Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this fanfic unless I created it myself. Anything that I did create was inspired by something owned by someone else. This is done for fun and entertainment, not for profit.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Lucky
Friendship: Juudai & Yubel, Juudai & Hane Kuriboh
Word Count: 2,270
Genre: Friendship, Adventure||Rated: PG-13
Summary: They say that Hane Kuriboh is lucky. A long time ago, Juudai found out just how right that was.

"I'm going to find whoever did this, strip the skin from their hides, and sew it on again backwards!" Prince Juudai declared, staring down at the ragged remains of what had once been a Kuriboh. His fists clenched hard, trembling, and Yubel placed one hand on his shoulder in an attempt to get him to relax. His control over his powers was weak and wavering at best, and incinerating most of the forest wasn't a good idea in her opinion.

"Finding them won't be easy," Yubel warned him. Juudai shrugged, faintest flickers of fury still burning through his blood.

"Finding them is what matters, Yubel. They're not going to get away with this." How could anyone do something like this?

She leaned over the body and sniffed. If Juudai wanted to find the poachers, then she would make certain that happened. She managed to focus around the fresh blood, searching for other scents. One scent in particular, that she was uniquely suited to find: the scent of darkness, twisted and corrupt.

"This way." She spread her wings, skimming just above the surface of the grass. Kuragari's Great Forest was hard to maneuver through, but Yubel refused to let such mundane things as 'grass' and 'bushes' get in her way.

Juudai followed, silent in his hunting gear, his large brown eyes still as furious as they could be and not reflect new-minted gold. She'd only seen that once or twice, in situations far more dire than this, and she didn't care to see it again.

Neither of them made any more sound than they had to. Instead of splashing through a river, Yubel hovered across it, and Juudai leaped, landing on the other side with only the softest of thuds. Both of them stopped still and waited, listening for any sign of their prey.

Juudai began to open his mouth, though every thought about what he was going to say vanished as soon as Yubel gestured toward him. She tilted her head this way and that, then gestured again, indicating for him to come closer to her. He stepped over with great care, placing his feet on rocks when he could, to avoid making any noise or leave any tracks.

As soon as he was within reach of her, Yubel wrapped one hand around his and spread one wing before him in a protective gesture. She leaned her head over and murmured in the softest tone she could manage, "Their scent is strong there." With her other hand, she indicated another stretch of woodlands.

Whoever these poachers are, they know the land. Juudai didn't like that. Not that he liked poachers to begin with, but those who knew the land and knew where their targets were likely to be were the worst, in his opinion.

It wasn't going to matter in the span of a few minutes, however. If they truly knew and cared about the land and its inhabitants, they wouldn't be doing this in the first place.

With as much care as possible, he and Yubel crept closer to the thicket. It was much like the one where he'd found the other trap. He couldn't scent any fresh blood, but the wind had turned the wrong way, and it was always possible this trap just hadn't caught any prey yet.

"Careful there!" The gruff voice sounded just as Juudai put his foot down across the grassline. Yubel vanished into the trees, moving around behind them, ready to pin the two between herself and Juudai. "This one's still alive!"

"Whoa! It's a lively one, too!" A second voice, a bit deeper. "Not a bad prize here. Might not be able to get the fur, but I know some people who'd pay a good price for one like this."

"Maybe we should cut the wings off first. They're hard enough to control without them."

A Hane Kuriboh? Those were rare, and said to be good luck if you could so much as catch a glimpse of one! Juudai's hand fell to the sword at his waist. He might have spared their lives before, if only to imprison them. The odds of that dropped with every passing moment.

Yubel tightened her grip on his hand; he wasn't surprised at all to see the fury in her eyes. She stood in two worlds; she'd been born human, but now had the power and form of one of the most powerful of monsters. Poachers like this considered the intelligent non-humans, such as Kuriboh, Hane Kuriboh, or Yubel herself, to be worthless, on the same level as mere animals.

They were about to found out how very wrong they were.

"Stuff it in the bag before it gets away!" The first voice cried out, just audible over a fierce rustling that Juudai realized a bit too late was the beating of wings. "I can't hold it that much longer!"

More rustling, then several sharp words that would have been quite at home coming from the sailors that frequented the lower docks and taverns on the west side of the city. "It's getting away!"

Juudai didn't have a chance to move any further before something brown and fuzzy smashed through the trees and knocked into his chest, sending him back a few paces. He raised one hand to try to balance the creature, and smiled at the sight of those large black eyes.

"Hey there. You don't have to be afraid anymore." Juudai smiled, a quick slash of an expression across his face as the two poachers he'd heard came crashing along after their potential prey. "They aren't going to hurt you ever again."

One of the poachers, thin and dark-haired, carried a bag that Juudai presumed was what they had been trying to stuff Hane Kuriboh inside of. "Hey, kid. Let us have the fuzzball."

The other one, a little better fed and with thinning, reddish hair, carried a sharp knife in one hand, held as if he knew how to use it. "You want to do what my friend says. This part of the woods can get dangerous if you don't listen to people."

"You're right." Juudai's smile widened just a little as he ran a soothing hand across Hane Kuriboh's fur. Monsters like this didn't speak like humans or humanoid ones did, but he didn't need them to in order to understand them. "So listen to me. If you poach in these woods, or anywhere else in Kuragari, ever again, you'll end up being the ones sold for a profit."

The two glanced at one another, then back at him. "Kid, you don't know who you're dealing with."

"On the contrary. You are the ones who don't know who you're dealing with." Yubel landed behind them, her wings spread wide and claws ready to do battle.

"What the hell are you?" The redheaded poacher recoiled from Yubel, eyes wide and a sudden spray of sweat appearing on his forehead.

The other one shook his head and tried to back up. "I think we need to get out of here. I know who that is, and we are in deep trouble."

Juudai's lips widened in something that wasn't quite a smile. "You are."

"We're sorry, Your Highness." The dark-haired poacher dropped the bag. "We'll get rid of the other traps."

His companion stared at him and began to reach for the bag. "You have got to be crazy! What are you talking about, 'Your Highness'?"

"That's Prince Juudai! The King's son! He's the only person who has a guardian like that." The dark-haired one gestured with a sweaty palm toward Yubel. "It can't be hurt or killed, and it'll do anything to protect the prince, so we'd better get out of here, fast!"

"The prince, hm?" Pale blue eyes glanced from Yubel to Juudai and back again, and then he flipped the knife he held around so he held it by the blade. "Wonder how much we could get for your hide."

"No, don't!" The first one reached out toward him, but it was too late. The blade already shot toward Juudai, with too much speed behind it for even Yubel to get there in time.

Kuri-kuri! Hane Kuriboh shot up from where it had nestled in the crook of Juudai's arm and spread its wings out defensively, though its whole mass couldn't have covered most of Juudai's chest. The knife cut through the creature, which disappeared in a spray of light. Said spray flew toward Juudai and wrapped around him in the single heartbeat before the knife itself impacted with his flesh.

"Juudai!" Yubel didn't wait for him to hit the ground before she struck the poacher, laying his throat open with a single strike. The other one cowered back, all color having drained from him, but she paid him no mind as she darted across the clearing.

Her eyes widened as Juudai…did not fall. The knife quivered in his shoulder and he reached up to touch it with wondering fingers. "It doesn't even hurt," he said, turning to look at her. Yubel eyed the blade, then leaned in and sniffed the area.

"There's magic here," Yubel declared before she tugged the blade out of his arm. "You weren't hurt at all."

"I noticed that." Juudai replied, his gaze flickering here and there. "Where's Hane Kuriboh?" What had been that…that thing that it had done? He knew that Kuribohs and their like existed and that they had some kind of magical powers, but he'd never bothered to learn just what they could do. He had enough he was doing just learning to control his own powers.

Yubel shook her head. "It vanished before the knife hit you." Her eyes narrowed in thought. "I've heard that the power of Kuribohs relates to sacrificing itself in some fashion."

Juudai's attention darted over to the dead poacher, then to the live one. "I could have you killed right now, just for being his partner." Dark fury bit through his words, and the poacher backed up against the nearest tree, trying to get whiter and not able to. "What did you think you were doing, poaching Kuribohs?"

"The hair…it brings a good price…" The other muttered, his eyes drawn back to his dead companion. "We needed it."

Juudai drew in a sharp breath. "You wanted Kuriboh hair. They shed every year. We have people who come through this part of the woods and gather it up to sell it. You don't have to kill them for it! That's part of why they live here. My father made the pact with them thirty years ago. They live here in peace and we're allowed to gather their shed hair every year."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, staring at the poacher. "Get out. Get out of the forest. Get out of my kingdom. And if I ever hear of you poaching so much as a fern, you'll regret the day that you were ever born."

In moments, all that remained in the clearing was a cooling dead body, Yubel, and Juudai. She wrapped her arms and wings around him and ran her fingers through his hair.

"He died for me, Yubel." Juudai's voice quivered a little, and she understood why. He was about to say something else when a bright light formed only a few inches away.

Kuri! From the light there appeared …Hane Kuriboh! He trilled with delight, fluttering around both of them, and Juudai listened, trying to understand what he said.

"Oh! You can prevent someone from being hurt, if you sacrifice yourself for them. But only for a little while, I guess." Juudai couldn't stop himself from smiling nevertheless. The powers of the monster kind were amazing!

Hane Kuriboh trilled again and cuddled against Juudai. Juudai petted the creature, enjoying the warm hair beneath his hands. "We can take you back to your family now if you want?" Juudai asked, though a part of him didn't really want to see Hane Kuriboh go. In the few minutes they'd known each other, something amazing had happened. Juudai didn't want to say good-bye.

The response he got wasn't what he expected, but there was no way that Juudai was going to argue with it. "You want to stay with us?" He glanced at Yubel, who only shrugged, a hint of a smile on her lips. "If you're sure!"

Another trill reassured him that yes, this was exactly what Hane Kuriboh wanted, and Juudai grinned even more. "We'll have to send someone to get rid of that," he said, indicating the dead poacher, "and find the family of that other Kuriboh so they can bury it properly. And get rid of those other traps too."

He could hear what sounded like more Kuribohs swishing their way through the woods, probably headed toward the trap that he and Yubel had found earlier. He hoped this wouldn't get the flock angry; the colony had been established here in order to protect them from poachers in other lands, after all.

Yubel put her arm around him once again, and Juudai leaned against her, Hane Kuriboh fluttering above him. He watched the flying fuzzball with a gentle smile. "Hey, partner," he called up to it as they started through the woods. "Glad to have you around."

Hane Kuriboh trilled back at him, a sound of pure delight, and guided them to the rest of the flock's gathering. They say that Hane Kuribohs are lucky. I guess they are. He was for me, anyway. I hope he doesn't ever have to do that again, though.

And together, they went on.

The End