Rock Bottom: Season One

Caves

"I think they're long gone," Ryou said with a sigh as he and Marik stopped to catch their breath. He was disappointed: it wasn't fair of them to withhold their star-chips from Ryou after he beat them in a fair duel.

"Look, over there!" Marik said suddenly, pointing to a pair of gold sparkles on the floor several yards in front of them. He approached them, Ryou following somewhat reluctantly, and picked them up, turning to the other with a triumphant smile.

"Looks like they dropped a couple of star-chips." He held them out and dropped them into Ryou's open palm. As the shorter teen secured the star-chips in his dueling glove, Marik watched him with sad eyes. "We might be able to find an official when we get out of this cave. If we tell them that your star-chips were stolen, surely they could do something about it."

"No, it's alright," Ryou replied with a shake of his head and a weak smile. "I'll just win another duel to get the last few star-chips. It's less trouble than trying to get my star-chips from Bonz."

Marik pulled Ryou into a tight hug, the other sighing a little and nuzzling against his companion.

"Don't let it get you down, okay?" the Egyptian teen murmured, receiving a nod from the other. Marik kissed the top of Ryou's head, sending warmth through his lover's body all the way down to his toes. As Ryou shifted his feet to stand closer to Marik, he felt one of his feet sink into the ground and a strange clicking noise.

"What was that?" Marik asked as he lifted his head to look around. Then they heard a rumbling off in the distance and looked back the way they'd come. A giant boulder was just starting to come into view as it rolled their way. The two panicked and released each other as they started to run down the tunnel, hoping to outrun it somehow.

"Where did that thing come from?" Marik was as surprised as Ryou.

"I think I activated a trap," Ryou answered in embarrassment. He'd looked at Marik as he answered, which might have been a bad idea, because right after he finished speaking, he stepped on his own shoelace and tripped. Marik shouted his name as the other teen was crushed under the boulder. Marik forced himself to stop, outraged at this turn of events and waited for the boulder to catch up to him. He threw a fist at it, thinking that it would be futile, but his fist dented the boulder and made it pop in a loud explosion of air. Blinking in surprise, Marik looked down and saw the shreds of balloon and the round speaker.

"It was fake?"

Marik looked up and saw Ryou push himself up off the floor, dusting off his hands as he approached the other. Marik threw himself at Ryou in another hug, making Ryou laugh light-heartedly.

"I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Me too." Ryou kissed Marik's cheek, giving him one last squeeze before releasing him. "Come on, let's figure out how to get out of here."

They kept walking for a little while longer, then came to what looked like the entrance to a maze.

"Oh great, we'll never escape," Ryou said with a despairing sigh, but in the next moment, one prong of the Millennium Ring began to glow gold and point towards the path on the right. Ryou blinked at it in surprise.

"Is it... showing us the way out?" Ryou asked hesitantly.

"That's possible," the other answered, hesitant to trust anything the Millennium Ring tried to tell them.

"The magic of the Ring is more than just the spirit, right?" Ryou glanced up at Marik with a questioning look, and Marik nodded. "I don't suppose it could do us any harm to follow it, then. I mean, even if the spirit is the one doing this, he would benefit from telling us how to get out. After all, if we stay trapped here forever, then so is he, right?"