A Day in the Life of Malik Ishtar (more like "A Day in the Life of Everyone But the Author", sheesh!)
Chapter Eight: Hold Your Breath
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. Seriously. Don't tell people that I do because I don't.
Author's note: This is one of my favorite episodes. I'm such a Bakura fangirl it isn't funny. Anyway, I don't remember the fine details of it, but I know how it starts and how it ends and that's all that matters because the stuff in the middle tends to be boring anyway!
Stuff that has been changed by me due to poor memory: So those cards required for the finals, the ones that show the location of Kaiba's Duel Blimp (of doom?), I have no idea what they're called. I vaguely remember something like Puzzle Cards? Well, whatever, I've messed up so much already that I can change the name and number of those things. :p Puzzle Cards, you need eight of them, suck it up. I'm breaking the consistency of using Japanese names instead of dub names with Bones. I can't remember his Japanese name, I can't remember the names of his two sidekicks at all, and I want to get this posted ASAP. That rules out looking them up. Color me lazy, but deal.
Enter Ryou's dream sequence…
"I'm flying!" Ryou thought excitedly. And, in happy dreamland, he was. First he went through some doors and was in a completely blue room full of toys – his toys, actually. There was his model airplane, his G.I. Joe action figures, an Easy Bake Oven…er, not that that was his or anything. It was his sister's. Not that he had one, but that was completely beside the point. And before Ryou could sit and become lost in the memories of his early childhood, he was through more doors and into… Outer space?
There was an astronaut and a space shuttle and then a giant bluish green void with, well, a blond person of undetermined gender standing in it. Who wasn't wearing a space suit and wasn't exploding, either. Hmmm.
"Who are you?" Ryou asked, bemused. His mind was really coming up with some weird things…maybe it was all the drugs getting put into his body, being in a hospital and all.
The person folded, er, its arms and narrowed its curiously purple eyes. In its hand was a Millennium Item, of which Ryou couldn't place a name to for the life of him. "None of your business," the now positively male stranger snapped. "Get your better half before I have to go find him. And you wouldn't want that to happen, trust me." The blond boy's patience seemed to be at its end, and Ryou shrank back in acquiescence. He didn't seem to be a creation of his dream, not if he wanted the other half.
Malik tapped his foot and watched Ryou's slouched figure shake and suddenly rise, a little taller now, whether with confidence or physical height. Sometimes it was hard to tell. "You called?" Bakura asked rather irritably. "I was napping, thank you very much."
"Bad Malik. Bad." Malik hit his hand. "How dare me wake you up from your little nappy-poo."
Bakura glared. "My sides are bursting."
"Look. Pharaoh boy and his sissypantsed friend dueled each other and neither of them died," Malik explained, fairly irked.
"I told you Yugi was powerful."
"No you didn't. You told me he was a lame, pansy ass with bad hair and the height of a little school girl."
"But he's powerful."
"Shut up." Malik rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I'm not giving you the Rod just for stabbing you with it. You'll need to help out more than that."
Bakura heaved a sigh and nodded slowly. "Fine. But only because torturing the innocent gets boring after a while."
"See, this whole Battle City tournament…we need to be in it. We can get the God Cards if we play our cards right, if you'll excuse the pun."
"I won't excuse the pun. Reword that or I'm leaving."
Malik stared rather indignantly at his loathsome partner. "If we kick certain people's fragile little bums, we can force God Cards out of them. Rather, I can force God Cards out of them, you're just in it for the Rod."
Still a little perturbed, Bakura gave another affirmative nod. "I need those required Puzzle Cards to get into the finals of the tournament. You're a famed counterfeit card maker…"
Shaking his head, Malik shifted his weight anxiously. "Kaiba coded those stupid things himself, there's no way I could replicate them. Bastard."
"That's nice. I suddenly find myself bored to tears talking to you, and it sounds like the old fart is going to wake me up because Ryou's a wuss. Smell you later." And with that, Bakura vanished.
Malik blinked. "'Smell you later'?" he recited, scrunching up his nose. "How old is this kid?" Then he vanished as well.
"Ryou!"
A twitch. A moan.
"Ryou!"
His eyes opened and he was looking at the homely face of Sugoroku.
"You were talking in your sleep," Sugoroku reported cheerily. Bakura duly noted how nothing got that old fart down, and how annoying it was to be drugged and tired and have some bouncy old guy ramble nonsense at him.
"Honda called after getting in contact with Jounouchi a while ago and – " Sugoroku stared in horror as Bakura sat up and yanked out his IV needle without so much as a cringe.
"Shut. Up." Bakura narrowed his eyes dangerously at the old man, silencing him. Then he decided that wasn't good enough and promptly backhanded him full force, knocking the poor man off of his feet and giving him quite a head collision with the floor. Bakura grabbed his pastel green overshirt and promptly left the room without a hint of remorse.
In Bakura's mind, there were three methods of obtaining these Puzzle Cards: the legitimate way, the wrong way, andhis way. Often times, the legitimate way was often confused and jumbled with hisway, so there were really two methods of obtaining the cards. So, first things first, he might as well get the wrong way over with. It was usually the easiest, after all.
Consulting his wristwatch, Bakura discovered it was nearly 10 o'clock at night. Perfect. His first task was getting a Duel Disk, since he hadn't bothered to sign up for the tournament when it started. Hopefully in the process he'd pick up some Puzzle Cards. Now to find the victim…
Downtown Domino City. This late at night, it would be hard to find an easy target since it was past most of their bedtimes. Near the hospital was a small, square area with a fountain where there were late night cafés and a dance club, whose occupants were hopefully spilling outside for fresh air. And hopefully those fresh air-seeking occupants were scrawny and not lacking Duel Disks.
But wait. What was this? A boy, more specifically a boy with a Duel Disk, was waiting outside of a 24-hour drugstore, probably awaiting his mother's return from a quick errand. He must have been 10 or 11 years old…and whatever the case, he was smaller than Bakura and that was all that mattered.
"Hey," Bakura said in a failed attempt to be friendly. The boy stared at him more frightened than anything. "Want to duel me real fast? My deck isn't all that great, you can probably beat me in ten minutes or less." Bullcrap.
"Um, okay," the boy agreed uneasily. Bakura led him into a nearby alleyway to "duel" and came out with a Duel Disk and six Puzzle Cards. Aww, too bad.
So that was that. All phases of the wrong way were complete, and now it was time for Bakura's way/the legitimate way. Hmm…
In a nearby cemetary...
"Normal people go to clubs or watch movies on Saturday nights."
Bones shot a glare at his tall companion. "You hate dancing and you spend the rest of the week watching movies, so shut up. Maybe we can find a duelist here to steal cards from."
"Like that kid?"
"Yes. Perfect. Take your places, boys."
And in the back of his mind, Bakura knew that most normal people went to clubs or watched movies on Saturday nights. Lots of duelists to be found at the nearest dance club or movie theater. However, dueling someone using his own "methods" couldn't be done in large crowds…no, large crowds Shadow Realm mayhem and a lot of it. Bakura would get in trouble for it, surely.
"BLEEARGH!"
Bakura stopped dead in his tracks as a "zombie" wearing street clothes sauntered toward him. From behind, he heard another deranged snarl, and he knew he was surrounded on the narrow path. "Giiive uuus yooour caaaards!" a small, skull-faced…demon thing demanded spookily. Bakura rolled his eyes, grabbed the wrist of the hand trying to grab his neck from behind, spun himself and the "zombie" around, then pulled the arm into a breakable position. Now that he had a meat shield…
"I don't have time to play haunted graveyard with you hooligans," Bakura snapped venomously. These losers seemed dumb enough to steal cards from.
"Fine!" the short one with the scary face snapped. Upon closer observation, Bakura concluded that the pipsqueak wasn't wearing a mask. "Then we'll take your cards legitimately through a duel!"
Bakura scrunched up his nose in thought. Gee, that sounded familiar. "Sure," Bakura agreed placidly. The fools had no idea what they were getting into.
"Mai! What the hell's wrong with you!" cried Jounouchi. She had almost driven over the median…again.
"Shut up, Jounouchi! It's hard to drive with your stupid foot pushing on the side of my head!"
"Yeah, well, it's not my fault you didn't buy a minivan!"
The whole gang – minus Kaiba, who exited stage left in a conveniently delivered helicopter to fetch Mokuba and beat them to the Battle City finals area – was piled into Mai's four-seater sports car. Seven is greater than four. You do the math.
"Did someone just touch my butt?" Shizuka asked, alarmed.
"Otogi!" Jounouchi and Honda snapped in unison. "I'll kill you!"
Otogi, in the passenger seat next to Mai, looked in the back of the car, perplexed and indignant. "I didn't do it!"
"Honda!" Jounouchi roared, and began trying to engage the filthy molester in vengeful combat with three other people crammed like burrito contents in the back of the car. Mai suddenly slammed on the breaks.
"Don't make me come back there!" she scolded, quite infuriated. Shizuka, sitting uncomfortably between the side door and Anzu, grinned – no, smirked to herself in satisfaction. Yes, dear brother, beat up that Honda real well…
The purple haze of the Shadow Realm surrounded them.
"I know I've already said this, but this is really freakin' weird," Bones, the short and scary one, remarked warily. His comrades were behind him, equally if not more scared, sitting on the ground and holding each other.
Bakura, too, was on the ground. Rather, he was lying on his stomach with his head propped up by his elbows, a dull expression on his face. "It's been ten minutes. This isn't effing DBZ, just make your move."
"Okay, okay," Bones consented. "I'll lay one card face down."
"That's it? No monsters on the field, nothing but a card face down, and that's the end of your move?" Bakura got to his feet, eyes blazing with fury. "I'm. Bored," he growled through gritted teeth. Bones looked even more terrified than before as Bakura advanced, walking right through his own cards' holograms. "I was going to summon Dark Necropilia and steal your strongest monster from the Graveyard to defeat you, anyway. I've had it planned out from the start and you're too stupid to mess up my strategy."
Bones stared up at the taller boy with eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Wh – What are you doing?!"
Bakura lifted Bones by the collar of his shirt and yanked the Duel Disk off of his tiny wrist. "You won't need this where you're going." Then he turned and went to his side of the field again, and the holograms dissipated.
"Where am I g – " the ground under Bones and his two cronies disappeared, leaving a black void in its place. They began falling. "No!" Bones screamed. "Please don't banish us to the Shadow Realm!"
"The Shadow Realm?" Bakura repeated, looking down at them from a safe distance. "You're going straight to hel – "
" – lo Ryou Bakura!" The void suddenly closed, and the three unfortunate dueler's were left in limbo. Their heads were stuck in the sidewalk, while their bodies were elsewhere. Bakura glared at the man in a crisp business suit who ruined his concentration.
The man had a funny, plaid bowtie and held a microphone in his hand, and he seemed to be talking to a crowd – which, through the mist, Bakura faintly saw a large group of people sitting and watching intently. He suddenly felt very sick to his stomach.
"Ryou Bakura, congratulations? May I shake your hand? I'm going to shake your hand." The man did so before Bakura yanked the tainted appendage away furiously. "Ryou Bakura, you just won 20 Questions."
"I what?" Bakura hissed.
Yep, Bakura won. Well, I guess he won, I lost track some time ago and thought this would be a fine place to hold an award ceremony.
Bakura glared up at the disembodied voice.
Oh, am I being too loud? Sorry.
"First things first, Ryou, here are the keys to a brand new BMW convertible." The man handed them to Bakura, who took them, dumbfounded. "Here is a version of our home game, a round-trip to Italy, a crocheting kit, a hundred dollar gift certificate to the local spa, a mountain bike, and a partridge in a pear tree."
Bakura, holding more than he could carry and surrounded by his prizes, just stared. The man provoked the audience into loud cheering and clapping, and suddenly Bakura had an idea.
The portal to hell opened up again, Bones and his comrades fell the rest of the way, as did the man and the audience. The prizes fell, too, with Bakura hurrying to get out of harm's way with no time to spare for any of his prizes. Except the keys, which were in his pocket.
Not that he could afford gas money or anything.
"Eight Puzzle Cards," he murmured quietly. "I couldn't imagine dueling for these pieces of crap. Talk about tedious." Bakura rolled his eyes and put each card into his Duel Disk.
"It's dark. And it smells funny. Kind of like wood – wood reminds me of beavers," Yugi rambled. No one was listening.
"So," Otogi shifted his weight to one leg, grinning at Shizuka, "you come here often?" "Here" being a half-constructed stadium of the Kaiba Corporation, one that was suspiciously empty.
Shizuka looked shiftily from one side to the other, then let out a cry. "What are you doing to me, Otogi?!"
Jounouchi let out a lion's roar and tackled Otogi to the ground, and Honda followed in suit to add to the mayhem. Shizuka inched away from the scene and went to Mai's car, leaning against it and listening to Mai and Anzu chat. Stupid boys.