Wow I'm updating like hell.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. Hopefully there will be the first duel here, but seeing that this story is moving rather slowly, I'd say that you might have to wait until the next one. I'm such a liar. Lol. Disclaimers and shizzle: I don't own Yu Gi Oh and/or its affiliates. What won't I give for it, though ...
"Holy - holy shit." Jonouchi said. His knuckles were white where he grasped his chair. The chair began to crack under his powerful hands, and then finally his hands crushed the edges and Jonouchi swore again, small droplets of blood spewing out from the wound were splinters of wood stuck out from his hands. Soundlessly, a bodyguard materialized from nowhere and assisted him in his injury. Mimi, Jay, Seto, the ninja and I watched silently as Jonouchi dealt with his problem. Several minutes later, a large Dora band-aid tied tightly around his hand and blood-stained splinters on the ground, Jonouchi finally settles down. He looked fairly bad-tempered due to the Dora band-aid, though.
"As I was saying ..." Seto said. His expression was stony through the whole thing, and I wondered if he was so used to this kind of reaction that he didn't bother putting on facial expressions for it anymore. "This was a picture found in the camera of one of our explorers. He used to be a part-time nurse, and the sick bastard that he was, decided to snap pictures of this dead person, known as Jackson Midwell to us." A click, and the slide changed. It showed 'Jackson' propped up against the wall, and a hand protruding from the top of the image - most probably the nurse's hand - was holding Jackson's hand up, as if he was waving. I felt bile coming up, and quickly swallowed it.
"I'm quite glad to say that this nurse was one of the missing. Only his camera remains, found in a doorway near the main passage, which branches off in several directions." Another click and he slide changes, showing a graph of the pyramid. It has seven layers, starting with the ground one. I see many other small branches and rooms, probably fake burial rooms, all over the place. What puzzled me the most was that the pyramid wasn't arranged in a maze-like manner, but instead more like an ant den or whatnot. I wasn't too familiar with the layout of a pyramid, though, so I let it slip. Seto used a stick that he had conjured out of midair to point at the top levels of the pyramid, which were blank. I stared at it.
Only the bottom three levels were mapped. Puzzled, we looked at the brunette inquiringly but he somehow managed to avert our gazes. "Our explorers failed to map out the rest of the pyramid. Here is a different look of the pyramid." The slide changed, and it showed a large pyramid that looked like it was cut in halves. The two halves began to spin. I saw for a brief moment that the top ten levels were blank, while the bottom ones had complex tunnels and the such.
"And where do we come in?" Piped up Jonouchi. Five heads swiveled into his direction; even the ninja and Seto were paying attention. We had not expected him to talk. Flushing, the blonde stammered for a bit, then said with more steadiness, "I mean, what do you want us for? For all I know, all we have in common is that we're duelists. Why the hell would we need - " his question was answered abruptly from Seto. His face showed no emotion, but his voice was traced with disgust.
"Tch. Apparently, over the radios that they packed before the signal was - " Seto paused dramatically here - "cut off, there appeared to be ..." Seto fumbled with a fringe on his shirt. He looked distraught, and I only knew of two ways to make him like that: losing a duel, or -
"Magic." Seto grunted. He turned away from us, and surveyed the curtains, which suddenly seemed much more interesting. Before the words could cause an uproar, he said quietly (but for all I know it had the effect of a foghorn that was blown three inches away from my ear), "not magic exactly. Apparently," and here, he turned around and gave a slight roll-of-the-eyes, "there were duelists."
"Well, that's to be expected," Jay said. "I mean, there must have been thieves or the such in the pyramid too - and the simple way to distract one of your 'explorers' was to challenge him to a game of Duel Monsters." Jay shrugged. "I mean, seriously. Even adults play that game. It's became that popular."
Seto looked both furious and pleased that Jay had said that - the latter was because of the 'popular' remark on Duel Monsters, the former since Jay had heavily implied that his explorers were childish and insubordinate, not to mention easily distracted.
"No." Said Seto, his voice slightly muffled because he was obviously grinding his teeth to shreds behind those lips of his, "In fact, they weren't theives. Quite the opposite." He forced a laugh. "They ... were ..." Then it came. "...mo...nsters." Seto choked out these last several words like someone would eject puke from their mouths. The hard part done with, Seto sat down and surveyed us.s
Once again, we were surprised. Mimi's butterfly clip wobbled in her hands, as if she had nearly dropped it. Her lips were slightly parted, like a lover's. Jay's expression was the complete opposite of hers. He was just sitting there. I shock, I supposed. Jonouchi, on the other side, had maxed out Mimi's expression. Jaw practically lowered to the ground, his hand forgotten, Jonouchi's leg had kicked out in reflex and hit Kaiba's table. The table didn't budge an inch, but Jonouchi fell to the ground, crying out in pain. The bodyguard moved at once, but Jonouchi was faster; within half a second, he had lifted himself back into the chair, though wheezing a bit and clutching his right leg's shin. I, myself, who had braced against something of the sort, merely grunted loudly in surprise, the grunt sounding much like a pig's snort. I berated myself for it again and again.
"Fuck." Jonouchi muttered.
"How is that possible?" Asked Jay. His eyes were clouded over in concentration; his train of thought was probably speeding at 300MPH.
"The thing is, it isn't!" Seto said, a bit sharply. I guess he still smarted from Jay's previous comment. "I thought it was a prank or something of the sort, then the other team went in and found the camera," Seto said, rather impatiently. "The thing is, these beasts (though I am perfectly convinced they are humans dressed in costumes) challenged each of the explorers to a duel when they went close to one of the rooms, which were seemingly chosen at random. Each of the explorers ... lost." Seto said. "I couldn't get much farther on the radio about what happened when they lost, but I could hear strange sounds that I'd rather not share with you at the moment." A huff from Jonouchi.
This is starting to sound more and more like a bad fanfic, I thought. "Well, does this go back to Ancient Egypt and how there were monsters that summoned one another?" I asked, amused.
"No!" Seto snarled. "Have you seen that dead man? It's a disgusting, horrible game and I intend to get down to the root of the problem." He slammed his hand down on the table, making it groan. I shuddered and wondered how loud Jonouchi would howl if that was him.
"Wait. Game?" Said Mimi.
"A duel is a game - " Began Jay, but Seto cut across him.
"Moving along - I'll get to the nub of this mess. I want you five to go into the pyramid and investigate each of the floors. I'll take care of the mapping and other shit, all I want you to do is defeat the creatures within. We know little to nothing about them." Seto said. "I wasn't even supposed to tell you about the other group of ten." His eyes looked over each of us carefully, ice-blue shards that was set on his face.
"Our lives are in jeopardy," Jonouchi whined.
"I'll give you a hundred thousand yen each, so shut your yapping mouth," Seto snapped.
Jonouchi shut up quite quickly, and Mimi, Jay and I both wore faces of mild delight and surprise.
"Get to work. We'll move out now . " Seto finished. The curtains were opened and the overview vanished.
SEVERAL MINUTES LATER
"Is this it?" Roared Jonouchi over the freak sandstorm that had brewed as we walked out of the building. We were standing in front of the large pyramid we had seen behind the building. The jeep that we had ridden to there was parked next to the pyramid, the keys still in the ignition.
"YES!" Shouted the bodyguard, who was accopanying us. Grunting in response, Jonouchi watched as Seto tapped something from within his coat - a hidden button - and the door to the pyramid slid open. I watched as the slab of sandstone was moved by an invisible force. The inside was lit by modern lanterns that banged against each other as the sand and wind blew in.
"Move in!" Seto commanded. I trailed at the end of the group, Duel Disk strapped onto my arm and still unsure as to if this was some delicate prank made by Seto.
And then the slab of sandstone slid shut and we, along with the bodyguard, were left to die in that pyramid.
Or not.
A built-in radio buzzed and came to life on my Duel Disk. I looked down, shocked for a moment, then remembered that I had put the 'power on' by putting the stone in a moment ago.
"Yugi." It was Mokuba. "Be careful."
Then the radio went dead.
DONE This was a rather short chapter. More like an explanatory-filler chapter until the excitement comes ... in the next chapter. I seriously promise that it'll come. I won't lie like usual. Really. Trust me ;) I hate this chapter though, it seems so CORNY. I hope the next chapter with its blood and gore and violence will make up for it. Tell me when I have to make the rating higher. Thankies!~