Bah. Dished this out in 2nd period. I have another idea I'm going to be working on soon so you might want to watch out for that. So yeah, don't have much to say except for all you people of Nanika... POST! The Terror Mountain roleplay is going nowhere, and Seto is waiting for his part to kick assassin butt!
Why!? Why do you still ask me if I own Yu-Gi-Oh when I made that clear twelve chapters ago? D:
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Chapter 13 - Muttzilla
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The strips of bacon sizzled nicely, and lifted a delicious aroma into the air. Not a few feet away, a toaster gave call to inform the cooker that her toast was ready for buttering. At last, the eggs perched in the pan joined them by showing off their golden fluffiness.
There wasn't a better way to set the day off to Tea then this. To top this all off for the moment, the negative influence of yesterday was still sawing logs in dreamland. She hoped that he stayed there for a while. For it not only was in her better interest to have a morning without harassment, but probably his as well, to have a morning without struggling against his own belittled physique. A half-sincere smirk worked the edges of her mouth, playing ideas of what he could be seeing in that fazed world only known to him. He was most likely wishing her to be on hand and knee, begging for mercy. Well, Seto better enjoy that experience the best he could, because once he woke up that wasn't going to happen.
Now that breakfast was ready to eat, she set the food unto her plate, but before she could sit down that song of a doorbell pierce the room. "Huh?" The plate clacked onto the wood of the table, and the girl treaded a path to the door. "Coming!" she reassured whoever was on the other side. Although she hadn't laid eyes upon the person on the other side of the door, she had already had a sinking feeling of who it could be. Her hand met with the soft metal of the knob, and slowly she turned it. Not a second after the door creaked an inch open a familiar set off eyes locked with hers.
"Hi Tea!"
"Yugi?….. Joey? Tristan? Wha-What…?" Tea stuttered, observing the entire gang in front of her.
"I tried to tell them, but they wouldn't listen," Tristan stated, trying to restore his name. Joey let out a snort.
"Hey! If I remember right you were the one who said 'Okay, sure' when I suggested we help Tea."
"Wait… What's going on?"
"Well, we were going to allow you to work on the report by yourself," Yugi explained in humble kind of tone, "but Tristan told us how you were looking after your cousin while you were trying to do your paper so we…"
"Came to your rescue…" a new softer voice said. Tea's eye had slipped her the first time, but now she was in clear view. Joey's little sister was standing with a bright smile, obviously happy to be reunited with an old friend, "Hi Tea, long time no see."
"Serenity, you're here too…? Oh, that's right… You're in Domino for the week to spend time with your brother," Tea said. She shamed herself for forgetting something so exciting, but a body couldn't blame her with all that has happened.
"Yep, I reached the train station yesterday."
"Heh, its… nice to see you again."
While Tea had given her semi-warm welcome to Serenity, she failed to notice the girl's brother slip into the house. He snooped around the living room for a few seconds before eventually blurting, "So where's the munchkin that's giving you so much trouble?" Tea whipped her attention over her shoulder in an instant.
"JOEY!"
"What?"
"Get out of my living room!"
"Come on, how can we babysit your cousin if we don't know where he is?" Tea fell silent at the naïve teen and shook her head.
"Look… You guys this is a really bad time… I'm real busy and…"
"Hm… Is that bacon I smell?" Tristan asked joining Joey in the room.
"Hey, yeah…" Joey confirmed.
"Well, looks like you have enough time to cook breakfast," Yugi said, most meekly and unoffending as he could.
"Ugh… I give up…" Tea moaned. She placed herself in front of the door to make sure the other two boys didn't make off with her food and began to address the deal, "I appreciate the thought, but Yukio does not need to be babysat… Still… I guess you guys can stay for breakfast JUST as long as you keep fairly quiet and don't go upstairs. Yukio is asleep right now, and I doubt he wants to be bothered."
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"What? But it's already 10:45," the blonde snorted.
"Come on Joey, you slept until noon when I tried to call you last week," Serenity giggled.
"Yeah… Well… I stayed up real late that night."
"Either way, PLEASE don't wake him up," Tea said. With everything said and done she retreated to the kitchen to scramble some extra eggs.
Before long the entire group was situated at the table. The two taller boys were wolfing down the bacon and scrambled eggs before them, while the others took the time to follow table manners. Of course, this feast couldn't go on without a conversation. There were so many curious subjects on their minds, and poor Tea had to come up with answers for them all. Most of the questions had to be delivered false information, mainly the ones circling around the boy living in her guest bedroom and the jewel. Fortunately, it seemed Tristan had already conversed most of the lies that she and Seto formed yesterday at the mall. Nonetheless, there was still a stray, new question here and there that raised the girl's heart into her throat. Finally though, their ammo ran out and Tea was free to fire back.
"So what are guys going to do for your vacations?" she asked pushing away an empty plate.
"Well, I think that would be obvious for me and my brother," Serenity said warmly, glancing over at Joey who was chewing on his fourth piece of toast.
Yugi let out a disappointed sigh to the same question, but the thought brought him joy knowing he was on almost the same page Tea was on as far as his vacation went. "Grandpa is going to be having me clean out the attic. We have so much clutter up there that you can't see the floor."
"Well, you can bet I'd rather be over there than glued to a monitor."
"Yeah, Joey told me about that. I'm real sorry Kaiba destroyed your report," Serenity said, holding a small frown.
"Why are you sorry? You weren't the one who threw it into a puddle."
"Yeah, I know… but…"
"Next time I see that stuck up punk, he's gonna find out what dirt tastes like!" Joey muffled through his toast, "For real this time!"
"Why do I highly doubt that?" Tristan asked. Tea couldn't help but let out small giggle. Unlike the others she actually knew that the war between Seto and Joey was a whole different ball game now. The sad part (or cool part depending how you look at it) was that Joey could now easily beat the stuffing out of mini Kaiba, if he knew where and who he was. It almost even seemed unfair.
All of sudden, Joey shot up from his seat, and the toast fell from his hand. He dashed out of the kitchen with only the excuse of a brief shout. "Bathroom!"
"Well… At least he's straightforward…" Tristan commented, blinking at the door his friend just exited. Not a minute after, the rapid thumping of Joey's shoes became stunted, and revealed the sound of oak against his soles. The owner of the house sprang up from her seat.
"Please don't tell me he's going upstairs…" Tea choked.
CRASH! THUMP! CLUD!
"GAAAHHHH!!!"
"YAAAHHHH!!!"
The girl buried her forehead into her hand. "Great…"
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What the hell? What the bloody hell!? He was minding his own business for once, just heading to the bathroom to take a well-deserved shower. The work he enveloped himself in at the break of dawn was beginning to frustrate him, and eventually, he just had to convince himself to take a break. Although, he admitted to getting distracted halfway down the hall when an innocent spider on the wall caught his attention. Thereafter, He fancied himself into commenting how Tea should do something about the 'pest problem' and some other various critiques about her home. It was all to let out the yearning he had to be back in his own familiar mansion. After he thoroughly complained to the spider, he was ready to depart. That was when he heard a rapid stomping coming up from behind him. It was truly amazing how fast the person was going because by the time Seto turned his head, the giant troll had jammed a kneecap into his back. The little boy felt the force of that collision as he fell forwards along with the knee that assaulted him and its attachments. There was a cry of pain that echoed from his mouth to join the startled yelp of the body as it sandwiched him with the floor. Once the impact worked its course in under a second, both masses were in pain, more Seto than whoever crushing him. After stiffly creeping enough to get his head out of the wedge he did not hesitate to yell, "As easy as it is to miss noticing me Gardner, I would be thankful if you would REFRAIN FROM TRIPPING ON ME!"
"Ow… well, it's not like it was a joy-ride for me either," the other's voice choked. It was a familiar voice, but it did not belong to the girl that was providing him with shelter. This voice was masculine and accented. It was a voice that Seto was dreading to hear ever since his regression into a little boy. He slowly turned his head. Azure eyes met blond hair. Upon this sight, his body turned into a miniature statue.
"Ah!" The CEO could take the humiliation from losing his pants, he could endure the embarrassment of being babied, but this was just plain outright dirty. It was freaking Muttzilla! On reflex, to regain any of the large and in control feeling he had left, Seto yanked himself out from under Wheeler and stood up. This only came to more embarrassment, when Joey simply sat up to meet his eye level. Aggravated more than ever seeing the superior presence of an amateur that should be at his feet, he clenched his fists. "What… What are you doing here?" Seto growled, not helping the stutter of being in this situation. Joey gave the boy a quick glance and opened his mouth. Nothing came out, and once the teen realized this, he was back on his feet, running to where he originally planned.
"Talk later! Bathroom!"
SLAM!
Kaiba gawked as the door shut, utterly speechless. Did that really just happen to HIM? Had that worthless monkey not only managed to trip on and crush him, but steal his bathroom too!? He couldn't believe this humiliating role reversal, but the more important question on hand was what he was doing here in the first place.
"Joey? We heard a scream and-Yukio!"
This morning had been simply amazing. All in the period of five minutes, Seto had gone from annoyed, to shocked, to angry, and now to dangerously pissed off. His glower could have almost penetrated the walls. There they were, his rival, Wheeler's partner, some unknown familiar girl (Sorry, it's true XD), and the criminal herself. They were all towering over him, even the dwarf. His rage began to mix with embarrassment. Being afraid to the point of hiding was not a familiar feeling to Kaiba, but at the moment his red flushed cheeks and burning hatred toward Tea was unmatched. He want to kill her, yet under the circumstances, he wasn't capable. He wasn't capable of anything except maybe finding a nice rock to hide his shameful immature body.
"Well… I… see you're up…" Tea said, meekly. She already sensed the trouble she was in, "Um… I don't suppose you saw a blonde person go by here, did you?"
"Who are they, and what are they doing here…?" Seto asked with frightening calmness, despite his sizzling face, and ignoring Tea's question. The girl knew that the first question was for the most part, unneeded except to conceal his identity, but she knew he deeply wanted the answer to the latter. She got down on her knees with a sense of care that would be taken as if he was a wild animal, ready to maul her face
"Yukio… These are my other friends," she said lightly, "I'm sure you remember Tristan. That's Yugi and over there is Serenity. They just came over because they wanted to have breakfast with me."
"Your pet monkey stole my bathroom…" Seto commented quietly enough, for only Tea to hear.
"YOUR bathroom…!?" she retorted a bit too loud. This raised a few brows, but immediately she pursued to correct the insult in a whisper, "Let me remind you that you're taking shelter in MY house, and although I admit that Joey could have used the downstairs bathroom, that gives you no right to insult him!"
"Whatever…" Seto muttered. He turned around, and started heading back to his room. If her friends were going to infest this house for a while, the shower could wait.
Watching the little boy's snippy mood walk down the hallway Yugi couldn't help, but be a bit surprised. "Wow… He seems kind of grumpy…"
"You should of saw him yesterday," Tristan said, before turning to his babysitter, "Are you sure you don't want us to handle him, Tea?"
"Trust me, you'd have twice the fun doing my report for me," Tea sighed, "Listen you guys, as long as he's not breaking anything, he really doesn't need to be watched. He's actually real mature for his age."
"Like when I saw him running away from the sales clerks at Spheres?" Tristan asked.
"Exactly… What? No! I mean… Most of the time he's mature…"
"Oh, and don't take it the wrong way, but Yukio acts kind of like a brat. I find it hard to believe he's not giving you a few gray hairs."
"Tristan!" Serenity scorned before stepping, "He probably just has a few problems, maybe with school or something. Not to mention, my brother did accidentally collide with him. He mostly likely just needs somebody to talk to." As if on cue, Joey finally came out of the bathroom.
"Ah, sweet relief… Huh? Hey, where did the kid go?"
"Yukio went to his bedroom, after you ran a crash course with him," Tea answered.
"So that was your cousin, huh… Er… Heh, sorry about that. I kind of didn't see him." The girl sighed, then tried to make a closure.
"Okay you guys, you've had breakfast with me and met Yukio. You should go home now. I still have a report to work on, and I'm sorry, I appreciate the thought, but honestly don't need any help… With the report or Yukio." There was a bit of sympathetic silence before a brash hero came to save the day.
"Oh, I see how it is," Joey said. Immediately Tea and the others turned their attention on him. "You think we can't handle some three-foot kid."
"No, it's just that-"
"You know, if you have been working on your report, he's probably been cramped up and alone in your house all day," Tristan added.
"But he actually-"
"Listen Tea, me and Serenity are planning on going to a- going to be exploring around downtown. If he comes with us, he'll get a chance to run around, and he'll be out of your hair all day. Just think, it wouldn't just help you, but him too."
"You guys… I-"
SMASH!
Once again the hallway returned to silence. The noise appeared to have come in the direction of the guestroom, which made Tea pale.
"It's never too late to change your mind," Tristan added.
"Just give me a moment…" Tea sighed. With that she headed down the hall, and into the bedroom. Muffled chatting could be heard through the walls for a moment before it turned into rather angry sniping. It then became silent again. The girl remerged from the bedroom, and walked with confidence. With him, she was dragging the pint-sized, disgruntled boy by his wrist.
"Tea?" Yugi asked, unsure of what she was doing.
"Alright, you guys want to take him out for a walk?" she asked, pulling the child in front of her, "He's all yours… Oh, and if he misbehaves, don't be afraid to punish him." She let go of Seto and sent her attention down on him, "Now you'll be a good boy for little Yugi correct?" The CEO glared at her for second, then at his new babysitters. Wonderful, plain wonderful.
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Now onto finals.