Author's Note

Yeah, this one's a long boi. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 12: Ransom, As Done By Marik Ishtar

Marik looked up at the clock tower that lay erect just off the west wing of Canterlot High. It looked old and in a general state of disrepair, as if it hadn't had maintenance done on it for decades. Some of the boards making up the tower have even disappeared entirely, worn away by constant exposure to the elements. The clock itself had Roman numerals on it, which Marik couldn't read, but then again he couldn't really read any analog clocks. He noticed that the short hand pointed towards 'IV' and the long one towards 'III' and wondered if that meant anything important. Yep, that's certainly a clock tower alright, he thought as he opened the door to the tower.

The inside looked even worse than the outside. The so-called 'room' comprised of a single decrepit spiral staircase with cobwebs lingering in between each stair. Mold grew freely on the floors and walls, and the whole 'room' smelled of mildew. Marik was not impressed, but he walked up the stairs anyways.

At the top of the stairs, he saw an unconscious Sunset Shimmer bound to a old tattered armchair. Behind her, the clock's gears kept on tick-ticking away. Marik thought it made a suspenseful beat. Then again, he's Marik. Yami Bakura and the Dazzlings were tightening the black bonds on Sunset Shimmer's hands and feet holding her to the chair as she lay with her head to one side, mouth slightly hung open, her leather jacket and jeans slightly scratched and torn. A neatly stacked pile of Duel Monsters cards lay next to the armchair.

"Alright, girls, I think that'll do for now. Go plot evil or whatever Sirens do on a typical Thursday night," Yami Bakura waved the Dazzlings away, who promptly left for the stairs. "So, Marik, did you get Twilight Sparkle's phone number?"

"Oh frig! I didn't!" Marik hung his head, pouting.

"Bloody typical. I suppose we can see if Sunset Shimmer's phone has her number," Yami Bakura said.

"Yes, let's do the thing you just said!" Marik looked around Sunset Shimmer. "Um, where is it?"

Yami Bakura smiled and flicked his hand and a cellphone that was not there before appeared. "Right here."

"How did you do that?" Marik asked incredulously. "And why does Twilight Sparkle even have a phone number? Isn't she from another dimension?"

"Magic. The explanation is always magic," Yami Bakura handed Marik the phone.

"Makes sense," Marik turned the phone on and started tapping through it when Sunset Shimmer began to stir from her unconsciousness. She expressed visible concern at having been tied to a chair by two boys, one of whom was going through her cellphone.

"Trust me, this is not what it looks like," Yami Bakura said.

"This is exactly what it looks like! I am the straightest pervert on this side of the International Date Line!" Marik shouted.

"Yes, and I'm the headmaster of Crystal Prep," Yami Bakura replied sarcastically.

"Silence, kitty!" Marik shouted as he started to dial Twilight Sparkle's phone number.

Yami Bakura placed his hands on his biceps. "Honestly, you act like you do a good job of hiding it."

"A good job of hiding what?! My disdain for your improper arm crossing?" Marik began to mimic Yami Bakura. "'Oh, my name is Bakura, and I'm too much of a hipster to cross my arms properly or even consider having a hairstyle other than bed head.'"

"Oh, come on, you know I rock the bed head look," Yami Bakura said.

It was at that moment that Sunset Shimmer realized exactly what kind of utter lunatics were holding her hostage.

Twilight held her cell phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Hello, Twilight Sparkle. It is I, the vile, despicable..." Yami Bakura gave Marik a look that said 'Don't screw this up, you bloody tosser.'. "Erm...Malik Blishtar," Marik tried his best to sound convincing as Yami Bakura facepalmed in sheer disappointment. "Yes, that's my name."

"Malik Blishtar? That's seriously your name?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, don't wear it out," Marik said.

"That name sounds awfully similar to Marik Ishtar," Twilight pointed out.

"Foolish fool! I am not Marik Ishtar, for I am Malik Blishtar, as I have said already," Marik said. "I heard Marik Ishtar is extremely sexy though."

Yami Bakura cried out in pain. "Marik, she bit me!"

"Keep quiet, Fluffy! I'm talking on the phone!" Marik yelled. "Anyways, I am doing extremely evil things that are evil! Like, um, punching chairs!" Twilight giggled uncontrollably.

Yami Bakura stormed after Marik. "Okay, clearly you can't talk to girls. Hand me the phone!" Yami Bakura snatched the phone out of Marik's hand and cleared his throat, preparing to speak.

"Hey!" Marik objected.

"Hello, Twilight," Yami Bakura said in a sinister tone. "I have called to inform you that Sunset Shimmer is having some...difficulties."

"What?" Twilight was just confused now.

"She's a bit...tied up at the moment," Yami Bakura continued.

"What?" Twilight became even more confused.

"We're holding her hostage at the clock tower!" Yami Bakura blurted out exasperatedly.

"Oh." Twilight realized what was going on and her eyes widened. "Oh!"

"Yes, we're holding her hostage, and we're going to, er...cut her fingers off and mail them to you?" Marik nodded at Yami Bakura. "Yes, we're going to do that!" Twilight gasped, and Sunset tried to break free of the bonds holding her to the chair. "Of course, all of this could be prevented with the low, low payment of one shiny Millennium Puzzle. I shall expect it at the clock tower by tomorrow morning," Yami Bakura hung up the phone, leaving Twilight on the verge of tears.

"Hey, Yug'," Joey began. "How did the hipster burn his mouth?"

Yugi sighed. "How, Joey?"

"He drank his coffee before it was cool!" Joey laughed uproariously, as did Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Rainbow Dash and Applejack simply rolled their eyes before going back to their game. Fluttershy wasn't listening, as she had been conversing with Tea about friendship nonstop for five hours, and Tristan was lying on an air mattress on the floor next to Pinkie's bed staring up at the ceiling.

Pinkie Pie's bedroom was filled with posters. One was for some comedian Yugi and his friends had never heard of. Another had only multicolored balloons and confetti on it.

"Hey, I never saw these posters before, Pinkie Pie. What's up with that?" Yugi asked.

"They weren't described before, silly! How could you have?" Pinkie replied.

"Okay..."

Suddenly, Twilight burst into the room with a crazed look and tears streaming down her face.

"Twilight, dear, what's wrong?" Rarity asked.

"They've got Sunset Shimmer and they want Yugi's puzzle!' Twilight flopped on the bed, beginning to hyperventilate.

"Twilight, sugar, you've got to calm down," Applejack crawled onto the bed and rubbed Twilight's forehead.

"I can't calm down! Marik and Bakura have taken Sunset Shimmer hostage!" Twilight shouted. "We need to call the police or something!"

"The police?!" Yugi guffawed at the idea. "Twilight, if we could call the police against these kinds of people, Duelist Kingdom never would've happened."

"Then what are we supposed to do?!" Twilight flailed her arms wildly.

"Relax, I'm a professional tough guy," Joey stood up. "You send me in there, you'll have Sunset Shimmer back by the end of the night."

"I find that a bit hard to believe." Yugi also stood up. "If he's going, I'm going too. Joey needs someone to keep him from being an idiot after all..."

Joey shook his fist at Yugi. "Nyeh, I do not!"

"Yugi, you can't go," Fluttershy objected. "They're after your Millennium Puzzle. You should stay here where it's safe."

"Relax. If I'm in danger, I'll just beat one or both of them in a card game. No big deal." Yugi shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"I want to go too! This will be just like the ending to Daring Do And The Jewel Of Infinite Brilliance!" Rainbow Dash squealed with excitement.

"Well I guess we've got our crew assembled," Applejack said.

Yugi, I'm back! Yami's translucent form appeared next to Yugi. Finally recovered from that pizza hangover. So, what did I miss?

"You missed a lot of things, Pharaoh!" Yugi saw everyone stare at him with puzzled looks on their faces. "Sorry, it's just the Pharaoh's being annoying!"

How am I being annoying?! You're the one who's short!

"What does that have to do with anything?!" Yugi screamed.

"Why don't you just go?" Twilight asked, to which Yugi, Joey, and Rainbow Dash happily complied.

Tea shook Tristan, having recently finished her conversation with Fluttershy. "Tristan, can we talk in the kitchen? It's about screen time."

"Ooh, can I come too?" Spike asked, wagging his tail.

"Yeah, whatever," Tea, Tristan and Spike left Pinkie Pie's bedroom and climbed downstairs to the kitchen.

"Honestly, I don't feel like we're getting as much screen time as we used to," Tea said. "It's like the universe just forgot that we exist."

"I haven't even been mentioned in like six chapters!" Spike said exasperatedly.

"It's okay guys, I have a plan for how we can get more screen time!" Tristan pointed to the sky like he had a massive revelation about the meaning of life.

"So we should do the opposite of everything you say, got it," Tea said.

"Alright, here's my plan," Tristan said. "We're going to save Sunset Shimmer!"

"That's your plan?" Spike covered his face with his paw. "Yugi, Joey, and Rainbow Dash are already doing that!"

"Yes, but we're going to do it better!" Tristan dropped down from the counter top and started to pace around it, hands clasped behind his back. "So here's what we do. We're going to pretend to be pizza delivery guys and deliver Marik and Bakura a pizza, only the box will be empty, forcing them to release Sunset Shimmer."

"That's not a plan! That's just a random collection of words!" Tea smacked her forehead, as did Spike.

"Exactly!" Tristan pointed at the sky again like he thought he was clever.

"Well, it's not like we have any better ideas, so let's just go with it, why not?" Tea conceded.

Marik was dozing near the door frame when he heard a knock at the door. He stretched his arms and legs out and opened the door. "Ah, I see you've caved in to our dema- SETO KAIBA?!" Marik stared up at a man who looked far too old to be in high school, and yet still was. Kaiba's white trench coat billowed, despite the lack of any wind. "How the frig did you get here?! And why?!"

Kaiba pushed past Marik and began climbing the stairs, looking back with a smirk on his face. "I'm a rich computer nerd with way too much time on my hands. Does this really need to be explained?"

"Yes! Explain it to me now!" Marik demanded.

"Well, I intercepted your phone call, obtained your phone's model number, hacked into its GPS, and pinpointed exactly where you were,"

"But that was only like half a frigging hour ago!" Marik was extremely confused.

"I'm Seto Kaiba, I can do things like that," he said, as if that was supposed to give any answers.

"But, but..." Marik clutched his head with both hands and fell on his knees. "...but that doesn't make any [EFF]ing sense!"

"Think about it," Kaiba continued up the staircase. When he reached the top, he was immediately greeted with the sight of Sunset Shimmer struggling with her bonds as Yami Bakura practiced his evil laugh. Kaiba noticed the deck of Duel Monsters cards beside Sunset's armchair, presumably hers as almost every other duelist carries their deck with them at all times. "Hm, whose deck is this?"

"It's mine! Don't touch it!" Sunset struggled against her bonds.

"Why did you just leave her cards on the floor?" Kaiba asked Yami Bakura.

"Oh, those are just there to torture her," Yami Bakura tapped his fingers together and cackled madly.

Kaiba narrowed his eyes. "You don't know how torture works, do you?"

"Yes I do!" Yami Bakura thrust his thumb into his heart. "I'm the master of torture!"

"In that case, I'm sure you won't mind me taking this," Kaiba knelt down and picked up Sunset's deck.

"Kaiba, no!" Sunset once again tried and failed to writhe out of her bonds.

"Kaiba, yes!" Kaiba slipped Sunset's deck into one of his trench coat's pocket and walked away laughing.

"I'm sorry, Kaiba, but we were planning on selling those cards on eBay," Yami Bakura held his cupped hand out, like a loan shark expecting payment. "So hand them over now, if you value your well-being."

"And if I were to decline?" Kaiba asked.

Yami Bakura punched his open palm. "Then I suppose things are going to get a bit...ugly."

"Bring it."

Yami Bakura's had his Millennium Ring point its appendages at Kaiba. Five teal lasers fired at Kaiba, but they all curved away from him and fizzled out. "Wait, huh?"

Kaiba laughed triumphantly. "Did you really think that would be enough to take down Seto Freakin' Kaiba?!,"

"B-b-but how?" Yami Bakura stammered as he stepped back, flabbergasted.

Kaiba punched Yami Bakura square in the face. "Seto Kaiba, second to none!" He strolled down the stairs before Marik could realize what was going on. Marik was still downstairs clutching his head, extremely confused as to how Kaiba got there in the first place. Wow, that sounded extremely cool, he thought. I should make that into a catchphrase...nah, screw it!

Yami, Joey, and Rainbow Dash saw Kaiba saunter out of the clock tower, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"What's Kaiba so happy about?" Joey asked. "Did he finally have sex with the Blue-Eyes White Dragon?"

"How would one have sex with a trading card?" Yami asked.

"Yeah, that sounds just a bit impossible," Rainbow added.

"He's Kaiba, he'd probably find a way to do it with holograms and all that crap," Joey saw Kaiba glance in their direction and instinctively ducked back down behind the bush.

Those losers are talking about me, Kaiba thought as he continued walking. They're probably here to save their friend. Like a bunch of losers. I like saying that word, 'loser'. It makes me feel cool.

"Alright, let's move out," Yami said.

Marik was still trying to understand exactly how Kaiba managed to track him and Yami Bakura down in a mere half hour when another knock came at the door. He greeted Yugi, Joey, and Rainbow Dash with a cheeky grin on his face. "Ah, welcome gentlemen and...not a gentleman. I trust that you've come here to give us your Millennium-" Joey punched Marik in the face, knocking him unconscious instantly.

"Joey, you're doing this all wrong! You're supposed to ask him where Sunset Shimmer is, then punch him," Yami said.

"Oh. Well don't I feel like an idiot?" Joey picked the unconscious Marik up by the collar of his light pink hoodie. "Where is Sunset Shimmer?!" Joey then proceeded to punch Marik again.

"Yeah, I don't think it's going to work this time, Joey," Yami snarked.

"She's probably up these stairs guys, let's go!" Rainbow Dash ran for the staircase, but halted dead in her tracks when she heard someone else coming down.

"Marik, my gaydar's acting up, what's going o-" Yami Bakura strolled down the staircase and saw that his Millennium Ring was pointing directly at Rainbow Dash. He looked at the Ring, then at Rainbow Dash, then at the Ring, then at Rainbow Dash again. "Okay, that explains the hair."

"Bakura!" Yami pointed at Yami Bakura. "Give us back our friend right now!"

"Or what, you're going to challenge me to a children's card game?" Yami Bakura asked.

"Yes!" Yami replied.

Yami Bakura flicked his tongue. "Come and get me then!" He ran back up the stairs.

"Get him!" Rainbow Dash charged up the stairs after Yami Bakura, Yami and Joey hot on her heels. When they arrived at the top of the stairs, they saw Sunset Shimmer tied to a chair by her hands and feet, her leather jacket and jeans slightly torn and sweat dripping on her forehead. Yami Bakura laughed maniacally next to her.

Yami pointed at Yami Bakura again. "Unhand her you fiend!"

"You and what army, Pharaoh?" Yami Bakura kept laughing until Joey charged forward and punched him in the face. He fell limp as Joey gave the thumbs-up.

"Well that was easy," Yami said.

"Thanks guys, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm still bound to this chair," Sunset Shimmer yet again struggled against her bonds. "See?"

"Relax, sweetheart, I got this," Joey pulled a switchblade from his green jacket and cut Sunset's bonds on her hands and feet.

Sunset sprang free and spontaneously hugged Joey, causing the switchblade to fall from his hands. "Thank you guys! Thank you so much!"

"Nyeh, you're welcome," Joey blushed and returned the hug.

"I'm still confused on where that switchblade came from," Yami said. "I mean, did he always have it or what?"

"Magic," Rainbow Dash replied.

"Ah, I see."

Tea, Tristan, and Spike were hiding in the same bush Yami, Joey, and Rainbow Dash were hiding in before, and they were bored, extremely bored. When they saw Yami, Joey, Sunset Shimmer, and Rainbow Dash walk out of the clock tower, laughing among themselves, they decided that being heroes wasn't worth it, and went back home.

"Man, I thought my plan would work for sure," Tristan said,

"It was kind of up in the air," Tea replied.

As they were walking home, they ran into the Dazzlings, and both groups met each other's eyes, blinking at each other for a good thirty seconds before one of them said something.

"Who the hell are you guys?" Adagio asked.

"Who the hell are we?" Tristan thrust his thumb into his heart. "We're the A-Team!"

"No we're not," Tea said.

"Shut your mouth, I'm trying to talk tough!" Tristan reprimanded.

"Oh, is that what you're doing?" Spike asked.

"Hey, Adagio," Aria whispered into Adagio's ear. "This would be a perfect time to test out our powers.:

"Oh, yeah, our powers," Adagio rubbed her hands together. "Alright girls, one, two, a-one two three four!" The Dazzling started to sing in perfect harmony with one another, causing Tea and Spike to fall into a trance. Tristan remained unaffected though.

"My voice gives me super-strength!" Tristan effortlessly picked up Adagio and threw her against her posse, then dragged Tea and Spike with him. "Come on, guys! We've got to get out of here!"

Tea and Spike broke out of their trances and started to book it with Tristan. "How did you do that?" Tea asked.

"I have no idea!" Tristan responded.

"Typical," Spike said.

The Dazzlings were all rubbing their foreheads, confused about what just happened.

"Maybe we didn't sing high enough?" Sonata suggested.

"No, it worked, it's just that we happened to go against the one person in the entire universe unaffected by our singing!" Adagio started to kick various random objects very angrily.

"Typical," Aria said.