Okay, people, before I start the story, a little author's note. Okay, we all know that Yami Bakura's role in ancient Egypt was a tomb robber, right? Good. Right, we all know that. Think Lara Croft. Yami Yugi or Yu-Gi-Oh is Pharaoh-to-be in this first chapter at least, alright? Just wanted to get that straight. Oh yes, and Kaiba. The priest. Know him, love him, ya know. I don't suppose Yami Malik had a role in here, did he? It's only logical ,but I really haven't heard anything about it. Well, but anyway, just wanted to clear that up, I'm leaving now. Bye

... oh, and you do know in that one episode that when Honda threw the Millenium Ring out the window, he wasn't getting rid of Yami Bakura... he threw Ryou out the window! *breaks into hysterics* Heh heh... okay. Bye.

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Yami sighed, staring out the window to what looked like the sad result of a toddler's building blocks and a whole bunch of ants. "At the rate we're going, the pyramid's never going to be finished."

"Are you blaming me?" said Baroten, the highest overseer of the pyramid's construction. Personally, he would have much rather taken the day off than sit here, hoping for a miracle to finish this in, oh, I don't know, the next thirty years. "I'm no Imhotep. You can't expect something like this to get done in a month."

"Point taken." The Pharaoh sighed. "I don't distrust my father's judgement of time, but it seems as if the gods have slowed this process tenfold."

Before Baroten had time to think up a good, religious-related excuse (Where was that priest when he needed him?) a skinny worker came zipping through the hall, running straight into him. Not unlike a locust running into a particularly large rock.

"Excuse me, s-sirs," he stuttered, "We have a report of two bandits at the eastern edge, near the Nile." (Again? thought Yami.) He handed Baroten a scroll of papyrus.

Baroten scanned the two names of the suspects and sighed. "Guess who?"

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Bakura and Ceryan fled along the path winging along the Nile river. "Next time you feel like yelling 'Tomb raiders here!' in public, wait until we're out of hearing range!" Bakura growled.

"Sorry," Ceryan panted, looking back. "I think they've given up chasing us. C'mon, let's count the gold."

"This is getting easier by the day," Bakura noted, "It's almost getting boring."

"So, you'd rather go legitimate?"

He thought about this for a moment. "No. But you have to admit, for former slaves, we're doing awfully well."

"Two hundred golds bars of stolen goods and thrice as much as a reward to see us dead. . . . Not bad. Not bad at all."

"Except the dead part."

"Obviously,"

The sun was reaching its high point in the sky, and whatever shade the Egyptian landscape provided was quite scarce. Both were quite tired from the morning's ordeal (becoming illegally rich is a tiring business, did you know that?) So either objected to an early lunch. A stolen one, that is. . . .

As they crossed the unpaved streets, they spotted what looked like a huge ordeal of a festival not far from where they stood.

"What'dya think that is?" Ceryan wondered aloud.

Bakura shrugged. "Some festival for the gods. Anubis, Ra, Set, someone like that. Most likely with a monosyllabic name. I lost track a while ago."

"With a mouth like yours, I'd stay away from that priest, Kaiba."

Bakura gave him a withering look. "With a mouth like yours, I'd stay away from places prone to avalanches. Besides, Kaiba's just one kid. I don't believe in any of that 'divine intervention' stuff anyway. It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning."

"Good point."

"What can I say? A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle-" But Ceryan pushed in back before he could finish because the religious festival was spreading. From Bakura's perspective, which was now from under a pile of leftover salted fish bones, a parade from the opposite street seemed to mutate and slowly take over the whole promenade. From the corner of his eye he spotted the priest, seated at the highest point of the crowd. "To hell with that stuck up brat," he muttered. "Lucky, rich, b-"

"Forget him," Ceryan hissed, "See the girls in the front there, dancing? That's what we should be paying attention to."

"Ah." He found this to be an unnecessarily elaborate celebration; it must have taken months to keep these people from running into each other. "Perhaps we should just snag some fish from the pyramid construction cooks. You've got half the town here; you'd think they'd recognize a pair of infamous tomb robbers, eh?"

Ceryan pointed in the opposite direction, where, seconds before, there had been a nice, neat row of cooked fish."No, I think we'd have better luck getting through Anubis's scale in the afterlife." This had been replaced by a crowd of bulky slaves, sweating and stinking up the whole street. One dropped his fish on the floor, and immediately a gruesome fistfight had broken out.

"I'll pass." Bakura gulped.

"And the Pharaoh wonders why this is never getting done. Clearly, he is in denial. . . ."

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Kaiba, on the other hand, was completely unaware of the two outlaws. For a moment. . . .

He was constantly reminding himself that the Pharaoh (the current one, that is; Yami's father) was the human form of Ra and how ironic it would seem for the high priest to curse him to the second death. He was a priest, but also a real person. A real person has two reasons for doing anything: the good reason, and the real reason. The truth was that he thought the Pharaoh was past the point of actually interesting him in anything he ever said and just a tad bit stupid. The good, religious reason was that he displeased the gods. ...But of course, he wouldn't say anything. He did have to keep his position.

He took out his ritual book. Actually, he only had performed a fraction of them, since half the needed items were rarely there. Crazy ideas, some of them. Two white dragons? Doubtful anyone would ever find those. He read it over. Interesting enough, but it needed a few . . . subtle adjustments. He added a few more hieroglyphics to the spell. No one saw that, right?

Now, as for why the two tomb raiders had such a problem staying unseen.... It had to do with the first appearance of a Duel Monster and the one, single, most important law of The Tomb Robber's Guide to the Pyramids: If it's furry, cute, and cuddly looking, stay away. Stay far, far away. And although he two completely ignored the first woman's scream at the appearance of Kuribo, it wasn't to be unknown for long. Alarmed at the yell, Bakura was taken off guard (Had the scream been about him? Ra, he didn't know he was that popular.) and backed right into the furry little beast. Not really sure how to respond, the Kuribo did what it did best:

Boom!

"Dammit, Bakura, what did you do?" Ceryan's shout floated over the blast.

"What did I do?" the other yelled back. "I'm not the one who blew up!"

Kaiba, who had never actually seen the infamous tomb robbers face-to-face, was surprised to recognize the palace servant that had spilled a gallon of red dye on his newest robe a few years ago. Well, what a surprise. And, of course, this would be a perfect time for a masochistic-religious figure TheGodsAreDispleased declaration. But, then again, this could be a rare opportunity to catch the two troublemakers. Given the chance, a whole army would be sent out on them, which would be easier on his part.

The smoke from the explosion cleared, revealing what used to be a busy marketplace. A group of soldiers took up their spears and ran after the wrongly-accused-for-once convicts. There, problem solved.

No, apparently not. You didn't trust anything to illiterate army men. Kaiba would have had his doubts even if there hadn't been an excessive amount of pushing and crashing. "Honestly. . . ." Seeing as a chase such as this was getting no where, he slid out of his chair unnoticed and followed behind. "If I get as much as a scratch from this, things are going to be verrrryy unpleasant around here. . . ."

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"Well, that went well."

"One could put it that way," Ceryan panted. "I mean, we lost our day's loot, but it's not like you get to see the equivalent of Chinese Fireworks every day."

"You don't say?" said Bakura, who was slowly tearing a piece of papyrus to tiny shreds. "Has anyone ever told you that fireworks are only pretty when they're not using you as target practice?"

"No, actually. But it's logical."

They were walking down a deserted hall in the overseer's tomb they had been in earlier. It was recently built, meaning not only was the gold worth as much as it ever would be, but it scratched at Ceryan's conscience like nails on a blackboard.

"Just because of us, somebody's going to have a very miserable afterlife." he lectured.

"You know," Bakura said loftily, "Being the kleptomaniac that I am, I really don't believe in the afterlife at all. And how can I even have a conscience? I can't even spell it."

"So you're just planning to die, then? Nothing after?" Ceryan's voice was beginning to echo through the hall.

"Ah, yes, that's about it," Bakura said with nonchalance.

"Well, perhaps some of us actually plan for a good afterlife, and would prefer not to get sent back by the damned Feather of Truth!"

"I'll be sure to tell Anubis exactly how much you appreciate him." said a voice behind him. Kaiba, the priest from the festival, carrying an uncannily large book. "For such expert criminals, you're quite the amateurs. I could hear you two through the halls of the step pyramid."

"I robbed the step pyramid, thank you very much." Bakura said in much the same tone. Ceryan gave him a nudge in the shoulder, trying rather desperately to send the message 'Shut up! Shut up!' telepathically. He appeared to more or less get the message because the next second they were speeding down the hall in the opposite direction. This was really, really not his day.

The tomb robber's guide to the pyramids highly recommends that, if discovered, one should flee as far from the scene of the crime as possible. And had Bakura heeded this piece of advice, he might never have avoided this whole situation entirely. Unfortunately, he was, as stated previously, a kleptomaniac, and they hadn't exactly cleaned out the whole place. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a magnificent glint of gold. Suddenly hoping to make up for the lost gold that morning, he stopped, rooted to the spot.

On top, almost hovering over a pile of copper and silver, was a particularly shiny ring. Sure, if you tried to point out exactly what was so mysterious about it, you couldn't, but mysterious nonetheless. It looked powerful. It looked radiant.

It looked expensive.

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Once again... *yawn* is this okay? It's my first fanfic with...you know... a plot.

Bakura: correction, first successful one.

Right, but anyway... as for next chapter, eh heh... isn't it convenient how, in ancient Egypt, Kaiba can disguise an attempt to murder his two least favorite tomb robbers by calling it a sacrifice to the gods?

Bakura: *goes all pale*

Oh... and Ceryan is a guy, by the way. Just want to clear that up. ...He and Bakura kind of get along, but not always. Get it? Oh, and Bakura refers to Yami Bakura. Duuuuhh.

Bakura: And remember, boys and girls, grasshoppers are baby man-eater bugs! (^.^)