Wild-filly: ^_^ this fic was originally only going to be a one-shot, but
I've decided to extend it into a longer fic... enjoy!
Disclaimer: Don't own, therefore please don't sue... it's not as if I have anything of value anyway -_-;;
***
Part I
***
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Flocks of brightly coloured little birds chirped in the leafy oak tree that was the prominent feature of Ryou Bakura's back garden, as the mild-mannered Ryou sat cross-legged at the foot of said tree, peacefully meditating to forget his troubles. Or at least a certain one of them; more commonly in the form of a five thousand year-old tomb raider.
Yes, the resident tomb robber was not impressed about something. There was absolutely nothing unusual about this turn of affairs, since the Spirit of the Millennium Ring was known to argue with and lose an argument against inanimate objects, however what was unusual was the fact that he wasn't bothering Ryou about it. Ordinarily the hapless young Ryou would be the first person to be complained at in the case of something irritating the one time King of Thieves; this time there seemed to actually be something wrong.
Ryou released a withheld breath, a stray lock of white hair flicking down into one of his chocolate-brown eyes. How on earth was he supposed to relax in this complete serenity?! The absence of his darker counterpart making a racket in some room of the house as he wrestled with the toaster, broke the TV or tried to order a pizza without paying afterwards was most disturbing.
There was no way this madness could continue decided Ryou as he scrambled clumsily to his feet, dusting off a few leaves before making his way towards the newly painted back door; a previous victim of the tomb raider's wrath. Clattering up the stairs, haphazardly avoiding the trail of destruction in his yami's wake, Ryou noted that the most profound silence was coming from his own room. Tentatively pressing one ear against the door, the young duellist realised that the door was not locked as he tipped over sideways and crashed to the floor of his room.
Startled by the sudden flying open of the door and the flailing entrance of his hikari, the fearless tomb robber leapt to his feet with inhuman speed and dove into the closet, peering out at the intruder with a terrified expression. After observing the moaning attacker to be no more than his incompetent mortal "associate", Yami Bakura clambered back out of the closet, untangled himself from a tennis racket, a pair of sneakers and particularly aggressive jumper and tried to regain some of his lost dignity.
"What are you doing in here, you foolish mortal?"
"I happen to live here, and this is my room!"
Yami Bakura snorted and turned away from his defensive light counterpart, leaning his elbows pensively on the windowsill and surveying the sunny street below with a dark glare. Ryou allowed himself a slight smile of triumph – the Spirit had returned to something approaching normal.
"What's wrong with you anyway?"
The ancient tomb robber stiffened, freezing in his rigid position and eyes devoid of expression. His head lowered, bedraggled white hair hiding his face from view. Now Ryou was worried; the tomb raider had several modes; psychotic, egotistic, moronic and megalomaniac. Depressive was a new one, and Ryou had only just figured out how to control the other four; predominantly through threatening to cut back the thief's sugar and caffeine supply.
Just how did one cheer up a miserable five thousand or so year old tomb raider with a deep grudge against the pharaoh and a goal to possess all the Millennium Items and ultimately rule the world?
Well, besides murder the pharaoh and hand him the Millennium Items and ownership rights to the world in a nice gift-wrapped box that is...
"Come on Spirit, what's bothering you now? Have you broken something that I'm about to get really annoyed about?"
Not that it was likely of the tomb robber to try this tact, judging by the fact he had none of said tact to start with.
Several minutes crawled by and neither hikari nor yami moved. It was a standoff of sorts, one that Ryou was certain to win, as he was the more patient of the two. The most likely consequence was that the resident psycho would grow bored of the silence, yell out what his problem was as well as a few of his hikari's and then storm off downstairs to find some coffee.
Finally the eerie silence was shattered.
"FINE! I'M SICK OF THIS STUPID SILENCE! DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, UNDERSTAND? IT'S MY 5214TH BIRTHDAY TODAY AND NO ONE HAS REMEMBERED!"
With that enlightening outburst, Yami Bakura shoved past Ryou, tripped on a skateboard, fell down the stairs and strode, cursing in Ancient Egyptian, into the kitchen.
Ryou Bakura stood in complete and utter astonishment as the cursing continued in languages he couldn't understand, accompanied by a resounding clatter as the kettle was violently thrown back onto the counter and jar of coffee smashed on the floor. The cursing took on a more violent edge and one that Ryou began to recognise as Japanese. Absentmindedly kicking the bedroom door shut and collapsing onto his scruffy, unmade bed, Ryou struggled to believe that after all these years, the tomb robber could still remember what day his birthday was on.
What should he do? Judging by the rather inventive curses that were echoing through the house and contaminating the ears of innocent neighbourhood children within a five-kilometre radius, it would not be a good idea to let this go unnoticed.
With a slightly evil and very uncharacteristic grin on his face, Ryou delved around on the floor for his mobile phone; almost invisible for all the piles of junk and stolen property broken or hoarded by the Spirit of the Millennium Ring.
*
"YAMI! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE REMOTE CONTROL?"
The King of Games looked up from his magazine, basking in self-importance as he read and reread his interview with Duelling Today as the undisputed champion of duel monsters. It was hard work being a living legend. Well... more or less living.
"'I DIDN'T TOUCH THE REMOTE CONTROL! THAT THING IS POSSESSED!"
From where he was tearing apart the living room trying to locate the illusive electrical appliance, Yugi rolled his huge purple eyes. The Spirit was paranoid of anything that sprang to life without warning; even the TV remote after it gave him a considerable fright when he sat down on it by accident and flicked on the TV. It was the first exposure Yami had ever had to Barney the Dinosaur, and he did not enjoy it one bit. The pharaoh was now deathly afraid of purple dinosaurs in all shapes and forms; even in duel monsters.
"ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT? I'VE LOOKED EVERYWHERE!"
Sighing resignedly, Yami Yugi sprang up from his comfortable position sprawled out on his bed, complete with Dark Magician duvet and pillow. Twisting athletically through the air, the King of Games landed feet first with a nasty crunch. Purple eyes widening in horror, believing that he had somehow damaged one of his perfect feet, the pharaoh's concern turned to relief as he shuffled his right foot to one side to reveal the shattered remains of some kind of black rectangle now emitting a sad series of dying sparks.
Yami observed the rectangle, deep in thought. Now where had he seen that thing before? Before the King of Games could reach a conclusion, a demonic creature shrieked bloodthirstily at him. With a yelp of fear, the yami lunged for the closet, forgetting to open it in the process and giving himself a mild concussion against the white-painted oak door.
A far off voice was answering the telephone, "hello, Kame Game Shop, Yugi Motou speaking".
A couple of minutes passed with the pharaoh still crumpled in a dazed heap on the floor, limbs twitching slightly and eyes determinedly crossed. In the confusion that was Yami's mind at the moment, his eyes reported the sighting of a pair of feet padding towards him. His ears hastened to inform him of his hikari yelling at him to wake up.
Yugi wasn't incredibly worried about the Spirit's health, especially since he was technically dead anyway; but it was a little disconcerting to have him unconscious on the floor.
"Spirit, wake up!"
No response.
"Spirit, Barney the Dinosaur is coming!"
The pharaoh's eyes shot open, lurching to his feet with a look of utter terror on his face.
"NO! The evil dinosaur! Where is it?!"
Yami stopped his panicked scanning of the surroundings to observe his hikari rolling on the floor almost choking with laughter.
"Oh very funny"
Yugi choked back another heave, "sorry Spirit, that was Ryou on the floor. We're going out to his house tonight."
Yami blinked, "any particular reason why?"
"We're going to meet Tea, Joey, Tristan, Kaiba, Mokuba, Ishizu and Marik at the mall first though".
"Why?"
"Then we're all going over to see Ryou at about four thirty".
"WOULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHY?!"
Yugi's eyes widened in shock, "there's no need to shout; it's for Yami Bakura's surprise birthday party".
Now it was Yami's turn to roll on the floor howling.
"The psycho tomb raider? That's hilarious! Will we all have to wear those little paper hats and have him blow out candles on a cake?!"
Yugi ignored the Spirit as the previously unmentioned problem with exposing the thief to fire was brought up. How on earth were they going to get birthday presents for Yami Bakura without putting anyone's life in danger?
*
After Yami had recovered from his concussion and Yugi finished screaming at him for breaking the remote, the two duellists headed for the Domino shopping mall; forbidden territory to all yamis until now, for fear of what would happen if they suddenly decided it was time to be paranoid of all electronic appliances.
Waiting at the foot of a particularly nasty-looking escalator, Yugi eagerly greeted the small group gathered there as Yami proceeded to regard the escalator with an apprehensive glare.
Joey could barely conceal a snicker as he sidled over to Yugi, "can you believe we're trying to do something nice for that homicidal maniac?"
Yugi grinned, "it's only the right thing to do, after all, we'd be pretty upset if someone completely forgot our birthday".
Joey shrugged, 'I suppose'.
A slight commotion taking place over towards one of the main mall entrances suddenly caught the group's attention. Loud shrieks were coming from a set of double glass doors. Wandering over to see what was the matter, Yugi nearly collapsed with laughter again in a short period of time. Joey collapsed for the first, along with Yami, Tristan and Mokuba.
Marik was hanging onto the doorframe, blatantly refusing to enter the wretched mall as his sister Ishizu heaved on a corner of his shirt, trying to tow him into the building.
"I AM NEVER ENTERING THIS STUPID PLACE AGAIN, I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME!"
Ishizu sighed, noticing Yami and hurriedly letting go of her brother to pay due respects to the pharaoh. The pressure suddenly released, Marik momentarily hovered in midair before clattering to the floor with a string of Egyptian curses. Ishizu ignored her brother and walked dignifiedly over to Yugi, Yami, Tea, Joey, Tristan, Mokuba and Ryou.
"Forgive this noise please, my brother did not enjoy his last excursion to this place".
Yugi nodded, hardly able to believe what he was hearing, "was there any particular reason why?"
Ishizu nodded, "I needed to refill my wardrobe to suit our holiday in Domino better and Marik agreed to accompany me to learn how to behave appropriately in a shopping centre while not reverting to his old ways. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to enjoy following me around clothing shops the whole time and after the first three hours or so was positively furious. The next three and my refusal to let him catch the bus back to the hotel seemed to do worse for him".
Yugi's humoured expression turned to one of pity. He could imagine himself, Joey or Tristan going insane doing the same thing.
Muttering darkly to himself, Marik hobbled over to join them. "You're here to get the tomb robber birthday gifts as well?"
Yami nodded, still snickering at the tomb keeper's misfortune. Apart from Yami Bakura, it couldn't have happened to a nicer homicidal maniac. Sure, Marik was supposed to be reformed, but he still had a lot of work until he graduated and gained his "Not Insane" certificate in most people's eyes.
Ryou stepped forward, "I'm sorry to hurry us along like this, but I told my Yami I'd be back in an hour or so, so we really need to hurry and get back soon!"
"By all means", muttered Marik, glaring at the chirpy Ryou, "I just can't believe I'm actually in this hideous place again".
*
Yami's earlier prediction seemed to becoming a prominent feature in everyone's view as the unruly mob ambled around the shops on offer.
"What do you think he'd like?"
Everyone turned to Tristan, who'd just asked that foolish question. Tristan continued, "I mean, he's a thief and all, would he like a lock-pick set or something?"
"He has several", said Ryou gloomily, "I used to keep my money in a locked box, along with three of his lock-picking sets I confiscated".
Marik snorted, "knowing that moron, he'd want some kind of knife. Preferably knives"
Ryou shook his head violently, "no more knives. I'm serious about that".
Yugi sighed, "so what can we get him that he will like, but will not put any of us in immediate danger or prove a future health hazard?"
A deafening silence ensued, punctured only by the bustle of merry shoppers purchasing gifts for people who weren't homicidal menaces to society. Joey suddenly perked up, "I know!"
Everyone turned to Joey in surprise and anticipation, amazed that he'd managed to think of something even the "supposedly intelligent" (opinion being largely divided) pharaoh and King of Games couldn't think of. Joey grinned widely, "go to a little kid's department! They have all those labels with stuff like 'safe for under threes' and all that – there's no way he'll be able to hurt himself or anyone else with all that junk!"
Ryou grinned, "perfect!"
*
Stumbling cautiously around a shelf stacked with strange pastel-coloured things that jingled in a most disturbing fashion, Yami nervously kept an eye out for the dreaded purple dinosaur Yugi warned him that did lurk around this floor. He would have to be careful. Using every inch of his cunning to avoid the monstrosity that had terrorized him so in the past. Even the opening bars of that foul song were enough to send him running for his sanity. Crawling army-style around a corner and stalking carefully down the next aisle, Yami tentatively watched a large purple dog in case it may suddenly mutate into a reptile, until he smacked headlong into something large and plushy.
Looking up and squinting through his blond bangs, Yami's eyes widened incredibly and his jaw fell open, mouth quivering in fear. It was the personification of his worst nightmare.
A hapless store clerk who had drawn the short straw and had been forced to dress up in the ridiculous Barney costume and parade around the kiddy section was most perplexed to find a young man crawling around on the floor. He seemed quite terrified out of his wits. Having stopped to ask him whether or not he had dropped something, the spiky-haired adolescent had bumped into him by accident, frozen for an instant and then bolted with incredible speed, shrieking something in a language he couldn't understand.
The clerk blinked. That was odd.
Marik was having fun trying out one of the mountain bikes when he was rudely attacked by a screaming ancient ruler. Lurching out from nowhere, Marik glanced up from checking the gears just in time to see a pile of flailing limbs come crashing down on top of him, sending both Marik and the bike flying into a crumpled pile.
"PHARAOH! GET OFF ME BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
Yami was stunned, limbs twitching and still gibbering in fear, "the purple dinosaur, the purple dinosaur nearly got me........."
Marik was not happy at all – his leg was pinned in a most painful fashion between the ground and the spokes of one of the wheels, along with the pharaoh sprawled on top of him in a most distressing manner. The fact he was in this evil shopping mall again added to his list of "Reasons Why Megalomania is such a Good Idea".
Yami finally regained enough sense to disentangle himself from the bike and sat beside the wreckage, head still spinning whilst Marik lay spread-eagled in complete and utter fury. His leg was wedged completely through one of the wheels and was hurting to no small degree. Why oh why had he given Yugi the Millennium Rod.........
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Yami declined to answer, continuing his terrified gibbering even as Yugi came to find out just what his darker side had done this time. With one expert glance, Yugi shook his head sadly at Marik.
"It was the dinosaur again. It always has this affect on him".
Marik mentally placed the list of reasons for megalomania aside and replaced it with "Possible Blackmail or Potential Torture Devices". The Game King would pay when it came to his birthday party...... how about a nice Barney the Dinosaur theme?
Vagually recalling the evil look in Marik's eyes, Yugi decided it would probably be safer to change the subject, "so, have you had any luck finding a present yet?"
Jolted back to reality and remembering the popular and completely unoriginal slogan of 'you break it, you bought it', Marik slowly turned to face the mangled pile of wheels, chains and warped purple metal frame that was once a new mountain bike.
"Well....... it's unlikely he'll be able to do any damage with this."
Yugi surveyed the tortured remains and chuckled weakly, "I suppose it would have wound up looking like that anyway; this at least saves time".
Gingerly gathering up the mountain-bike in kit form, Marik stumbled off among the shelves, attempting to locate an illusive checkout desk whilst continuing to plot the pharaoh's downfall....... In the form of a large purple dinosaur.
The King of Games continued to mutter to himself on the floor, catching the attention of a number of small children and their scowling parents. Grinning in attempt to mask the abnormalcy of the situation, Yugi tugged at the petrified pharaoh's leather shirt.
"Come on Yami, you're upsetting the kids"
"No... the dinosaur is somewhere on this floor. I can't move or it'll find me!"
"Yami, if you stay here any longer it will DEFINITELY find you!"
"How do you know?"
"Dinosaurs have really good senses of smell".
"How do you know?"
"Some random science textbook".
"How could the author know?"
"I don't know! Come on..."
Hauling with all his strength, Yugi managed to tow the King of Games to his feet and shuffle him into the relative safety of the soft-toy section. Dumping the pharaoh inbetween a massive stuffed teddy bear and fluffy pink unicorn, the hikari decided to just leave him to come to his senses in his own time. Shuffling around the shelves and inwardly marvelling at the jungle of animals and deranged human plushies that were available, Yugi noted the presence of a rather unusual member of the fluffy community.
Yes, in the sea of pastel shades, outsized eyes and enough fluff to supply a sofa-stuffing industry for a year, was a flash of black almost suffocated by the Disney-ness of the whole situation. Delving into the pile of unrealistically cute safari animals, from out of the mountain a fluffy vampire bat rose to the surface. Yugi surveyed the bat critically. It was small and black with short little wings, as well as little white fangs complete with bloodstains. Quite cute actually. It was also fitted with an elastic rope, so the owner could make the bat "fly" unrealistically in a bouncy, jerky fashion.
Perfect.
*
wild-filly: please review! Next chapter should be up soon ^_^
Disclaimer: Don't own, therefore please don't sue... it's not as if I have anything of value anyway -_-;;
***
Part I
***
It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Flocks of brightly coloured little birds chirped in the leafy oak tree that was the prominent feature of Ryou Bakura's back garden, as the mild-mannered Ryou sat cross-legged at the foot of said tree, peacefully meditating to forget his troubles. Or at least a certain one of them; more commonly in the form of a five thousand year-old tomb raider.
Yes, the resident tomb robber was not impressed about something. There was absolutely nothing unusual about this turn of affairs, since the Spirit of the Millennium Ring was known to argue with and lose an argument against inanimate objects, however what was unusual was the fact that he wasn't bothering Ryou about it. Ordinarily the hapless young Ryou would be the first person to be complained at in the case of something irritating the one time King of Thieves; this time there seemed to actually be something wrong.
Ryou released a withheld breath, a stray lock of white hair flicking down into one of his chocolate-brown eyes. How on earth was he supposed to relax in this complete serenity?! The absence of his darker counterpart making a racket in some room of the house as he wrestled with the toaster, broke the TV or tried to order a pizza without paying afterwards was most disturbing.
There was no way this madness could continue decided Ryou as he scrambled clumsily to his feet, dusting off a few leaves before making his way towards the newly painted back door; a previous victim of the tomb raider's wrath. Clattering up the stairs, haphazardly avoiding the trail of destruction in his yami's wake, Ryou noted that the most profound silence was coming from his own room. Tentatively pressing one ear against the door, the young duellist realised that the door was not locked as he tipped over sideways and crashed to the floor of his room.
Startled by the sudden flying open of the door and the flailing entrance of his hikari, the fearless tomb robber leapt to his feet with inhuman speed and dove into the closet, peering out at the intruder with a terrified expression. After observing the moaning attacker to be no more than his incompetent mortal "associate", Yami Bakura clambered back out of the closet, untangled himself from a tennis racket, a pair of sneakers and particularly aggressive jumper and tried to regain some of his lost dignity.
"What are you doing in here, you foolish mortal?"
"I happen to live here, and this is my room!"
Yami Bakura snorted and turned away from his defensive light counterpart, leaning his elbows pensively on the windowsill and surveying the sunny street below with a dark glare. Ryou allowed himself a slight smile of triumph – the Spirit had returned to something approaching normal.
"What's wrong with you anyway?"
The ancient tomb robber stiffened, freezing in his rigid position and eyes devoid of expression. His head lowered, bedraggled white hair hiding his face from view. Now Ryou was worried; the tomb raider had several modes; psychotic, egotistic, moronic and megalomaniac. Depressive was a new one, and Ryou had only just figured out how to control the other four; predominantly through threatening to cut back the thief's sugar and caffeine supply.
Just how did one cheer up a miserable five thousand or so year old tomb raider with a deep grudge against the pharaoh and a goal to possess all the Millennium Items and ultimately rule the world?
Well, besides murder the pharaoh and hand him the Millennium Items and ownership rights to the world in a nice gift-wrapped box that is...
"Come on Spirit, what's bothering you now? Have you broken something that I'm about to get really annoyed about?"
Not that it was likely of the tomb robber to try this tact, judging by the fact he had none of said tact to start with.
Several minutes crawled by and neither hikari nor yami moved. It was a standoff of sorts, one that Ryou was certain to win, as he was the more patient of the two. The most likely consequence was that the resident psycho would grow bored of the silence, yell out what his problem was as well as a few of his hikari's and then storm off downstairs to find some coffee.
Finally the eerie silence was shattered.
"FINE! I'M SICK OF THIS STUPID SILENCE! DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, UNDERSTAND? IT'S MY 5214TH BIRTHDAY TODAY AND NO ONE HAS REMEMBERED!"
With that enlightening outburst, Yami Bakura shoved past Ryou, tripped on a skateboard, fell down the stairs and strode, cursing in Ancient Egyptian, into the kitchen.
Ryou Bakura stood in complete and utter astonishment as the cursing continued in languages he couldn't understand, accompanied by a resounding clatter as the kettle was violently thrown back onto the counter and jar of coffee smashed on the floor. The cursing took on a more violent edge and one that Ryou began to recognise as Japanese. Absentmindedly kicking the bedroom door shut and collapsing onto his scruffy, unmade bed, Ryou struggled to believe that after all these years, the tomb robber could still remember what day his birthday was on.
What should he do? Judging by the rather inventive curses that were echoing through the house and contaminating the ears of innocent neighbourhood children within a five-kilometre radius, it would not be a good idea to let this go unnoticed.
With a slightly evil and very uncharacteristic grin on his face, Ryou delved around on the floor for his mobile phone; almost invisible for all the piles of junk and stolen property broken or hoarded by the Spirit of the Millennium Ring.
*
"YAMI! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE REMOTE CONTROL?"
The King of Games looked up from his magazine, basking in self-importance as he read and reread his interview with Duelling Today as the undisputed champion of duel monsters. It was hard work being a living legend. Well... more or less living.
"'I DIDN'T TOUCH THE REMOTE CONTROL! THAT THING IS POSSESSED!"
From where he was tearing apart the living room trying to locate the illusive electrical appliance, Yugi rolled his huge purple eyes. The Spirit was paranoid of anything that sprang to life without warning; even the TV remote after it gave him a considerable fright when he sat down on it by accident and flicked on the TV. It was the first exposure Yami had ever had to Barney the Dinosaur, and he did not enjoy it one bit. The pharaoh was now deathly afraid of purple dinosaurs in all shapes and forms; even in duel monsters.
"ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT? I'VE LOOKED EVERYWHERE!"
Sighing resignedly, Yami Yugi sprang up from his comfortable position sprawled out on his bed, complete with Dark Magician duvet and pillow. Twisting athletically through the air, the King of Games landed feet first with a nasty crunch. Purple eyes widening in horror, believing that he had somehow damaged one of his perfect feet, the pharaoh's concern turned to relief as he shuffled his right foot to one side to reveal the shattered remains of some kind of black rectangle now emitting a sad series of dying sparks.
Yami observed the rectangle, deep in thought. Now where had he seen that thing before? Before the King of Games could reach a conclusion, a demonic creature shrieked bloodthirstily at him. With a yelp of fear, the yami lunged for the closet, forgetting to open it in the process and giving himself a mild concussion against the white-painted oak door.
A far off voice was answering the telephone, "hello, Kame Game Shop, Yugi Motou speaking".
A couple of minutes passed with the pharaoh still crumpled in a dazed heap on the floor, limbs twitching slightly and eyes determinedly crossed. In the confusion that was Yami's mind at the moment, his eyes reported the sighting of a pair of feet padding towards him. His ears hastened to inform him of his hikari yelling at him to wake up.
Yugi wasn't incredibly worried about the Spirit's health, especially since he was technically dead anyway; but it was a little disconcerting to have him unconscious on the floor.
"Spirit, wake up!"
No response.
"Spirit, Barney the Dinosaur is coming!"
The pharaoh's eyes shot open, lurching to his feet with a look of utter terror on his face.
"NO! The evil dinosaur! Where is it?!"
Yami stopped his panicked scanning of the surroundings to observe his hikari rolling on the floor almost choking with laughter.
"Oh very funny"
Yugi choked back another heave, "sorry Spirit, that was Ryou on the floor. We're going out to his house tonight."
Yami blinked, "any particular reason why?"
"We're going to meet Tea, Joey, Tristan, Kaiba, Mokuba, Ishizu and Marik at the mall first though".
"Why?"
"Then we're all going over to see Ryou at about four thirty".
"WOULD YOU PLEASE TELL ME WHY?!"
Yugi's eyes widened in shock, "there's no need to shout; it's for Yami Bakura's surprise birthday party".
Now it was Yami's turn to roll on the floor howling.
"The psycho tomb raider? That's hilarious! Will we all have to wear those little paper hats and have him blow out candles on a cake?!"
Yugi ignored the Spirit as the previously unmentioned problem with exposing the thief to fire was brought up. How on earth were they going to get birthday presents for Yami Bakura without putting anyone's life in danger?
*
After Yami had recovered from his concussion and Yugi finished screaming at him for breaking the remote, the two duellists headed for the Domino shopping mall; forbidden territory to all yamis until now, for fear of what would happen if they suddenly decided it was time to be paranoid of all electronic appliances.
Waiting at the foot of a particularly nasty-looking escalator, Yugi eagerly greeted the small group gathered there as Yami proceeded to regard the escalator with an apprehensive glare.
Joey could barely conceal a snicker as he sidled over to Yugi, "can you believe we're trying to do something nice for that homicidal maniac?"
Yugi grinned, "it's only the right thing to do, after all, we'd be pretty upset if someone completely forgot our birthday".
Joey shrugged, 'I suppose'.
A slight commotion taking place over towards one of the main mall entrances suddenly caught the group's attention. Loud shrieks were coming from a set of double glass doors. Wandering over to see what was the matter, Yugi nearly collapsed with laughter again in a short period of time. Joey collapsed for the first, along with Yami, Tristan and Mokuba.
Marik was hanging onto the doorframe, blatantly refusing to enter the wretched mall as his sister Ishizu heaved on a corner of his shirt, trying to tow him into the building.
"I AM NEVER ENTERING THIS STUPID PLACE AGAIN, I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME!"
Ishizu sighed, noticing Yami and hurriedly letting go of her brother to pay due respects to the pharaoh. The pressure suddenly released, Marik momentarily hovered in midair before clattering to the floor with a string of Egyptian curses. Ishizu ignored her brother and walked dignifiedly over to Yugi, Yami, Tea, Joey, Tristan, Mokuba and Ryou.
"Forgive this noise please, my brother did not enjoy his last excursion to this place".
Yugi nodded, hardly able to believe what he was hearing, "was there any particular reason why?"
Ishizu nodded, "I needed to refill my wardrobe to suit our holiday in Domino better and Marik agreed to accompany me to learn how to behave appropriately in a shopping centre while not reverting to his old ways. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to enjoy following me around clothing shops the whole time and after the first three hours or so was positively furious. The next three and my refusal to let him catch the bus back to the hotel seemed to do worse for him".
Yugi's humoured expression turned to one of pity. He could imagine himself, Joey or Tristan going insane doing the same thing.
Muttering darkly to himself, Marik hobbled over to join them. "You're here to get the tomb robber birthday gifts as well?"
Yami nodded, still snickering at the tomb keeper's misfortune. Apart from Yami Bakura, it couldn't have happened to a nicer homicidal maniac. Sure, Marik was supposed to be reformed, but he still had a lot of work until he graduated and gained his "Not Insane" certificate in most people's eyes.
Ryou stepped forward, "I'm sorry to hurry us along like this, but I told my Yami I'd be back in an hour or so, so we really need to hurry and get back soon!"
"By all means", muttered Marik, glaring at the chirpy Ryou, "I just can't believe I'm actually in this hideous place again".
*
Yami's earlier prediction seemed to becoming a prominent feature in everyone's view as the unruly mob ambled around the shops on offer.
"What do you think he'd like?"
Everyone turned to Tristan, who'd just asked that foolish question. Tristan continued, "I mean, he's a thief and all, would he like a lock-pick set or something?"
"He has several", said Ryou gloomily, "I used to keep my money in a locked box, along with three of his lock-picking sets I confiscated".
Marik snorted, "knowing that moron, he'd want some kind of knife. Preferably knives"
Ryou shook his head violently, "no more knives. I'm serious about that".
Yugi sighed, "so what can we get him that he will like, but will not put any of us in immediate danger or prove a future health hazard?"
A deafening silence ensued, punctured only by the bustle of merry shoppers purchasing gifts for people who weren't homicidal menaces to society. Joey suddenly perked up, "I know!"
Everyone turned to Joey in surprise and anticipation, amazed that he'd managed to think of something even the "supposedly intelligent" (opinion being largely divided) pharaoh and King of Games couldn't think of. Joey grinned widely, "go to a little kid's department! They have all those labels with stuff like 'safe for under threes' and all that – there's no way he'll be able to hurt himself or anyone else with all that junk!"
Ryou grinned, "perfect!"
*
Stumbling cautiously around a shelf stacked with strange pastel-coloured things that jingled in a most disturbing fashion, Yami nervously kept an eye out for the dreaded purple dinosaur Yugi warned him that did lurk around this floor. He would have to be careful. Using every inch of his cunning to avoid the monstrosity that had terrorized him so in the past. Even the opening bars of that foul song were enough to send him running for his sanity. Crawling army-style around a corner and stalking carefully down the next aisle, Yami tentatively watched a large purple dog in case it may suddenly mutate into a reptile, until he smacked headlong into something large and plushy.
Looking up and squinting through his blond bangs, Yami's eyes widened incredibly and his jaw fell open, mouth quivering in fear. It was the personification of his worst nightmare.
A hapless store clerk who had drawn the short straw and had been forced to dress up in the ridiculous Barney costume and parade around the kiddy section was most perplexed to find a young man crawling around on the floor. He seemed quite terrified out of his wits. Having stopped to ask him whether or not he had dropped something, the spiky-haired adolescent had bumped into him by accident, frozen for an instant and then bolted with incredible speed, shrieking something in a language he couldn't understand.
The clerk blinked. That was odd.
Marik was having fun trying out one of the mountain bikes when he was rudely attacked by a screaming ancient ruler. Lurching out from nowhere, Marik glanced up from checking the gears just in time to see a pile of flailing limbs come crashing down on top of him, sending both Marik and the bike flying into a crumpled pile.
"PHARAOH! GET OFF ME BEFORE I KILL YOU!"
Yami was stunned, limbs twitching and still gibbering in fear, "the purple dinosaur, the purple dinosaur nearly got me........."
Marik was not happy at all – his leg was pinned in a most painful fashion between the ground and the spokes of one of the wheels, along with the pharaoh sprawled on top of him in a most distressing manner. The fact he was in this evil shopping mall again added to his list of "Reasons Why Megalomania is such a Good Idea".
Yami finally regained enough sense to disentangle himself from the bike and sat beside the wreckage, head still spinning whilst Marik lay spread-eagled in complete and utter fury. His leg was wedged completely through one of the wheels and was hurting to no small degree. Why oh why had he given Yugi the Millennium Rod.........
"What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Yami declined to answer, continuing his terrified gibbering even as Yugi came to find out just what his darker side had done this time. With one expert glance, Yugi shook his head sadly at Marik.
"It was the dinosaur again. It always has this affect on him".
Marik mentally placed the list of reasons for megalomania aside and replaced it with "Possible Blackmail or Potential Torture Devices". The Game King would pay when it came to his birthday party...... how about a nice Barney the Dinosaur theme?
Vagually recalling the evil look in Marik's eyes, Yugi decided it would probably be safer to change the subject, "so, have you had any luck finding a present yet?"
Jolted back to reality and remembering the popular and completely unoriginal slogan of 'you break it, you bought it', Marik slowly turned to face the mangled pile of wheels, chains and warped purple metal frame that was once a new mountain bike.
"Well....... it's unlikely he'll be able to do any damage with this."
Yugi surveyed the tortured remains and chuckled weakly, "I suppose it would have wound up looking like that anyway; this at least saves time".
Gingerly gathering up the mountain-bike in kit form, Marik stumbled off among the shelves, attempting to locate an illusive checkout desk whilst continuing to plot the pharaoh's downfall....... In the form of a large purple dinosaur.
The King of Games continued to mutter to himself on the floor, catching the attention of a number of small children and their scowling parents. Grinning in attempt to mask the abnormalcy of the situation, Yugi tugged at the petrified pharaoh's leather shirt.
"Come on Yami, you're upsetting the kids"
"No... the dinosaur is somewhere on this floor. I can't move or it'll find me!"
"Yami, if you stay here any longer it will DEFINITELY find you!"
"How do you know?"
"Dinosaurs have really good senses of smell".
"How do you know?"
"Some random science textbook".
"How could the author know?"
"I don't know! Come on..."
Hauling with all his strength, Yugi managed to tow the King of Games to his feet and shuffle him into the relative safety of the soft-toy section. Dumping the pharaoh inbetween a massive stuffed teddy bear and fluffy pink unicorn, the hikari decided to just leave him to come to his senses in his own time. Shuffling around the shelves and inwardly marvelling at the jungle of animals and deranged human plushies that were available, Yugi noted the presence of a rather unusual member of the fluffy community.
Yes, in the sea of pastel shades, outsized eyes and enough fluff to supply a sofa-stuffing industry for a year, was a flash of black almost suffocated by the Disney-ness of the whole situation. Delving into the pile of unrealistically cute safari animals, from out of the mountain a fluffy vampire bat rose to the surface. Yugi surveyed the bat critically. It was small and black with short little wings, as well as little white fangs complete with bloodstains. Quite cute actually. It was also fitted with an elastic rope, so the owner could make the bat "fly" unrealistically in a bouncy, jerky fashion.
Perfect.
*
wild-filly: please review! Next chapter should be up soon ^_^