A Calvin and Hobbes and Yu-Gi-Oh! fusion story (let the molecular excitation begin!)

Summary – A small boy accompanies his father to work, to give his harried mom a well-deserved day off. Hopefully a certain CEO has what it takes to preserve his corporation from the destructive force that is Calvin! (Unfortunately, Hobbes had a prior engagement, and will not make an appearance in this story. He extends cordial apologies.)

Disclaimer – Neither Calvin and Hobbes, nor Yu-Gi-Oh! belong to me. Hopefully this silly little story will show my appreciation for both the wonderful comic strip, and the amazing manga and show. I claim no rights to either with my story.

Warnings – It's Calvin and Hobbes. And Yu-Gi-Oh! Come on, what warnings could it possibly– okay, fine. There are Slontargs (and presumably their messy demise at the hands of Spaceman Spiff). There, a warning. Satisfied?

Yu-Gi-Oh! Enter the Calvin Realm!

Seto resisted the urge to slam the phone down. Mokuba was getting on his last nerve. Seto reminded himself that Mokuba was anything but a typical teenager – but he was a teen. Since Seto was the closest thing he had to a father, it was only reasonable that Seto take the brunt of Mokuba's rebellion toward the familial authority figure. That such behavior twisted a metaphorical knife somewhere in the region of Seto's heart wasn't something that Mokuba considered – nor should he. Seto's own rebellion against the authority figure in his life had been dramatic, to say the least. But, the fact that this was a rite of passage into adulthood for the male of the species, and it was time for Mokuba to endure it (and thus, inflict it upon Seto) wasn't something that Seto was pleased with. Not when Mokuba was behaving in such a surly and disobedient manner.

It was only natural for Seto to want to know where Mokuba was, and highly important that Mokuba honor his curfews given how many times he'd been kidnapped. Seto realized their high profile status put a crimp in Mokuba's social life, but that didn't diminish the fact that Mokuba was an enticing target for kidnappers who wanted an edge over Seto or his corporation. Seto wasn't trying to be mean or arbitrary, or cast any sort of aspersions toward Mokuba's ability to take care of himself, he was just a realist. However, appealing to Mokuba's logical side wasn't having the desired effect of getting his younger brother to toe the line and follow his rules.

Seeking to distract himself from the situation he feared would only resolve once Mokuba had earned a bit more maturity, Seto called up the various day-to-day reports about his company's health on his computer screen. The report showing the thumbnail overview of his company looked good, with nothing that required his personal attention. R and D didn't have anything noteworthy to distract his attention, either. Desperate to keep his mind focused on work, and not on his rebellious little brother, Seto delved deeper into the various reports from the various departments that made his company run.

Oh, yeah, he thought as a report with a 'action pending' tag caught his eye. He opened it, and found the very distraction he needed. Actually, today would be a good day to go down to the legal department in person for a progress overview from the entire department. Suiting action to thought, he toggled the intercom to his executive secretary.

"Schedule a meeting of all in-office legal department heads for directly after lunch today," he commanded.

"Yes, sir," the smooth voice replied. "Should I specify a particular agenda for this meeting?"

"Yes. I want a brief progress report from each project head about all pending legal actions affecting Kaiba Corporation."

"Yes, sir."

– – – – –

Bored, bored, BORED! He'd already defaced – er, colored – all the pictures in his coloring book, done his homework, eaten his lunch – he'd have to brag to Hobbes about how lunch had been the most awesome, ever – who'd have thought Dad could be so cool? – sent a weird email to his dad, balanced on the back legs of his chair until his dad asked if he'd been raised in a barn, and blew the wrappers off of all the straws he'd found in the desk drawer in his dad's office. He knew he had to stay and behave until his dad got back from some important meeting, Dad promised a trip to the toy store if he did, but...

He had to pee. Figuring that his dad wouldn't want him to pee in the office, he thought it would be okay if he quickly sneaked out and found the bathroom. He was sure it was down the hall about ten doors. He'd be quick, he'd even remember to wash his hands and flush the toilet, so there wouldn't be any reason for Dad to get mad. He really wished Hobbes were here, but Dad said Hobbes had to stay home and guard Mom. Calvin pointed out that Mom was way more scary than Hobbes any day, and both of his parents gave him 'The Look'. Figuring that reasoning with them was out, after The Look had been leveled, he failed at hiding Hobbes in his shirt and smuggling him along this morning, and so here he was, bored out of his skull, and a bit worried about finding the bathroom all by himself. Tigers always had such a good sense of direction. Hobbes said so, at least.

He tried to distract himself. Maybe if he flipped through his coloring book again, there might be a picture he missed... No. Another straw buried in the desk drawer? No. He wanted to be good. He wanted to behave. A trip to the toy store, just him and his dad would be fun. Dad let him get toys that Mom never did. There was an action figure with a particularly rude sound effect he really wanted. Mom was onto him, and wouldn't let him get it, but he was pretty sure that Dad had no idea about it. He imagined returning in triumph from his day in exile at his dad's office, if he had the Gross Man action figure. He and Hobbes could torment Susie with it, and maybe he could take it to Show and Tell and be the envy of the entire class, not to mention the sweet, sweet revenge of annoying Mom with it, but...

But, he really did have to pee.

– – – – –

He pondered when his day had gone so horribly wrong. The morning had been stressful. Calvin, on his best behavior, was only slightly less distracting than a zooful of monkeys. He fidgeted incessantly. He asked a million and one questions. He voiced his opinion, about how bored he was, and how boring his dad's office was, and how boring his dad's work was, and how boring his dad was – loudly – until said dad looked longingly at the stapler and roll of tape on his desk. But, no. As delightful as the image of Calvin with his mouth mercifully shut was, it wasn't something an adult – a parent – did. Not one who loved his child. Even though said child was making him crazy, he did still love him. He did. Maybe if he kept reminding himself of that, his brain would stop mocking him. He hoped.

That had been the morning. Lunch had been only a little better. Bringing Calvin to work with him had been a last minute decision, so there hadn't been time to pack a lunch. Visions of what destruction Calvin could cause in a cafeteria of unsuspecting corporate worker drones were too awful to contemplate, so he'd decided 'lunch' was going to have to be whatever gut-rotting 'food' was to be found in the snack machines on his floor of the massive office building. In hindsight, giving Calvin a sugary soda, a bag of chips, and chocolate hadn't been one of his stellar decisions during this ill-fated day. If anything, Calvin was even more high-strung and annoying afterward than he'd been in the morning.

Then, the surprise, last-minute department meeting had been called. He was the head on one of the prominent copyright infringement cases that the CEO was most interested in hearing about, so there was no way to beg off the meeting. He'd threatened Calvin with every horrible thing imaginable, promised him a trip to the toy store, and, against his own better judgement, gotten him a fresh soda and bag of chips as a bribe to stay in the office, be quiet, and behave.

Despite his distracted attention, he'd managed to present the updates of the copyright infringement suit well, and afterward earned compliments from his boss, his boss's boss, and even his boss's boss's boss. At one point during the meeting, thankfully after his presentation, while Molly was presenting the update of the case she was heading up, Seto Kaiba, the CEO, abruptly got up and left – without a word. Aside from that oddity, the meeting had gone very well, and he hoped this day full of stress and worry would wind down quietly.

No such luck. Calvin wasn't in the office when he returned. He wasn't in the men's room, his female coworker had given him an odd look when he asked if a blond boy was in the ladies' room (she snapped, 'of course not!' and stalked off) and running a circuit of the cubicles and looking for Calvin as unobtrusively as possible had produced no results.

He stared sourly at the phone. He could call his wife. After all, it was her fault Calvin was here. If not for asking him to bring Calvin with him to work, advancing to pleading for a day off so that she wouldn't actually go insane, and finally resorting to claiming that Calvin's simian behavior was due to his DNA and not her's – he wouldn't be in this predicament. He could call Security. As appealing as the image of Calvin dwarfed between two sunglasses-wearing, threatening, slightly thuggish (and possibly gun-wielding) security guards was, again, it wasn't something one did to one's own child. Not to mention how embarrassing the call would be to make. He could strangle himself with the phone cord. He stared morosely at the black phone cord and contemplated how that option was the most appealing of the three, before sighing and getting to his feet to do a circuit of the cubicles again – and damn the strange looks his coworkers were giving him.

– – – – –

This was a bad idea, Seto thought to himself. The first few presentations had been to the point, brief, as directed in the email memorandum calling for the meeting, and helpful; and two of them promised successful results for Kaiba Corporation. But, the woman speaking now, not only didn't seem to have a clue what the word 'brief' meant, she didn't appear to know was she doing with her project. She also had one of the most irritating presentation manners (insincere smiles, nervous tics, flashy and pointless over-use of visual aids, and an oily, overt, and patently false deference toward him) and high-pitched, nasally voices he'd ever had the misfortune of being in the presence of. He wondered if her bad presentation style was an odd sort of camouflage to distract from the fact she didn't know what she was doing. Seto made a mental note to review this woman's file as soon as possible. He'd be fair. Perhaps she was just having an off day. Perhaps. If not, unless she had some stellar success in her career at Kaiba Corporation, it was time to let her go.

Unwilling to take another of her searingly vibrant (and pointless) graphic charts, Seto glanced out the floor-to-ceiling glass window that made up one wall of the conference room. As he was the only one with this view, only he noticed the out of place, stealthy movement near the cubicles that made up the bulk of the workstations in the legal department. While everyone else had to look at the vivid, mismatched colors (honestly, was the woman color-blind? He seemed to recall women usually weren't afflicted by that particular lack) of whatever idiotic chart she'd concocted to prove her 'point', Seto was able to glance through the window and watch the child.

The boy appeared to be about six years old. He was ducking and weaving in and among the cubicles. Every so often he'd toss something through the open door of a cubicle as he ran past, or lob whatever this invisible something was over one of the cubicle walls. He'd cover his ears, count, then jump as if reacting to an explosion. For some reason, this nagged at Seto's memory.

Ah, yes. Once, when Mokuba had gone missing in Kaiba Corporation (one of Seto's earlier meetings had gone on far longer than he anticipated) after searching frantically for his little brother everywhere, Seto had found him – not here – but it was in another department filled with cubicles in this building. Mokuba was playing in more or less the same way. He'd said each cubicle had held a group of enemy agents who wanted to take Kaiba Corporation away from his big brother, and give it back to Gozaburo. Mokuba was tossing imaginary 'sleep grenades' into each one to protect Seto. He'd insisted that Seto duck and let him take down the rest of the enemy agents before they left the floor – otherwise the evil agents might hurt Seto. After looking around to make certain no one could see, Seto had ducked, to make his brother happy. Mokuba's brilliant smile as he played along would have been worth it, even if someone had seen him playing 'let's pretend' with his little brother.

Seto refocused his attention. The child playing in the cubicles who'd sparked the memory was at the window, his hands and face pressed up against it. He had the most peculiar expression on his face, even accounting for the smashed-flat appearance of his nose. It was as if he were seeing ghosts or some other horrifying monsters instead of business people trapped in a now-pointless meeting. Inside the room, the woman continued to drone on, spouting useless nonsense in her annoying voice. Perhaps the child was right – and there was at least one 'monster' in here. Suddenly, he realized Seto was watching him. His jaw dropped pulling his mouth into an 'o' shape. Not willing to laugh at the comical expression, Seto glanced away. When he looked up again, the boy was gone.

There were a few other legal department updates Seto wanted to find out about, but not enough to endure one more minute of this. He'd learned about the most important pending action already. The man in charge of that one seemed to have everything under control – and to be competent at his job – which this woman was clearly not. Without a word, Seto stood abruptly, and left. Hearing the woman grind to a halt and squawk in apoplectic indignation as the door closed behind him gave him a small sense of satisfaction. With how horrible this day was turning out to be, Seto decided he take even the smallest victories.

– – – – –

Oh, no! He'd gotten lost, playing that he was Spaceman Spiff, on the run from dastardly Slontargs. The stupid Slontargs engineered the oddest spacecraft – they were always cubes and they always flew in tight formations. It had been easy to take out entire legions of them with his Super-Mega-Awesome Anti-Slontarg Hand-grenades, (SMAASH's for short) and his frap rays, but he'd lost his bearings when his gravitational stabilizers had taken a direct hit from a lucky Slontarg scout.

What's this? He must have accidentally triggered his Continuum Trans-stream Drive, too! Those weren't Slontargs gathered before him! Those were – dinosaurs – intelligent dinosaurs – holding a nefarious High Council! Were they plotting to somehow avoid the meteor that would wipe them all out so as to prevent man from rising to eminence on Planet Earth? He, Spaceman Spiff, had to do something to save the human race! Who else would bake chocolate chip cookies for him if the human race never existed in the first place? He needed the one called 'Mom' and he supposed that the one called 'Dad' made her happy – so he'd need that one, too. Heaving a deep sigh, Spaceman Spiff decided magnanimously to save the entire human race.

He noticed a clear, but very hard force-field between himself and the High Dinosaur Council. He thought to listen in to the dinosaurs' plan, to see if he could somehow thwart it. He'd just made his way up to the force-field, and was taking readings on it, when the worst happened.

The King Dinosaur looked up, and spotted him. Spaceman Spiff was helpless before the hypnotic power of the Supreme Saurian. If not for one of the council elders calling for their ruler's attention and thus diverting his powerful gaze, Spiff wasn't certain what would have happened. He didn't wait to find out. Dashing through corridors of time and possibility, Spiff searched for his spaceship to return to base, in vain.

– – – – –

"No, no. He's just a child. Since I saw him in the Legal Department, and there's a full departmental meeting, his father, or mother, most likely hasn't discovered him missing yet." A pause while he listened to the reply on his cell phone. "No, no need for alarms or a lock-down. I doubt he can cause any serious damage. Just have security perform a low-profile search for him, and tell me when you've found him." Another pause. "No, don't do anything when you find him, just alert me." He snapped his phone closed and slipped it into a pocket while the elevator whisked him up to his office suite.

Seto recalled some of Mokuba's hide-and-seek games with Security. Early on, Mokuba had realized that this elevator, Seto's private one, didn't have security cameras in it. The corridors on every floor this elevator stopped on did, so that Security could keep tabs on its use, but this elevator itself, out of all the ones in the building, did not have cameras. Roland argued with Seto fairly routinely about this hole in his protective coverage, even to this day, but Seto stood by his need to be away from cameras and have a tiny bit of privacy. There weren't any cameras in his office, either. In the hall to the office, sure, Roland could (and did) have all the cameras and all the angles he wanted, but in Seto's office – no. That was Seto's private domain. It was how he wanted it.

Waving to his secretary to remain in the outer office, since Seto didn't anticipate needing the man's attention for anything, Seto entered his 'private domain' and crossed the lush expanse of carpet to his desk. He indulged in one long, ceiling-reaching stretch before calling his computer up out of sleep mode.

Seto read through the other legal department reports he hadn't the patience to wait through that tedious meeting to hear. His employees had taken the time to prepare reports for the meeting – the least he could do was read them. Standard policy at Kaiba Corporation was to submit reports electronically just in case Seto had to leave a meeting abruptly. The rule had been put in place because of one of the times Mokuba had been kidnapped, but it seemed a reasonable enough rule, so Seto had let it stand. While he was thinking of that tedious meeting, he sent a request to personnel to evaluate that inept and annoying woman, too. If it turned out she wasn't of any sort of value to Kaiba Corporation, he was adamant about letting her go.

As he worked, Seto had the most uncanny feeling. He realized he was being watched. His heart sped up with the awareness of it, but soon calmed down again. There weren't any weirdnesses going on right now in the world of Duel Monsters, and the weirdnesses that had been centered in his corporate world had disappeared once the Big Five had been – taken care of. There really was only one person who could be watching him, and Seto wasn't afraid of a small child.

It took a few minutes, but he finally spied where the boy was – hiding in the cabinet that held miscellaneous office supplies he might need throughout the day. "You can come out. I know where you are." Seto called out mildly, while still working at his computer.

After a moment, the boy did. His eyes widened and he stared at Seto as he approached the desk. Seto hid his smile. While Mokuba had never given him such a look, (he was always only his 'big brother' to Mokuba) he'd seen this look before and knew what it meant. Mokuba used to imagine that Roland was a giant bear. He remembered how Mokuba would push him behind his back, so that Mokuba could protect him from the 'bear'. To Roland's credit, he'd caught on quickly, and roared and charged most convincingly – which had delighted Mokuba. Roland had also been very careful that Mokuba not take any harm, cushioning the boy with his own body from underneath (as well a bodyguard for a child should) whenever Mokuba 'defeated' him by taking him down to the floor – which had pleased Seto. There was a reason Roland was his favorite bodyguard.

Unlike Mokuba, this child had an unruly, spiky mass of blond hair. Seto blinked, wondering if Yugi's hair had looked like this as a child. Blinking again, he banished the errant thought, and hoped this kid never discovered hair gel or had the odd idea to sculpt his hair into gravity-defying lightning bolts. What the child did have, aside from weird, spiky hair, was a pair of eyes that were doing their best to imitate dinner plates, they were stretched open so wide. Seto wondered what in the world he appeared to be to this child caught up in his imaginary world.

"King..." the boy breathed. Seto couldn't help the small smile the crept across his face. This child saw him as a king? That went a long way to undoing some of the wretchedness of this day, if...

"Dinosaur..." Seto's self-congratulatory train of thought derailed. What?! "King Dinosaur!"

"Dinosaur?" Seto repeated.

"Yeah..."

"Me?"

"Yeah, I mean, yes. The King of all Dinosaurs. I've got to..."

"I'm no dinosaur!" Seto stated firmly. He used all his will to shove an unwelcome image of a smirking Rex Raptor from his mind's eye.

"No?" The boy's shoulders slumped a little at the correction.

Uh-oh. Seto didn't want to stifle this kid's imagination. He knew what it was like to have one's imagination crushed. He'd gladly taken part in Mokuba's games when his little brother was younger, but he never saw Roland as anybody or anything other than Roland, even when Mokuba was insisting the most strongly that the bodyguard was indeed a giant grizzly bear. It was no use cursing Gozaburo Kaiba for it, but Seto indulged in cursing his step-father's memory for a moment anyway.

"No," Seto repeated, a bit more softly, but no less firmly. He tipped his head away, smirked at the kid, and crooked a finger gesturing for him to come closer. After a moment, wary of being grabbed from his body language, the boy did.

"What's your name?"

"Cal–, er, Spaceman Spiff!"

Okay, really wild imagination here, and even less cause-and-effect plausibility than Mokuba possessed in his 'let's pretend' phase. I've got to be careful with this one.

"And, you are hunting dinosaurs?" Seto hazarded.

"No, well, I wasn't. It was Slontarg Cube-ships at first, but then..."

Seto listened to the whole wild story. Strike that, it was no less wild than some of the garbage Yugi Motou and his little friends wanted him to believe about magic, and duel monster cards having souls or hearts or whatever, and ancient Egyptian spirits being trapped in bulky gold objects.

"... and that's when I saw the King of Dinosaurs – er, uhm, you, that is. You saw me, and I almost got trapped by your hypno-gaze..."

Seto raised an eyebrow.

"... but you looked away and I managed to escape. Then I was being chased by a big and slow Tyrannosaurus Rex all over the place, or maybe it was more than one, yeah, I think it must have been more than one, so let's say it was a whole pack of hunting Tyrannosauruseses – Tyrannosauri? – but I got away from them, and thought I'd find a Time Ripper or Phase Resetter here." Calvin pointed to the cabinet he'd been hiding in as he gulped in a huge lungful of air after his long description.

"Oh, that is where I keep them," Seto said.

"What?"

"I have both Time Rippers and Phase Resetters in that storage facility." Seto propped his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers as he set his plan for dealing with this child in motion.

"I didn't find either," the boy challenged.

"Of course you wouldn't. They're invisible." If he buys this...

"Oh..."

"You don't need them, anyway," Seto added casually.

"But, I've got to get back..." Awareness flooded through the boy's eyes. "It's been hours and hours! Dad's going to kill me!"

Seto recalled some of the times he'd thought Mokuba had gotten lost and gone missing (those times he hadn't been kidnapped, but merely wandered off). "I doubt he will kill you, but I'm sure he's looking for you. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone named 'Spiff' working for me, so I'm not sure I can help you find him. Are there any other names people call you?"

Seto winced internally as he knew how many rude ways he could answer that very same question. Hopefully, this boy was yet too innocent, or at least not jaded enough, to offer any of the snide replies that sprang so easily to Seto's mind.

"Calvin."

"Ah." That did explain a lot. He might have some degree of isolation from his employees, but even the CEO had heard some of the exploits of this one of his workers' more exuberant offspring. From the boy's father's stories, they were lucky the Kaiba Corporation tower wasn't on fire – or worse. "I'm pretty sure I know who your dad is. Shall we find him?" Seto stood, and held out a non-threatening hand to the boy.

"You're sure you're not the King Dinosaur?"

Seto nodded gravely. "Most sure. Let me take you back to your father, while you try not to destroy anything along the way, and I'll tell you who I am."

Aside from gathering more than a few odd looks from some of his employees, nothing remarkable happened until Seto opened the door to the tiny office in the copyright law division where Calvin's dad worked. Sure enough, it was the office of the man whose earlier presentation reassured Seto about a tricky pending copyright suit coming up for arbitration. Someone had stolen one of Kaiba Corporation's design ideas. This man's work would bring those thieves to justice, and make certain Kaiba Corporation, and Seto, were paid their just due for the intellectual property violation.

"Mr. Kaiba!" The man sprang up from his chair. "And – Calvin! What did...? How...? Sir, I'm so sorry...!"

"No need. Calvin just got turned around while trying to find the bathroom. I thought it easiest to bring him back to you personally."

"Oh, my..." Calvin's dad was doing his best to avoid hyperventilating.

"Oh, great. Dad's doing his fish impression," Calvin muttered with disgust.

Seto touched his middle finger to his forehead as if gathering his patience to hide his sudden grin. Truly, Calvin's father did look like a fish out of water.

"I hope Calvin didn't trouble you, too much, Mr. Kaiba." The man's eyes added, "and that I still have a job."

"No trouble. Nothing broken or damaged," he said. "He's not the first child to play in the corridors of this office building," he continued by way of reassurance. "It wouldn't be right for me to name names, but one of the executives here..." Seto let his voice trail off knowing that this employee had been working here when Mokuba had been in his most exuberant 'let's pretend!' phase.

"I understand, sir," Calvin's dad said.

"Good."

The poor man nearly did his guppy impersonation again when Seto dropped to one knee to face Calvin more on a level. "Remember one thing, Calvin," Seto said. "'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' You have a rich imagination. A bit strange, but rich. Develop it properly, and it will serve you well."

Seto stood, turned, and had his hand on the doorknob before he felt the tug on his jacket.

"Calvin!" his dad called, appalled that Calvin had followed, reached out, and grabbed Seto's clothes to stop him.

"You've got to tell me who you are!" Calvin demanded. "You promised!"

"Young man, let Mr. Kaiba go this instant!"

Over Calvin's head, Seto shook his head at Calvin's father. "I did promise. And he honored his promise not to destroy anything when I brought him here from my office."

Calvin's dad dropped his face into his palm. "Your – office? Calvin, you somehow got into Mr. Kaiba's personal office?! I can't take you any...! What am I going to do with...?" He stopped his appalled mutterings and fixed his child with a steely, no-nonsense glare. "Calvin, as soon Mr. Kaiba leaves, you plant your rear in that chair," Calvin's dad pointed emphatically to the chair in front of his small desk. "and don't move a – single – muscle – until I get back!" He then looked up into Seto's face. "Uhm, sir, I've got to... That is... There is something I..."

Seto waved a hand at the distraught man, permitting him to leave. From his expression, the poor soul wanted nothing more than a moment or two in the lavatory to splash cold water on his face and gather some composure. That, or to jump off the top of the tower in abject mortification. It seemed about fifty-fifty which the man wanted to do more. Either way, it suited Seto to have one more exchange with Calvin – and it further suited him if this last exchange was not witnessed by anyone.

Seto grabbed Calvin's shoulders, scooped him up as high as the ceiling of the room permitted, and firmly deposited him in the chair Calvin's dad indicated all in a single, sweeping motion. He dropped to one knee, bringing himself eye-to-eye with Calvin and leaned in with a conspiratorial air. "Would you like to know why you didn't need a Phase Resetter or Time Ripper to return here?"

"Sure!"

"I told you I am no mere dinosaur, not even the King of all Dinosaurs, right?" Calvin nodded. "I brought you back into phase with your father, and returned you through time – myself." Seto puffed his chest out, lifted his chin, and assumed a dramatic pose. As Calvin's eyes grew huge and shiny, Seto leaned forward again and locked his eyes directly onto Calvin's. Despite his best efforts to reduce the intimidative qualities of his stare, the boy quivered a bit. "That's because I'm not a dinosaur." He paused for a moment, reaching for the right effect. He lowered his voice into a deep whisper. "I'm a dragon!"

While that pronouncement was still settling in the mind of the imaginative little boy, Seto stood, whirled, and left before the smile trying to take over his face ruined the drama of the moment.

He hoped Calvin would keep some of that incredible imagination of his. If he did, and he learned how to channel it instead of being run ragged by it, he'd be a valuable asset to a company like Kaiba Corporation when he grew up, no matter what field of study he followed. Seto heard a weird sound behind him as he stalked through the corridor of the cubicle farm. It sounded like a hiss. He turned.

Calvin stood at the open door to his dad's office, his hands hooked into claws, grinning wickedly up at Seto. "I want to be a dragon, too! Rawr!"

Seto contained his laugh, but couldn't hide his smile. Yeah, Calvin was an awesome kid, but he was sure to be as much a handful as Mokuba had been at that age. Seto didn't envy Calvin's dad – in fact, he felt a bit of sympathy for the man.

Just before he arrived at the elevator, he spoke. "Roland?"

As if by magic, the bodyguard appeared. Seto knew that his Head of Security spotted them as soon as Calvin and he appeared on Security's cameras in the corridor leading from his office, and shadowed them as he returned the child to his dad's office. "Please watch that boy until his father's work-day is over. We don't want anything bad to happen to him."

"Or to the Kaiba Corporation offices, sir?" It seemed Roland had heard about some of Calvin's exploits, too.

"Or to the offices," Seto agreed. "Make sure you don't terrorize that young dragon while you keep him, or my building, safe." Roland nodded and turned to assume this new duty wisely keeping any comments to himself.

As he waited for the elevator, Seto realized he wanted to spend time with Mokuba. It seemed like yesterday it had been Mokuba's unruly shock of black hair atop the head of the mischievous prankster roaming the corridors of Kaiba Corporation. Nowadays, Seto and Mokuba talked about business, or duel tournaments, or Mokuba's grades, or Mokuba bucking his curfew. Maybe that's why Seto was having such a hard time connecting with Mokuba about how important his safety, and letting his big brother know where he was at all times, was. When was the last time Seto had done something fun with his brother – something that Mokuba found fun, that is? Watching Seto duel might be something his younger brother enjoyed, but he was merely a passive spectator. Seto decided he wanted to do something with his brother that Mokuba wanted to do. Resolving to clear the calendar for both of them, if possible, for tomorrow, Seto glared at the too-slow elevator's lit call button. The elevator finally arrived, and the doors opened.

Seto turned once he entered the elevator car and glanced down the corridor. Roland's back was to him as the bodyguard walked toward Calvin. Seto couldn't be sure, Calvin was at the other end of the long hallway, but he thought there could be a hint of hero-worship on the boy's face. Reasoning that it couldn't do any harm, as no one but the boy could see him, Seto hooked his hands into 'dragon claws' as Calvin had, and mouthed 'Rawr!'. Distance or no, Seto clearly saw Calvin's grin. By the time Roland whirled around, only blank elevator doors met his questioning gaze.

Alone, in the elevator, Seto's grin rivaled Calvin's. "Rawr!"

–end–

– – – – –
Author's notes –

Seto is so erudite. His statement 'Imagination is more important than knowledge' is a quote from Albert Einstein. And, I have to indulge in a bit of griping. Why is it that it's Seto who is the easiest for me to imagine interacting with characters in other fandoms? Grr, Dragon-boy! Just, grr!

This isn't really a crossover between the Calvin and Hobbes and Yu-Gi-Oh! canons quite so much as placing Calvin and his dad naturally in the business world at Kaiba Corporation. Since the action is taking place there, I decided to post this entry in the Yu-Gi-Oh! section.

Reviews, comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Please feel free to send a message to me also if you see something awkward that needs to be clarified or fixed. I need all the help I can get.