A/N: RIGHT PEOPLE. AS YOU CAN GUESS BY THE FUSS IN THE LAST CHAPTER, WE'RE AT THE END OF THIS ARC, RIGHT? WELL, I NEED ALL OF YOU LOVELY READERS TO MOBILISE AND REVIEW THIS CHAPTER.
SERIOUSLY, IT'S IMPORTANT. THIS PSYCH-UP IS NOT LYING, THIS IS ONE OF THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS POSSIBLE AND I NEED FEEDBACK. SERIOUSLY.
REVIEW.
~Ava
~XxX~
I pushed past the Kaiba brothers to get to the stairwell, hiding my blush and telling myself that 17-year-olds really shouldn't be that ripped. I had already whispered to Teá that I would 'well I'm just going off to check on the others now BYE!' Very hastily, so she knew where I was going. Once I had run into the hospital wing of the blimp about ten minutes later I laughed.
Mai was looking out of the window to her hospital room.
Serenity noticed me wheezing in the doorway and smiled broadly.
"Sophie! Yugi won, right?"
"Yes." I said as Mai turned to see who was there, "Yep, he won alright! And everyone's actually alright!" I placed a hand to my side to ease the oncoming stitch. "I came to check on all of you actually! Have you seen Ryou?" I asked as Mai shook her head.
"No, not at all." She smiled at me, "Serenity said that you helped watch over me for a while, thank you." I smiled a little wider at her words and shook my head.
"Nah, you're welcome. But Serenity was the dedicated one!" And before anyone could answer I ran off in search for Ryou. His room was my best guess.
~XxX~
The only other Englishman on board seemed to be perfectly fine, save for a little shocked that I hugged him and then rather hungry. I used the knowledge that Serenity had passed onto me to tell him where the kitchen was. About five minutes after that and I walked into my friends who were now going off to check on Mai themselves. I joined the troupe and frowned when I saw Mai back in the bed, eyes closed, covers pulled up to her shoulders.
And then Joey started begging and pleading and pledging anything just to get her back.
Ah.
She opened her eyes and started laughing uncontrollably as Serenity and I did the same. In the middle of giving the blond a noogie she winked at the two of us.
"That was an amazing idea, Serenity! He really fell for it!" Joey looked over at is sister, seemingly hurt.
"Serenity! How could you? !" He yelped as Mai snickered and shoved him off the bed so she could get up.
"I'm sorry big brother! But the look on your face was really worth it!" She started laughing again as Joey slumped, defeated.
I directed them to where to find Ryou when Teá asked after him. It was when Yugi made a flippant comment about getting the blimp up and running that I changed the course of my day fro a second time.
Entering the control deck it was obvious that something was wrong. I frowned and looked around for someone to ask, Roland was the only one I could say I knew.
"Uhm." Was all the question I needed it seemed as the sun protectors turned to look at me.
"We can't start the engines and the President and Young Master are nowhere to be seen!" Ws his frantic reply as beep and whine sounded when he pressed another button. It took me a moment to realised who the 'President' and 'Young Master' were.
Ahhh shit.
I spun on bare feet and ran.
I knew where they'd be.
I hoped.
~XxX~
I had been right.
"So." I started, glaring at Kaiba and storming out of the lift. The big red button had called me when I'd first boarded the glass cage, remembering the whole 'hangar' tidbit I'd gotten from Mokuba. I spotted something made of red leather and black plastic on the console next to Seto. Two heads turned to face me, one looking a little shocked and the other looking very annoyed. Good, I thought to myself. Serves them right.
"Ca-"
"Shut up!" I partially screeched. "How dare you! How actually dare you! Actually how dare you! How did I come across you?" I pointed at him, "I don't remember ever putting an advert in 'Cretin Monthly.' 'Berk Weekly' Was it?" I had, by no means, finished my rant, but I had needed to catch my breath, and that's when he took advantage of my silence.
"Callaghan, I'm going to ignore the fact that you somehow knew where we were, but I gave you all fair warning and an hour's worth of time to desert this island." Kaiba glared back at me. Mokuba frowned at me.
"Why're you still here? You guys should have already left by now, Soph." I decided to tackle Mokuba's question first, calming down for a little while.
"Nope, the blimp's died and it's refusing to leave without the two of you." I sighed and shook my head, "We'll take the helicopter that arrived for Joey I hope. It'll be fine. But you." I turned to face Kaiba and hissed. "You absolute, bona-fide, jerk. How dare you." I paused, motioning between the two of them, "How dare the both of you, actually, but mainly you."
"Callaghan, you had better start making sense in the next half-hour-" I didn't let Kaiba finish his sentence because I'd barked a laugh.
"Or what? You'll leave without informing anyone, like the two of you were going to already?" I asked, letting all of my bitterness come out in my voice. I narrowed my eyes at both of them.
Silence.
"You're angry because we didn't say goodbye?" Mokuba asked. I paused.
"NO! I'm angry because, thanks to your lack of a departing statement, your employees are thinking that you're still waiting around on the island! You can't just assume that they're going to know where you are!" I sighed, anger leaving me at the looks on both of their faces. Of all the things to render them speechless…"I think everyone's looking for the two of you, Roland's probably told them too, so they're risking their lives I might add, and neither of you even bothered to say goodbye or inform us that, no, you weren't missing but you did have other means of escape." I threw my hands up, "Do you know just how worried they are? I am?" I barked a laugh again and glanced at Kaiba, "This makes your whole 'No friends' thing, bull."
"Callaghan, get out, there's twenty minutes left." Was the brisk and tragically disinterested answer given as a large, what I had previously assumed to be a wall, opened up. I sighed for the third time in as many minutes and rolled my eyes.
"Fine." I said, catching Mokuba by surprise and reaching down to hug him awkwardly. It appeared, along with a clean slate, I was hugging a lot more recently. "Bye kid, you're only person under the age of fourteen I can actually stand to be around." I smiled at him as he raised an eyebrow.
"Catchy." He answered as I gestured to him.
"See? Normal. I like you." I turned to Kaiba as his brother ran to the lift and started keying something into it. I became serious at the look he was giving me. It clearly said 'go away.' "You're not going back to Japan are you." I stated, not really a question. After all, if they were, they'd take the blimp too.
"No."
Where're you going?"
"America." The answer was brief and the look he gave me before walking away was one that told me that was all I was getting as an answer. Bastard, I thought as I took several steps forward to catch up with him, grab his wrist-guard and step forward so that we were inches apart when he turned to face me, eyebrow raised in mild annoyance.
No! No, no, no, no SOPHIE this is a BA-
I grabbed his stupid collar.
When I was a little girl I used to dream about what my first kiss would be like, and I have to say, I always imagined it with fewer angry tears, less of me screaming against the idea and a more responsive recipient. I hadn't thought that I'd have chosen to kiss whomsoever the other person was because it was better than the alternative of me strangling him for his insensitivity. I'd had a list of things my first kisser would be: Emotionally-engaged, animal-lover, charming, loving, caring, tall, handsome, witty, intelligent, blue-eyed, brown-haired, arroga-shutup shutup shut up. I stepped back and let go of his collar. Well, at least I'd managed to break his indifferent mask, 'pure shock' was a welcome change. I cleared my throat.
"Well, that was disappointing in a wide variety of ways." I smiled a little, knowing that what I just did was probably the greatest mistake of my life so far but not actually realising it yet. And with that pithy, memorable parting line and lovely thought…I bolted, snatching my shoe from the console.
~XxX~
By the time I was back at normal level I was surprised that I didn't have a concussion, I'd slammed my head repeatedly against the glass of the lift. "When I wake up," I announced to the lift at large, "I'm going straight to therapy." I hopped on my feet for a moment, reuniting my shoes as a pair on my feet before running down the pathway to the blimp. I paused.
Why were my friends panicking about the blimp still?
"Uhm, guys? !" I called, standing level with the helicopter and staring at the group of frantic people. Teá turned to face me, surprised.
"Sophie? ! Where were you?" A seconds pause, "You have your shoes! Wait-"
"Hey! We could use the helicopter to escape!" Joey's exclamation left me standing in shock. Seriously? Had they not noticed the giant helicopter? As we boarded I asked Yami that same question.
"We were looking for Kaiba and Mokuba, no. No we didn't."
"Honestly? You didn't see the giant helicopter?" I asked, on the verge of a laugh, Yami looked over to me as though I was horrible for laughing at that.
"Sophie! Kaiba and Mokuba are still down there! They're going to die!"
Oh yeeaahh…
"No they're not!" I answered brightly, deciding that the best way to deal with what happened ten minutes ago was to ignore it's existence and act like a retarded unicorn. "They're perfectly fine. How else do you think I got my shoe back?" Yami paused to look down at my feet before looking back at me.
"How did you find them?" The question was posed cautiously.
"Eeh, Mokuba already told me they had a hangar under the Duel Tower, I just did the math once Roland told me they weren't around."
"Well, you could have said that, Soph." Was the indignant reply from Joey before we were all thrown sideways in the airborne helicopter.
"It's gone!" The yell from Teá made us all scramble to the windows, seeing the entire island sink into the ocean. I wasn't the only one who gasped at the sight of such a large land mass suddenly not being there anymore.
And then the Blue Eyes White Dragon rose from the smoke and I slammed my forehead against the glass in exasperation.
"-The fuck?" Joey's question hung in the air as the thing hovered alongside us, revealing itself to be a jet.
In the shape of a Duel Monster.
"You have issues." I said to the pilot of the thing, jumping slightly when he actually replied.
"I think I could say the same of you, Callaghan."
A pause.
"Hnnmm." My truly eloquent answer was as a result of my brain giving up for the day and retiring to the Maldives. Mokuba saved me the embarrassment of not-saying-anything-or-even-looking-directly-at-them.
"Hey, brother! They're on the helicopter!"
"Mmm, the blimp really doesn't like you people, does it?"
"You bastard!"
"Oh, the mutt's on board too…pity…"
"You owe me a phone, you know." I regained my voice (and stopped Joey from exploding with sheer rage) at the thought of my phone, still in it's hiding place on the blimp. "And my keys oh god!" I gasped at the thought before calming slightly, spare keys were in abundance at home… Joey had already stormed into the pilot's cabin to snatch the radio from it's holster on the dash. Obviously wanting direct contact.
"We almost died and you laugh at us? !"
I sighed and walked to the back of the helicopter, away from the voices, ready to reign in the homecoming with my own special brand of utter embarrassment and self-loathing.
This would be fun.
~XxX~
A/N: I hate this chapter so much it hurts, BUT GODDAMNIT, YOU NEED TO REVIEW THIS SHIT. THIS CHAPTER. REVIEW. YOU KNOW WHICH PART. ¬_¬ I DON'T CARE IF YOU'VE NEVER REVIEWED BEFROE OR IF YOU'RE NEW. REVIEW THAT PART. ¬_¬
I love you all.
~Ava