really not that difficult to guess."
"Speaking of Pegasus, this is beginning to look like Duelist Kingdom all over again," Kitten commented, making Kitty huff and cross her arms. She was probably pretty disappointed that she had missed Duelist Kingdom. I personally didn't care, I preferred the second season to the first one by a lot.
"You can say that again," Mai said, though I disagreed wholeheartedly – all of Kitten's lines by themselves where almost more than enough, we didn't need to have them repeated. "There certinatly are a lot of familiar faces around, most of which I'm not too happy to see."
"Ugh, you're right," Tea said despondently. "That's Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor!"
Again bringing up the question of how they managed to make it into the tournament. Kaiba must have run out of acceptable duelists or something.
"And there's Esparoba," Mai continued. "They say he uses physic powers to duel."
I had the sudden urge to go bang my head on a wall several times. I mean, how idiotic were these people? Mai herself had used the whole fake physic routine before, and even she fell for the obvious fake!
Then again, I shouldn't be too surprised.
"But if what you thought is correct," Kitten said, addressing Amanda and I for the first time. "Then this tournament is going to have a whole new wrinkle!"
"And there he is now," Tea said, and we all looked up at the giant screen accordingly.
"If anyone has a rotten tomato or some other type of easily-thrown messy object, please speak up now," I said as we stared at Kaiba's barely larger than normal head.
"What, so can make another portal into an alternate universe?" Kitty asked ironically, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
"Shut up," I said, sticking out my tongue at her and then returning my attention to the screen.
"Greetings, Duelists," Jacketboy said. "Welcome to the town of Domino."
"Well, I have to say Kaiba is the person I least expected to turn up with some manners," I whispered to Kitty. She stared at me.
"You're right!" she murmured back. "It's a sign of the apocalypse!"
"No," I disagreed, shaking my head slowly. "It is the apocalypse."
"I see you've all received your invites to KaibaCorp.'s very exclusive Duel Monsters tournament, and you had enough brains to show up here tonight," the talking head continued. "Seeing as you are all elite duelists, I've added special rules to my tournament just for experts."
"Yeah, special rules that have been in the official Dueling Rulebook since day one," Kitty scoffed.
"For example, you will be dueling using these new, improved Duel Disks!" Kaiba exclaimed, getting an impressed and excited buzz from the crowd. "Another new rule that I designed for the tournament is that before each duel, both player must ante up their rarest card, and the loser of the duel forfeits his card to the winner."
"Forfeit my Dark Magician!" Kitten said, sounding appalled, as if he where actually afraid of loosing a duel.
"My competition will make Pegasus and his Duelist Kingdom look like a joke," the narcissistic continued.
Suddenly a harsh wind blew throughout the square, and there were rapid chopping noises as everyone turned around to see a helicopter descend from the dark night sky.
"Ok, so I admit the whole rotten tomato thing would be really funny right now," Kitty conceded to me.
"I can see the headlines already: KaibaCorp. Ruined by Vegetable!" I burst out, and Kitty laughed.
You could almost feel the tension in the air as Kaiba and Yugi glared at each other, forewarning of rivalry to come.
"Don't forget to register and pick up your Duel Disk, because exactly one week from today, my Battle City tournament begins!" said the CEO.
"You're on, Kaiba!" Kitten challenged up at him.
And so it began.
A/n: Dun dun duuuuun!!! That was needed. It really was. Don't believe me? Don't care.
Bunni: I don't.
Mystic: I wasn't asking you.
Bunni: Your point being...?
Mystic: I give up on trying to explain the secrets of the universe to you. Sorry for any grammer/spelling mistakes and such, but I was raised as a human and as such those mistakes are, unfortunately, natural. Next update shall be some time before the end of the month, hopefully. and the 21st is my birthday! Yay for birthday! Thank you for reading, and remember: Ragtag and review!