Stuck with Bakura while we’re looking for one of Ishizu’s trying-to-take-over-the-world guys. Joey cradled his head in his hands as Richmond, the slick-haired man with no respect for Fiends, warmed to his topic. I gotta be out of my mind.
It should have been Tristan. Bakura respected Tristan… well, sort of. The former tomb robber seemed to have a healthy wariness when it came to the magicless teen whose former incarnation had been the Eyes and Ears of the Nameless Pharaoh. Especially since Tristan had managed to get the drop on the spirit once even before he’d remembered any bits of his past life – something no one else had done, Millennium Items or not.
Marik an’ Yami beat Bakura, but they never surprised him, Joey thought, turning that fact over in his head. Maybe ’cause they had magic? You get into the Heart of the Cards, you get into the rhythm of the magic. An’ like Tea says, if you know the rhythm, you can tell where the dance is going….
“Consider the little fluffball known as Kuriboh,” Richmond sniffed. “While you can discard it to eliminate an enemy’s attack, that doesn’t change this card’s intrinsic weakness-”
Munch.
Joey risked a sideways glance toward the sudden scent of real, mouth-watering salty butter. Popcorn. The white-haired fiend in the chair beside him… had brought popcorn.
I give Richmond ten minutes, tops. “Kuriboh, Multiply, Defense Mode,” Joey muttered, risking death by pointy objects to sneak a hand in and snag some fluffy kernels. “Weak, my foot.”
“Pity the fool if the pharaoh takes offense.” Bakura chuckled darkly under his breath, fangs glinting in a wicked grin.
Joey shivered. That malevolent laugh echoed shadows, plain as if the violet mists of the Shadow Realm were rising around them both. Weird. You can feel ’em curling around him like kittens. Unconsciously his unbuttered hand found his Deck. Touched the top card-
“Not here. Not now.” Bakura’s glare smoothed into Ryou’s innocent blink. “Oh dear.”
“Hi, guys.” Jack plopped into the empty chair by Ryou, the picture of interested relaxation. “We miss anything?”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Oh dear. *own head in hands* Yami, Yugi, Ryou, and Bakura raking the same person over the coals? Popcorn is a must. Though, Yami Yugi is out with Tea in the Dealers Room so maybe not them. But Joey has seen what can be done with Kuriboh. Multiple times. He can stand up for the little fuzzball just as well.
And of course SG1 has to saunter up to the most feral person in the convention and jab them with a stick. Interesting that Jack has set himself between the bear and his team though. Even if he’s failed to realize that this is a feral jackal instead of a bear.
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If Bakura had naquadah on hand, Sam would sense it. Sam didn’t give Jack the nod, so he’s not expecting… shall we say, nonstandard armaments. And to be fair, SG-1 is generally enough to handle a few teenagers.
(Evil cackles.)
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To be fair, if you want to talk about how ‘no, raw power is not the only that that matters for how tactically and strategically useful something is’, Jack is not the worst person to have around listening. Despite his attempts to convince people otherwise, he is not in fact stupid, and does actually have tactical training… no matter how much I doubt he ever expected to apply it to a card game.
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I could actually see Jack dissecting game tactics quite readily.
His head wouldn’t hurt until Bakura summoned Man-Eating Bug to devour some luckless NID fool. 😉
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I’m expecting SG1 has also spit into pairs to cover more ground.
Richmond is already feeling a little NID.
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…I fully expect Kuriboh to make an appearance in whatever mayhem arises. The enemy’s demise will be fluffy, cooing cutely, and possibly smelling a bit sulfurous. All one thousand of ’em.
Never underestimate landmines that can move on their own accord.
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I could see Jack snickering about bad guys having a Fluffy Demise. It’d make his day!
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Tristian versus Teal’c, huh. This could be messy, hopefully there are reasons that it stays to just watching/verbal. Probably Serenity, come to think of it.
Also, Bakura is having far too much fun.
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Too much fun? No such thing! 😉
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*flat and unimpressed stare*
In the King of Robber’s case? I believe for the safety of anyone in the potential blast radius his fun can include that I Disagree.
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Joey would likely agree with you. Quietly. 😉
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This seems like a lot of writing for an unfinished fic. How far did you get before it was dropped?
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Two chapters and notes for a third. This is by no means my longest bit of unfinished fic. Path of Lava (RK/old Word of Darkness/Kindred: the Embraced) is at least 8 chapters. Yeep.
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Is it wrong for my first reaction to that to be ‘I want to read that too’? I mean, so much of what you write is really good…
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*G* I’ll think about it? Man that was written a long time ago… and I never did get to all my plans for Aoshi as a weresnake.
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The Air Force being the nerdiest service (except the upcoming Space Force), and deployments including a lot of boredom, it is possible that SG1 plays this game, and pretty well. If course, it would be just a game for them, not even a steady hobby.
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Space Force isn’t a certain thing yet.
DoD is a very large federal bureaucracy. Influence of any one president will be low.
The current set up is still heavily shaped by the reorganization that formed the DoD. Which was heavily a result of lessons learned during WWII.
I personally could be persuaded that a space force is a good thing. That it could fill an ecological niche that is currently unfilled, that we need to fill.
I certainly think we are now seeing some new strategic needs that we need to fill in the future.
Getting a new service authorized is one thing. Nerd intensity will partly depend on other factors. Services seem strongly influenced by founder effects. The initial personalities and hence seed culture would partly be influenced by funding, and initial mission. The wrong set of initial projects and funding could simply entrench a timeserving culture. Putting the right set in place would seem to require significant support from people able to influence congressional and DoD budget processes.
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I think Jack is possible, but Daniel and Sam seem to have been disproven.
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Oh come on lads. You can handle this one! Just start bitching about how wrong this guy is and Jack won’t notice a thing. He’s got a kid sized blind spot and no magic. He’s probably still looking for g’ould.
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To be fair to Jack he’s probably also keeping an eye out for NID and anyone shouting “Duck!” ‘Cause SG-1 never seems to have enough problems.
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“Consider the little fluffball known as Kuriboh,” Richmond sniffed.
So it’s not just Fiends the guy is trying to hate on?
The white-haired fiend in the chair beside him… had brought popcorn.
Time to head for the emergency bunker, if one hasn’t already done so.
“Pity the fool if the pharaoh takes offense.” Bakura chuckled darkly under his breath, fangs glinting in a wicked grin.
He might have point. It may not be BAKURA that this guy has to worry about. Or not JUST Bakura.
All he needs to do is insult dragons and he can have most of the rest of the YGO gang out of his blood.
Jack plopped into the empty chair by Ryou, the picture of interested relaxation.
Which might fool ordinary kids . . . these aren’t ordinary kids.
Still, Jack will probably come away with some interesting impressions.
Hopefully these will be impressions that don’t involve his soul getting stuck into a Kuriboh plushie or something.
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Kuriboh actually is a Fiend. 🙂 A cute, fluffy, exploding Fiend.
And heh. If any of the Yugi-tachi took the speaker half seriously, there’d be blood on the walls. As it is he’s entertainment.
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