Malik: Will you tell us?

...

Yugi: Please?

...

Ryou: Guess we have to wait until the end of the chapter to find out why there was a double posting today.

Ryou crept own the hall with Yugi and Malik behind him. He was using minimal Light Magic to muffle their approach on their targets. Armed with face-paint, the trio had plotted their revenge on their Darks for the taking of extreme measures to ensure that Yugi, Ryou, and Malik wouldn't be able to access markers for three months without their supervision.

Malik had slipped the yamis some herb in their teas that would ensure a deep sleep while they completed their task. Yugi had bought the face-paint off the Internet at the library, had it shipped to Pegasus's, and asked Pegasus to repackage the stuff to look like something Yugi would have ordered normally. He did order a few booster packs for part of the cover-up and to make the request worthwhile.

Armed with a canvas bag each, the trio split up and picked a target.

Yami woke up and threw off his blankets before kicking the cot that Marik was using. Marik rolled off the cot and onto Bakura who instantly woke up and glared at the psychopathic Tombkeeper. He then noticed that Marik's face was painted with what looked like butterfly wings. The former spirit of the Ring snickered at the design.

"What are you laughing at Fluffy," Marik huffed.

Bakura smirked, "You look like a fairy died on your face and bled glitter on it."

"Well, you look like someone skinned the face off a cat and glued it to your face, Fluffy," Marik stated.

Yami entered the room, "What did you two do to your faces?"

The two looked up at Yami and burst out laughing. "Nice make-up job, Pharaoh," Bakura laughed out.

Yami looked at the mirror on his dresser before shock registered on his face. Someone had painted various designs on his face. Tic-Tac-Toe games had been played, smiley faces, rainbows, paw-prints, stitched 'wounds', hearts and stars, and flowers were painted on his face. Many were overlapping each other.

"Only three people are responsible for this," Yami ground out, trying not to laugh at his fellow Darks' painted faces.

Ryou, Yugi, and Malik sat on the couch looking anywhere but at their Darks. Ryou had a death-grip on a pillow that he used for comfort when things were too stressful for him to deal. They knew that they were in hot water now that they had their fun, but that would change when it was revealed that pictures were taken.

"Why were you three in our room," Yami asked the guilty party.

Yugi looked up without meeting eye contact, "What makes you think it was us? It could have been some weirdo who saw your open window and decided to prank the 'King of Games'."

"There's no way I could have entered this house through the Pharaoh's window without a ladder," Bakura pointed out. "Besides, the screen was still intact this morning."

Yami shook his head, "Well, if neither of you three will admit their guilt, then I have no choice but to lock up all the sweets, the games, controllers, and videos for a month and inform all places you three frequent to keep you out for that long as well."

A chorus of three 'no's' was the reaction he wanted. "Fine," Malik huffed, "we did it. I drugged you with one of Ryou's herbs that he uses to sleep without nightmares and we snuck into your room and painted your faces."

"The stuff we used is meant to be used for painting on skin," Ryou added.

Yugi sniffled and crossed his arms, pouting, "We're not going to say who painted on which face until you give back my art box with everything that was in it."

"Your threats aren't very good, aibou," Yami sighed out. "I already gave back your box. I put it in the closet on the back shelf, where you used to keep it, yesterday. And I can hazard a guess that Ryou painted Marik's face and you did the glitter for added effect and Malik painted Bakura's face because Marik calls him 'Fluffy'. I can also assume that you all painted my face because you just taught Malik how to play a certain game in math class, Ryou likes smiley faces, hearts, and rainbows, Malik's obsessed with paw prints. You leave stars somewhere in your works of art and I caught you talking about wanting to dress like a zombie for this coming Halloween despite it being two months away."

Yugi sat on the couch doing an impressive impersonation of a fish while Yami crossed his arms and looked smug. "You mean we did all that for nothing!?" Malik wasn't too happy that their plan had fallen apart so easily.

Ryou clutched his pillow tighter, praying silently that his anxiety would be picked up by Bakura instead of the fear of their plan for blackmail being discovered. A silver eyebrow went up and said yami approached him. "Give it up, Ryou," Bakura requested the Light.

Ryou shook his head, trying to will up the tears needed to make him back away. His efforts failed as he reluctantly released the grip on his 'comfort pillow'. Bakura pulled it away and fluffed it up, feeling for anything hidden within its material. "So this is odd," Bakura stated as he pulled a small camera out if the stuffing. "My old camera. Are you three aware that this thing is busted? It doesn't save pictures taken with it at all. Too bad. I'd bet that you were planning on using the pictures to blackmail us later into doing things for you or behaving."

The trio paled and whimpered in fear. Bakura looked at Yami, "What do you think we should do with our rambunctious hikaris?"

Yugi winced as the child whose face he was painting sneezed in his direction. "Sorry about that," the child's mother sighed, "Alex is just getting over a cold, but wanted to come to the party."

"That's alright," Yugi sighed as he put the finishing touches on the T-rex he was painting on the boy's cheek.

He glanced over at Ryou who was painting a girl's face with a butterfly design. Ryou had had juice spilled on his clothes a few times and at least two of the kids he'd face-painted had colds too. Malik was faring slightly better with one kid sneezing in his face, but he also had that same kid lose their bubblegum in his hair. One thing was certain, the hikaris would make their Darks suffer while they recovered from whatever they managed to catch at the neighbor's daughter's birthday party.

Yugi: Now?

Alright. One of my three flash drives decided to mulch up my Tunes and several other files I'd saved on there! I've been without my mixes and have spent several hours over the past two or three days hunting down free downloads to recover the limit that they set for free trials only to recover about 75% of what was on that drive.

Ryou: Yikes!

To top it all off, I now need to find FREE online storage and possibly max out the limit with at least one of my email accounts just to back everything up! That includes my Lexar Flash Drive and my cheap one that doesn't even have a GB of data storage space on it and whatever files I want to save from my laptop too.

Yugi: So you're vent-posting?

I guess. I need caffeine but I've had too much sugar today.

Malik: A Big Q suicide slushie will do that to you.

I had two brownies too.

Yugi: Another reason for the double post!

I guess.

Ryou: Just post these and go work in one of your journals or read something.

Until next time!