Chapter 24: Malik had to go to Hell, so why not everyone else?
"I wish I was still dead." Yami Malik sighed.
"WOOT!" Yugi howled. "Malik's back! We have a villain again! The show can go on!"
"Wh-what about me?" Rebecca asked.
"What ABOUT you, didn't-qualify girl?" Yugi asked coldly. "We need real villainy, powerful villainy, CARD-BASED villainy!"
"Yes, you can murder people in cold blood, but can you play Hearts?" Misty said dryly, rolling her eyes.
"… am I the only one who noticed that guy just came back from the dead?" Brock asked.
"Oh god the voices are back!" Kaiba shrieked.
"Look, Ricky…" Joey began.
"Brock."
"Whatever. The point is, Stanley, that in this world, we don't ask questions. Just accept everything that happens at face value, and certainly do not challenge anything the author just happens to throw into the story in his random fits of 'creativity', and for God's sake just keep your mouth shut when Kaiba is sane. Follow these simple rules, and hopefully the hurting will stop soon." Joey advised sagely. Then he was attacked by the monkey that had been following Bakura around for using quotation marks to imply I'm not creative. Jerk.
As Joey made the effort the dislodge the screaming primate from his face, the other members of the group turned back to the matter at hand. "Well, regardless of your miraculous return from the dead, you ARE back. And now you can take over the villain role!"
"Why?" Yami Malik asked dully. "What's the point? Even if I acquire ultimate power in the mortal realm, which is damnably unlikely given that the heroes always win in the end, I'm still doomed to die one day and become food for a giant hippo-crocodile! Why bother anymore?"
"Actually, it's a giant hippo-crocodile-lion." Isis said helpfully.
"Oh, that's MUCH better." Yami Malik said sarcastically.
"But… but you have to have a villain vs. villain duel with Bakura! You need to beat Joey! You need to ADVANCE THE FREAKIN' SCRIPT!" Yugi protested.
"Sigh… look, Yugi, I'm sure I'll feel those old evil impulses coming on sooner or later… Ra knows your shrieking, girlish voice makes me want to commit mass-murder pretty effectively. It's just… right now, I'm so… unmotivated. There must be SOMEONE else who can take over for a little while…"
"Oooooooh! Me, me!" Rebecca said.
"HA! You didn't even qualify for the tournament! We need card-based villainy, not LAME-based." Yugi said coldly.
"You… you don't have to be so mean about it."
"I tell it like it is, sistah." Yugi said solemnly.
"So, what ARE you going to do?" Misty asked. "You don't have a villain, so you can't continue the storyline."
"Well, we still have some extra material to put in. We could… um… go through Malik's origins?" Isis suggested.
"Do we really need to? I mean, he's evil. What more do we need?" Joey asked.
"Well, we need to take up as much time as possible until a villain becomes available. So why not? May as well learn some Malik-trivia." Yugi said, uninterested.
"Very well. Although I must warn you, it comes across a little odd." Isis cautioned them.
"Why is that?"
"Well, it's just that… you know, sometimes things get censored a little when they come to the USA from Japan. And… sometimes the censorship is… poorly done. In this particular case, the censorship was a little… well, I'll just come right out and say it was a botched job," Isis said, a little embarrassed.
"Well, we're just killing time in any case. Go ahead and roll it, I suppose…"
(Scene: The abode of the Tomb-Keeper Clan, on a lovely sunny day, near the exit.)
Lil' Malik: (Eager, but also clearly filled with terror) So, Sis, can we go out today? I would so dearly love to see the marketplace! (His lips are mouthing words that are slightly difficult to make out, but clearly include the words 'If father catches us' and 'crucified'.)
Isis: (Smiling nervously. A very poorly drawn and clearly added-in after the fact bird lands on her shoulder and begins singing.) Why certainly, beloved brother! Although we shall have to be careful, for father may be cross with us. (Again, her lips are difficult to read, but the word 'death' is mentioned more than once.)
Odion: (Terrified, and apparently questioning why HE has to be the one to watch their backs) Don't worry, I shall make certain none of this visit to the surface is discovered by our beloved father, leader of our stable family unit!
Isis: (Worried) Well, I'm not worried! We shall hurry back, after having great fun and games!
(The two real Ishtar siblings go out and spend the day in a scenic marketplace in some generic Egyptian city. Despite deep worries that their father might catch them, they enjoy themselves. Malik sees a motorcycle for the first time, and immediately notices it.)
Malik: (Smiling evilly, and rubbing his hands together conspiratorially.) Oh, what a marvelous means of conveyance! I certainly hope to one day possess one bought through entirely legitimate means.
Isis: (Smacks him in face) Why, I'm certain you shall! Because other means of acquiring goods/services, such as theft, are very wrong!
Malik: (Fingers crossed behind back) Why, dear sister, I would NEVER turn to crime. (Oddly, one gets the impression that he said those exact words, but perhaps not with the happy, totally non-sarcastic tone used in the dub.)
(After a fun day in the city, the Ishtar siblings return home to find Odion missing from the front door, and discover they tripped some sort of alarm on their way out.)
Isis: (Horrified) Oh, dear. Father may be cross with us now!
Malik: (Panicked). We should hurry, so he no longer worries about us! Why, he may be weakening Odion with the Millennium Rod!
(Scene: Papa Ishtar mercilessly beating Odion like a punching bag with his bare hands. The young man falls to the floor, blood flowing freely from his mouth and nose.)
Papa Ishtar: I have weakened you with the Millennium Rod, as evidenced by the scene of a glowing eye that was almost definitely dubbed over any scene of violence that may have taken place.
Odion: (Unconscious) I am weakened!
Papa Ishtar: Malik! There you are! Because Odion didn't stop you from leaving, I am exiling him! (Gets out his knife, presumably to 'exile' Odion.)
Malik: (Dark energy roaring around him, a glowing eye on his forehead, and veins bursting around his face. His expression is mixed rage, terror, and pain.) I don't like that. I'll use this Rod to stop you!
Papa Ishtar: That is bad, and not nice!
Malik: (Clearly now Yami-ed up, and eying his father like a cat would eye a mouse!) I don't care! I am an evil person who doesn't listen to my father, or eat vegetables!
Papa Ishtar: WHAT? You don't eat vegetables? (His face says 'terror', but his tone of voice says that not eating your vegetables at dinner is akin to a war crime.)
Yami Malik: No, bwahahaha! And to demonstrate my evil, I shall banish you to the shadow realm!
(Yami Malik then unhooks the Millennium Rod's inner knife, and kills his father, then CUTS THE SKIN OFF HIS FATHER'S BACK. That's right, he SKINS HIS FREAKIN' DAD. Then he takes the bloody skin, with the tomb-keeper tattoos on it, and DRAPES IT OVER ODION, mocking his desire to be a member of the clan.)
Yami Malik: I have banished my father to the Shadow Realm, as evidenced by the glowing eye that once again should have been dubbed over any scene of violence! I am evil!
"STOP!" Misty shouted, breaking the flashback and turning a little green around the gills.
"But why? There wasn't much more, just a nice little bit with Shadi showing up and pretty much framing Yami for the whole thing to try to spare Malik's fragile psyche." Isis said, confused.
"That was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen! I thought you said it was going to be censored!" Misty proclaimed. Ash, for his part, appeared to be having a seizure. "Look, you shorted out poor Ash's brain! He doesn't know how to deal with genuine violence!"
"Well, it clearly was censored! Didn't you hear the dialogue?" Isis questioned.
"Well, they clearly forgot to censor the 'Silence of the Lambs' moment! YOU! You are a BAD MAN!" Misty said, pointing accusingly at Yami Malik. For his part, he merely looked nostalgic.
"Ah, my first wake-up. Good times, good times…" He said wistfully. "Back when the world made sense. Oh, to return to the days of my youth, when the world was crisp and clear, and patricide was in the air…"
"You people… you're sick. You're ALL sick." Misty said, shivering.
"Now, we're not all like that," Yugi said comfortingly. "Most of us only inflict vast bodily harm, we don't actually finish the other guy off."
"I finish them off, but only when I'm really, really annoyed." Serenity said cheerfully.
"I like pie!" Tristan said.
"Case in point." Serenity growled, sharpening her Katana.
Joey shook his head. "Where DOES she keep that thing when she's not using it?" he muttered.
"Well, we've done the flashback, what now?" Duke 'Meaningless' Devlin asked.
"We could watch Serenity murder Tristan!" Rebecca suggested.
"Yeah, but that won't take long. We need something a little more extended. Something more time-consuming." Yugi said.
"Ooooooooooooooh, maybe Shadi will show up to dispense enigmatic wisdom! I love that!" Pegasus said.
"Maybe!" Joey agreed.
Silence.
For maybe two minutes, the only sound was the blimp's engine running. Nobody spoke, they just sat and waited.
And waited.
"Huh. Looks like Shadi isn't coming." Pegasus said.
"Well, that's disappointing." Isis said, pouting a little bit.
"Man, this is lame! We have nothing to do, and no villain to fight!" Joey snapped. "If only we had some… fill-in villain, who could just show up for a few episodes, then leave when one of the real villains is ready to go again! That would be nice."
"NO!" Yugi screamed. "NO! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?"
"What's wrong?"
"Do you not know what you did?" Duke asked furiously. "You just wished for a FILLER ARC! I should know, I'm FROM one!"
Joey paled. "Oh lord, I did! What was I thinking?"
"Okay, this may still be salvageable. Everyone, stay very quiet, and don't say, think, or feel ANYTHING. Don't even breathe. If we're lucky, no filler arcs heard that, and they'll just go by without bothering us." Isis said nervously.
There was absolute silence for several seconds, as the cast huddled in terror. Then, unfortunately, Tristan said, "Man, it would totally suck if the Big Five were in this filler arc we're trying to avoid, huh?"
Just then, the blimp's computer flashed wildly as an outside source took control of it, steering the vehicle down towards a massive fortress that emerged from the ocean.
"DAMMIT, TRISTAN!" The cast screamed in unison.
"What?" Tristan asked. "It totally would suck."
After the blimp had finished docking into the underwater fortress, a sort of annoying, screechy voice said over a loudspeaker, "Welcome, Seto! I see you've finally found your way down to my lair! Now, if you and all your friends would disembark, we can meet in person… and prepare for your destruction! BWAHAHAHA!"
Nobody moved. "Nobody move, maybe he can't see us if we don't move." Yugi whispered.
"Um… Seto? You there? I've hijacked your blimp, don't you want to meet me and fight back? Seto?" the voice asked.
"I just love pancakes," Seto said, his eyes focused in different directions.
"Is… is something wrong with Seto, you guys?" the voice asked. "Oh, quit acting like three-year-olds, I know you're there. Just talk to me."
"All right, all right." Yugi said, resignedly. "Look, dude, Kaiba isn't really in any condition to be doing anything more complex than drooling, right at the moment, so if you don't mind, we still haven't even figured out how we're going to finish our own tournament. We really WANT to help you with your filler arc…"
"We SO do not…" Serenity muttered.
"… but we're sort of busy right now. Can you… can you come back later?"
"Or never?" Joey asked hopefully.
"NO! No, I've waited too long for Seto to show up! This is exactly the situation I was waiting for, and I don't care if he's ready or not! It is ON!" the voice said.
"No, it's not on." Misty said, looking at Kaiba.
"Oh, it's on."
"No, it really isn't." Isis agreed.
"It is ON."
"No, it's not!" Yugi screamed. "Look, it can't be on if both parties don't agree, and Kaiba is not currently in a state to agree!"
An automated machine gun attached to the ceiling activated and aimed at the crowd. "A-hem!" the voice on the loudspeaker said.
"Okay, okay, it's on." Yugi grumbled.
"Ready to move on? Now, everyone disembark, please." As the cast prepared to do so, however, the machine gun opened fire at the ground in front of Ash, Misty, and Brock. "Duelists only!"
"Okay, geez, no need to be so touchy. Didn't wanna be in your stupid filler arc anyway…" Misty grumbled.
"Now, dear, no need to be bitter." Isis said calmly, walking for the exit ramp to the blimp… when the machine gun opened fire at the ground in front of her.
"HEY! Duelist, see?" She said, pointing at her DuelDisc.
"Don't care, you're not in the revenge script!" The voice said adamantly. "You too, you guys with the girly hair!" it continued, the machine gun swiveling slightly to point at Malik and Pegasus.
"But I'm a duelist too!" Yami Malik protested.
"I invented the freakin' game!" Pegasus complained.
"YOU are not in the damn REVENGE SCRIPT!" the voice shrieked. "DO WHAT I SAY!"
"Revenge… script?" Yugi said, suspiciously. Then he glanced at Kaiba. "You know, that sounds AWFULLY familiar…"
"Hey, did I say you should stop and think? Just get down there and get on with the filler arc! And bring Seto!" the voice commanded. "Hey, what a minute… you guys in the back, what the heck are you doing?"
Tristan, Tea, Serenity, Mokuba and Duke looked up from a game of poker they had begun, assuming they had nothing to do with what was going on. "What? You said 'duelists only', and we're not…" Mokuba began.
"YOU ARE IN THE SCRIPT!" The voice shrieked.
"But you said that duelists…"
"DO WHAT I MEAN, NOT WHAT I SAY! GOD, ARE YOU PEOPLE JUST COMPLETE MORONS?"
"Oh, someone here is, that's for sure…" Serenity muttered darkly, dusting herself off and disembarking. "Man, I hate filler arcs."
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA! At last, my evil plan has gone off without a hitch!" Noah said cheerfully.
"Sir, it took fifteen minutes to get them down a total of ten stairs. And that was WITH machine guns. And in the process, you came off looking like an absolute buffoon. That is not 'without a hitch'," the Computer said, in a tone indicating long-standing exhaustion.
"Okay, there were some minor problems, but overall, this has gone fairly well. I have them, after all, and Seto is, in the physical sense at least, here. The trap is sprung!"
"But they haven't actually fallen into the real trap yet…"
"It is SPRUNG!" Noah said stubbornly.
"But what if they find the control center? They have to walk right past it to get to the holo-auditorium…"
"THE TRAP IS &#(&#( SPRUNG!" Noah screamed.
"All right, all right." the Computer said, apparently deciding it wasn't worth the argument. "But sir… wait, one of the subjects was not designated in the revenge script you prepared!" The computer warned him, focusing a camera in on Rebecca. "Shall I activate the automated defenses and eliminate her?"
"Um… no…" Noah said, blushing.
"… oh, no. Oh, sir, NO, please no…"
"She has cute glasses…" Noah said.
"There is no possible way this can end well." The computer moaned.
"Dammit all, not you guys!" Mokuba whined, upon entering the base's holographic amphitheater and seeing none other than the 'legendary' and 'feared' evil businessmen, the Big Five, displayed on the monitors.
"That's right! I, the brilliant Noah, have acquired the Big Five to do my evil bidding!" A small blue-haired boy appeared on the monitor above the group, smirking in a manner he probably deemed to be evil.
"So?" Joey asked.
"I'd be more threatened by a girl-scout troop. These losers aren't scary, they're just annoying." Yugi agreed.
"Silence! They're highly… highly… oh, who am I kidding? They suck." Noah said. "A general goes to war with the army he has, not the army he wants."
"Hey!" Gansley said. "We may not be intimidating, but we're… we're old!"
"Oh, that's going to really scare them." Lector said sarcastically.
"Well, no it won't. We did just establish that we're not intimidating, just old." Nesbitt interjected.
"Some of us are fat!" Crump added helpfully.
"We're annoying! I mean REALLY annoying. That counts for something!" Johnson said.
Yugi gave Noah a glare that could have withered grass.
"Look, did I not just say that they're the best minions I could come up with on short notice?" Noah protested. "It's not my fault they're more geared toward banking than evil!"
"Well, whatever. Now that we've all been introduced, let's get out of here." Joey said.
"…what? What about… y'know, fighting my businessmen?"
"Not interested." Duke 'Useless' Devlin agreed. "Believe me, I know filler arcs. In the long run, nobody is going to be happy we did this. I certainly wish I had never had my own filler arc, so I could just stay home instead of getting roped into these people's ridiculous problems."
"Well… um… HA! You can't leave, because I locked the door to this room behind you!" Noah proclaimed.
"No, you didn't." Tristan said, opening it.
"DAMMIT! Well, close it, please." Noah said. Tristan did so, and the door clicked. "HA! I've locked the door behind you!"
"Tristan, why did you do that? Now we're stuck here!" Serenity protested.
"I didn't think it mattered. There's a clearly labeled exit right over there!" Tristan said, pointing at it.
"WHAT? WHO PUT THAT THERE?" Noah shrieked. "Well… um… ha! You'll never reach it, because I'll drop you into a virtual program before then!" he pressed an unseen button on the panel in front of him, opening a trap door… in the center of the room, where no-one was standing.
Yugi looked like he was struggling not to laugh. Joey wasn't even being that polite. "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"COMPUTEEEEEEER! THEY'RE BEIN' MEAN TO MEEEEEE!" Noah whined.
"::SIGH::… Don't worry sir, I prepared a contingency for this situation." The computer said. "Activate program MasterIsStupidexe. Command execute!" The computer said.
Suddenly, the entire floor of the room the group was standing in opened in a single huge trap door.
Standing on air, the group looked down, then up at Noah, then back down.
"Well, this is bad." Tea noticed.
Then they fell.
"Well, I think that went well." Noah mentioned.