Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. Toei Animation does.

Summary: Rika catches Takato and Ryo doing something quite scandalous. The Digimon Queen is NOT amused.

The Cheating Game

Not once in all his life had Takato Matsuki felt such an intense fear; not when the Tamers had battled Zhuqiaomon or when he had almost lost Guilmon… not even that one time when he had made that science project for school, which had gone awry and almost burned his parents' bakery to the ground. It was a kind of fear that made his whole body go numb, then slowly the panic unfurled from the pit of his stomach and spread underneath his skin, igniting in his veins and making his blood pump wildly as he stared in a hypnotized trance into the eyes of one red-faced, furious-looking Rika Nonaka.

"So…" the girl said in a scarily calm voice as she took in the scene before her, "so…"

"Ah, ah, Rika, I can explain," Takato stammered, well aware of how guilty he and Ryo must look all sweaty and breathing heavily.

"Explain? What is there to explain?" Rika said, her facial features darkening in a dangerous manner. "I think I can grasp a hold on the situation perfectly."

"Now, Rika, you have to understand," Ryo tried to reason with her. "We were bored and—"

"Oh, you were bored? Is that why I find you two doing this IN MY OWN ROOM?!" Rika shrieked, the thunderstorm that had been brewing, finally bursting overhead.

"Well, geez, it's not like we could have just done it in the living room," Takato said, his expression appearing like that of an admonished puppy. "The grownups are all in there sharing parental concerns about us going off to fight the D-Reaper—it'd be kind of awkward…"

"So you just decided to pick MY ROOM out of all the empty ones available?! Did you have some subconscious desire to get caught? Did that make everything more interesting, more passionate knowing I could walk in on you two cheating hearts any second?" Rika accused, practically spitting blue fury.

"Now, Rika, come on, that's a little over the top calling us that," Ryo said. "It's not like we ever signed a legally-binding contract to—"

"I mean, what is this? Some kind of last-minute, end-of-the-world fling?! Have you no shame? No decency? No moral whatsoever? I could expect this sort of thing from King over there, but you, Gogglehead—I thought for sure you had some smidgeon of fidelity in your small pea-brain!" Rika yelled, whirling her wrath upon the two hapless boys on full power.

"It's—it's not that bad really," Takato spoke up timidly. "You should try it out sometime, Rika. Ryo's really good at it!"

Rika's eyes narrowed into slits and the girl balled her hands into fists at her side as she said in a low, threatening tone, "I'm giving you two to the count of three to get that eye-sore atrocity out of my sight or I'm calling Renamon here to dice you into jagged pieces with her Diamond Storm and then I'm vacuuming up your remains and dumping you in the trash, which is where cheaters like yourselves belong!"

There was a flurry of movement as the two boys scrambled to do the girl's bidding, sweeping up the cards from their game and pocketing them as quickly as possible. Then after everything had been cleared, they stood in place looking for all the world like two people about to be sentenced to the gallows for high treason.

"If I EVER see you two conducting such a vulgar display of BLASPHEMY again, I'm going to wipe your existence off the face of this planet!" Rika swore vehemently, before snapping out her hand palm-upward expectantly as she leveled a cool violet-colored gaze at them.

Takato opened his mouth to protest but was quickly elbowed in the side by Ryo who shook his head emphatically to keep quiet and do as she said. With great reluctance, the two boys pulled out their deck of cards and placed them into Rika's waiting grasp.

The girl smirked satisfactorily at them and turned triumphantly on her heels, marching swiftly from the room to dispose of the nefarious objects… possibly with a blow-torch.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," Ryo sighed as he followed her out.

"What's Rika got against Yu-Gi-Oh anyway?" Takato asked confused.

"Digimon Queen," Ryo stated as if that explained everything.

"Ah, I see," Takato said, kind of getting it and tugging at his damp sweatshirt, which was sticky with sweat from the heat of the room. The boy happily breathed in the cool wintry air that blew into his face the moment he stepped outside. "Rika really ought to cut down on the heating—it's like an oven in there."

The End

A/N: Muwahahaha, so how many of you thought it was something else they were doing and how many of you caught on way early that it wasn't what it looked like?^w~ To those who didn't get it: Rika's pissed off at finding Takato and Ryo playing the Yu-Gi-Oh card game. As she is labeled the Digimon Queen in the show and the only card game ever played in Tamers is Digimon (and the fact that she basically eats, breathes and sleeps playing the Digimon card game), I figured she'd think playing another card game would be downright blasphemous! And she's even more angry at Takato because he's usually always such a Digi-fanatic always talking about the show and stuff. XD

Good golly, almighty, I get all my digific ideas around midnight, and this has to be my shortest fic ever. Gah! Well, hooray for you all! Did you enjoy it? I love to hear what your favorite parts were! Reviews are soul food for the author and the only source of nourishment we get for writing!