Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Unwanted Carol Singers ❯ Unwanted Carol Singers ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Although winter had arrived Domino City was not covered in snow. Instead it was simply cold with icy patches here and there. Occasionally kids would slip on the ice as they walked past, Joey seemed to find this funny.
“It's not really nice to laugh at the kids you know,” Duke pointed out from where he was sitting on the park bench. He was feeling particularly annoyed as he wasn't used to such cold weather yet.
“Aww, the little runts deserve it,” Joey commented, waving his arm dismissively, “Damn kids've been throwing snowballs at me all morning.”
“Aren't you suppose to be a street thug?”
“Watch it Devlin!” Joey snapped, “I'm not a thug anymore. And I probably could have taken those kids on if I wasn't such a nice guy,” he added hurriedly.
Tristan glanced from one of his friends to the other. They often fought and argued, Tristan himself often got involved, but since Yugi and Tea had gone away to New York the arguing had increased. He was pretty sure it was due to boredom.
“Maybe we should find something to do,” he mused.
Tilting back his head and sighing Joey responded, “Like what?”
Tristan shrugged. He had been expecting Joey to come up with something.
Some younger kids walked past, they knocked on the door of one of the houses and started singing carols when the door was answered. They three watched them for a while, more due to the lack of anything to do then actual interest.
“It's a shame we're too old for carol singing now, it used to be great fun when we were kids. Though I swear they used to give us money just to get rid of us,” said Tristan as the kids walked further along the street.
Duke smirked, “With yours and Joey's singing I'm hardly surprised.” He could never resist a chance to poke fun at them.
“That's it!”
Joey jumped up so quickly that the other two blinked with surprise.
“We should go carol singing!” he stated.
“Didn't I just say that we were too old?” Tristan questioned, it wasn't unlikely that Joey hadn't been fully listening.
The blonde shook his head quickly and replied, “Nah I don't mean like kids. I mean we should go carol singing as a prank.” The other two still looked lost so he continued, “We should sing a carol at Kaiba Corp., down the intercom!”
“That's brilliant!” Tristan shouted.
“That's gonna get us into some deep trouble…” responded Duke with less enthusiasum.
Regarding Duke like an amateur Tristan replied, “Where's the fun if there's no risk?”
Duke ignored him and questioned, “How do you suppose we get into Kaiba Corp. in the first place? They have some pretty tough security and we're not exactly guests to any of Kaiba's dinner parties are we?”
The other boys exchanges the glances of professionals.
Tristan responded, “Leave that to us.”
 
***
 
The three boys glanced around the corner of the KC building at the security guards placed at the entrance.
Tristan looked over at Duke, “You might not know this but Joey and I have had access to that place for some time. We sneak in to use the food court, and not even Kaiba knows we're there,” he said.
“And how do you pull that off?”
Joey turned around from watching the guard and answered, “With these babies.” He pulled three ID cards out of his pocket. Each validly registered for KC and each with a picture of one of the three boys on.
Duke was genuinely miffed, “How in the world did you get those?” he asked.
“With ease,” Tristan responded, “You see they're not actually legal…”
“I hadn't expected as much,” said Duke, with the slight hint that he was impressed in his voice.
“Yami has a legal one though,” Joey piped in, “Kaiba gave him one after they started going out so it would be easier for Yami to go and see him. We got ours by making copies of Yami's ID card and putting our photos on them.”
“And Yami agreed to this did he?” Duke found he had to ask even if he already knew the answer.
Joey twindled his thumbs and quietly said, “He doesn't exactly know. We kinda took them while he was asleep, he doesn't even know we made the copies.”
Expecting as much Duke nodded.
Tristan cut in again, “What matters is though that they work. The guys on security right now are new, so don't know us from Battle City or anything. We just show them the cards and they let us past, simple as that.”
Duke looked doubtful so Tristan patted him on the shoulder and said, “It'll work. It always works.”
“Well okay…”
“Here's the deal then,” Joey cut in, “All three of us get past security easily at the gate, then once we're in the building we make our way to the intercom, which is in Kaiba's office. There are other itercoms in the building but their solely linked to Kaiba's, the one he has is the only one that can announce messages to the rest of the building. We know `cause we've only ever heard Kaiba announce anything while we were in the food court. Since the floor we're getting to is so high up there's a chance we might not all make it, but what's important is that at least one of us gets to the top and sings down that intercom.”
After the other two had nodded Joey walked around the corner towards the entrance.
“Its not going to be you, ya know,” Duke randomly said to Tristan.
Tristan blinked, “Huh?”
“Its not going to be you that makes it to the top of the building. Its going to be either me or Joey. You'll get caught half way there and you know that.”
With that Duke also turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
Tristan gritted his teeth in annoyance. He liked Duke and sometime he'd get along really well with Duke but other times… Others times Duke forced himself to put Tristan down. It was habit, back from when they were rivals for Serenity Wheeler's heart.
The other two had reached the door so Tristan hurried to catch up with them. Usually the guards greeted them casually, checked their ID then let them past, but today there was a problem.
“Mr. Kaiba had this swip machine installed a few days ago,” one of the guards told them, “He said he was getting worried about fake IDs being used so this machine should be able to tell.”
They all exchanged glances momentarily but handed over the ID cards anyway. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of Tristan's face as the security guard scanned them.
“There seems to be no problem here, go on through,” concluded the guard.
The three boys passed through looking a little nervous.
“How well did you get those things made?” Duke quietly whispered.
“Better then we thought…” was the only response Joey could give.
The lift was quite close so they all step in and looked at all of the buttons. There were many floors but no doubt Kaiba's office would be on the top floor. Tristan pushed the button and hoped that no one else would get into the lift on the way up.
 
***
 
After finishing up the last of his paper work Kaiba lent on his desk and sighed to himself. It was a whole hour before his next business meeting. Too long to sit and do nothing but not enough time to have a decent duel.
Besides if he wanted to duel he'd have to call Yami, which was almost like giving in. The way he saw it if Yami wanted to duel <i>he'd</i> be the one who'd have to call and <i>he'd</i> be the one who'd have to go out of his way to come over, not Kaiba. If Kaiba went chasing up Yami for a duel that would be like letting Yami win, and he could not have that.
But that still meant he was left with nothing to do.
Pushing the button on the intercom that lead to front desk he ordered, “Do a check on whose present today.” If he had nothing better to do he might as well get some slacker employees who hadn't bothered to show up on time in trouble.
The worker paused for a moment then replied, “All of the employees were present in the building at the correct time, however for some reason the computer says that one of your personal guests, Yami Yugi, has checked in three times today. Must be a glitch.”
No… Kaiba knew it wasn't a glitch. Yami would have called if he was coming over and Kaiba had designed that system to be perfect.
“Have the technician check which floor the lift is headed for!” he barked.
Another paused, then the woman replied, “Its headed for the top floor sir.”
Kaiba's eyes narrowed.
“Have it shut off, where ever it is.”
 
***
 
“So far so good eh?” Said Tristan as they reached the eighteenth floor without so much as a stop.
As if on que the lift shuddered to a halt.
“What the?” Joey murmured hitting the open button on the panel next to them. Nothing happened…
Tristan shook his head, “This is not good…”
“Its probably just a power cut,” Duke said reassurringly.
Several minutes passed in silence before the sound of someone walking down the corridor could be heard.
Joey pressed his ear against the door and said, “Looks like they sent someone to come get us out.”
“If they have they're on there own,” Tristan commented.
The foot steps came to a halt in front of the door, Duke and Tristan covered Joey's mouth to stop him from shouting encase the person wasn't a friend.
The door slid open. It revealed Seto Kaiba standing arms folded.
“Hello trespassers,” he stated, void of emotion.
“Hello Kaiba!” in a flawless formation Joey and Tristan both ran forward, grabbed Kaiba then threw him out of the way. Duke followed behind as they ran down the corridor at great speed.
“He's not going to be very happy when he recovered,” Tristan stated what the others were thinking.
Duke stopped and spun around, responding bravely, “Then I'll hold him off!”
“How?!” the other two choked out.
He winked at them and answered, “By doing what I do best.”
Joey looked confused, “Play dice?”
Tristan however knew exactly what Duke meant and though he was quite shocked by this managed to say, “You're gonna… hit on him? Yami's gonna kill you!”
Duke waved his hand dismissively and said, “What he doesn't know can't hurt him. Besides, Kaiba'll kill us all if we don't do something fast.”
“He's got a point there…” Joey said, though he knew this wasn't the best idea.
Tristan nodded and wished Duke luck, then the two of them were gone.
As Kaiba recovered from the blow he shot a blurry glance down the corridor, which was greeted by Duke leaning seductively against the wall.
“Hello there Kaiba-boy,” he whispered, his voice laced in a tone Kaiba hadn't heard from him before.
But he didn't have time for this.
“Where are the other two?” he spat.
Slowly and with purpose Duke walked forward, flicking his hair once before answering, “Those two are hardly worth your time Mr. CEO. The only one here you should be worried about…” he placed his thumb and forefinger under Kaiba's chin, pushing it up to be level with him, “…Is me.”
Kaiba instinctively flicked his hand away, but it was too late. Duke had already grabbed him and pushed him into the lift. He held Kaiba back with one arm and used the other to shut door.
“Are you crazy?!”
“Crazy about you Seto,” purred Duke, pushing the executive against the wall and pressing his head against him.
Kaiba hissed dangerously, “Back off Devlin.”
“Oooh, I'm so scared,” Duke mocked before raising his head and locking lips with the unamused Kaiba.
 
***
 
Tristan and Joey meanwhile where three floors above and still going. Since the lift was out of action they had taken to running up the stairs. And they had no intention of stopping for anyone.
“How long do you think before they send more goons after us,” asked Tristan.
“About five minutes.”
“How long do you think we can keep running before we have to stop?”
“About five minutes”
“How long do you think we can fight them for?”
“'Til I'm unconcious,” Joey replied with certainty.
Tristan nodded. There was no doubting Joey's fighting skills. He had both seen Joey at work and fought alongside him in the past so he knew even though any security KC had was going to be tough they'd not take down Joey easily.
As if on cue KC goons suddenly became visible behind them, shouting at the two to stop.
“Dammit, we're so close!”
“Like you said, we're gonna have to fight them,” said Tristan.
The two turned to face the goons with zero fear. There were about ten of them, all wearing identical black suits and sunglasses, and all probably had guns to use if need be.
“Stay where you are and we won't have to hurt you,” said the most official looking of the group.
“Bring it on!” Joey knew all the cliché battle cries.
All ten of the goons walked forward in union.
“We would advise against a resistant course of action.”
But Joey and Tristan had already launched themselves forward, punching two of the goons square in the face. The said goons staggered away cluttering their heads in their hands.
Tristan smirked as he spun around and swiftly kicked another goon in the stomach, “Kaiba should have warned you about us!”
The goons quickly recovered and were attacking in formation. It was clear that they relied on their size to aid them in battle, whereas Joey and Tristan relied on brute strength. So far brute strength was winning.
The two boys dodged this way and that launching attacks at the goons. They received a fair amount of damage themselves but were both too small and slender for the goons to catch.
“Face it you guys, there's nothing you can do to stop us!” Joey scoffed.
“They might not, but I most definitely can.”
It was too late when Joey realised what was coming. Seto Kaiba kicked him hard in the stomach, winding him and making him fall backwards. Joey tried to struggle up but Kaiba had already place his foot on Joey's chest and became punching him repetitively in the face.
The goons were understandably a little disturbed by their employer's behaviour.
“Sir… You… umm… have us to handle beating up the trespassers,” One of them said.
Kaiba shook his head and responded, “This damn mutt's had it coming to him for a long time.”
Tristan tried to fight his way forward as soon as Joey was struck but ended up being stopped by several goons.
“Tristan get out of here ya moron!” shouted Joey.
“Don't be stupid Joey! I'm not going to risk you getting killed for this,” he called back.
Joey pulled his legs into a crouching position then kicked Kaiba off of him.
Then he responded, “You should know by now that rich-boy is no where near good enough to beat me in a fight. Now go! I've got a better chance of fighting these guys off then you do.”
Despite knowing that Joey's comment wasn't meant in a harsh way to him, Tristan couldn't help feeling a little hurt by it. Duke's doubt he could understand, but Joey? Even after all the fights they'd been through his friend still considered him to be the weaker one…
He quickly shook off his damaged pride and fought off the goons nearest to him before heading to the stairs again. When he reached them he glanced back and was glad to see Joey beating the tar out of Kaiba. Then he started running again.
“How did you get away from Duke anyway,” Joey shouted between attacks.
Kaiba grinned the evil grin he practised a little too often and responded, “Easily. A knee in the groin put him out of action.”
Joey gave him a look as if he'd commited the worst crime.
“You arrogant jerk! In the name of Duke's winky you will pay!”
 
***
 
Now Tristan had a personal reason to complete the prank. It wasn't about mere fun anymore, he had to do this to prove himself to Duke and Joey.
I must be near the top by now, he thought, I've ran up loads of stairs.
He kept going. All was quiet on the various floors until after what could have been the twelth flight of stairs he heard the faint shout of goons behind him. Which meant that either more had been sent out or Kaiba had beaten Joey. Personally he hoped for the first scenario.
It was no good running from them, he'd have to hide until it was safe. There were so many doors on the floor that Tristan just opened one that looked like it lead to a closet, dived in and closed the door again. He held tightly onto the handle and ducked down to listen.
The goons had reached the floor and were looking around. He heard them check several doors but not the one he hid behind. Then they turned and left.
He waited a few more minutes until he was quite sure there was no one there then let go of the door handle and leaned back. To his surprise the closet was not so small and he fell over backwards when he was leaning. Quickly he scrambled to his feet, looking around to realise it was not a closet he'd been locked in at all, but an office.
So why didn't they check it? He thought.
This answer soon came to him when he glanced at the desk. As on it a shiny name plaque read `Seto Kaiba: CEO'.
He made a silent whoop for joy and ran over to the desk. This was it, he'd made it all the way to the top. Now to preform the task…
 
***
 
With the aid of many goons Kaiba had been able to defeat Joey, who lay slumped on the floor. He wasn't best pleased when the ones he'd sent after Tristan came back empty handed.
“Sorry sir, we couldn't get hold of him…”
“So where is he now?!” demanded Kaiba.
We wish you a merry Christmas
They all froze in their tracks.
We wish you a merry Christmas
“That's the bloody loser! He must be in my office”
We wish you a merry Christmas
“You go Tristan!” Joey whooped, “Never doubted you for a second!”
And a happy new year.
 
***
 
Duke had staggered into the building's kitchen in hopeful search of an ice pack.
Good tidings we bring
“Huh?”
To you and your king
He smiled when he recognised his friend's rough singing voice.
We wish you a merry Christmas
“Good on ya Tristan!” He shouted. Then he leaped, punching the air with his fist. But instantly regretted doing so as the pain in his crotch came back.
And a happy new year.
 
***
 
Kaiba and the goons all rush to the top floor.
“We'll get him,” Kaiba said without doubt, “He's trapped in my office and there's no way to get out without going through us!”
The group burst into the office only to realise that there was no Tristan.
He CEO ran to his desk and flung the chair aside looking for him before bellowing “Where is he?!”
None of the employees were sure. They turned the office upside down looking without so much as a trace.
“He seems to have vanished sir,” said one.
“Like a chocolatey brown ninja,” said another in awe.
Kaiba scoffed then snapped, “He is not a ninja! He's a dweeb from my class and he can't have damn well disappeared!”
“Then where is he sir?” questioned a brave employee.
Kaiba had no response to this.
“A chocolatey brown ninja,” echoed another goon, as all the goons glanced away into space.
Five floors below Tristan Taylor was scrambling down the fire escape with great speed.
 
***
 
It was half an hour later when they all met in the park. Joey had managed to escape when all of the goons had ran off after Kaiba and Duke had hobbled his way out later since he wasn't the top of anyone's priority list at that exact moment.
“I've got to admit you did pretty good,” Duke commented from the bench (He found it easier to sit down right now for some reason).
Joey nodded in agreement.
Then he said, “Of course the only reason you got there was because me and Duke carried you.”
“Really?” Tristan questioned, casually leaning against a tree.
“Sure thing,” his blonde friend bragged, “We could have easily got up there without you.”
And this point an ambulance sped by with its sirens blazing, causing Joey and Duke to both jump.
“He's sent the police after us!” Duke shouted, “He's gonna have us arrested!”
Both of the two boys quickly hid.
The brunette smiled and glanced at nothing in particular.
Victory had a name and it was Tristan Taylor.