Disclaimer: I own nothing involved in this story unless I invented it myself. This is written for fun, not for profit. All forms of feedback eagerly accepted. Concrit is loved the most, but everything is welcome.
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh GX
Title: Fun To Be Scared
Characters: Shou & Ghost King Pumpking
Word Count: 639||Status: One-shot
Genre: Drama, Humor||Rated: PG-13
Challenge: 31halloween: prompt #5, jack o'lantern Summary: [one-shot, 31halloween, prompt #5, jack o'lantern, Shou & Ghost King Pumpking] Pumpking wants to scare someone. Did he pick the wrong person?
Pumpking liked to scare people. He always had; it was just something that he did. Of course, with Haou's forces everywhere these days, there were less and less people that he wanted to try scaring. One of his brothers once jumped out at Haou himself.
There wasn't anything left of him. Not even a seed! And Haou hadn't even bothered to duel him. Pumpking wasn't certain what the black-armored warlord actually did, since he hadn't been there and only heard from a passing Illusion Fairy about what happened.
No, there simply weren't that many people who enjoyed a good scare anymore. It wasn't this bad with Brron. Not that the Mad King had possessed much of a sense of humor either.
Pumpking settled himself on the edge of his favorite meadow and started to close his eye. By the tilt of the comet and how much light it gave off, it was time to sleep. He'd heard legends that in other worlds, they didn't have a comet. What was it that lit their skies? Oh, right. The "sun". Such a strange word. He wondered what a sun looked like.
Vague thoughts of that nature drifting through his mind, he began to slip toward sleep. Before he fell all the way, footsteps echoed, drawing closer to him. His first reaction was merely to lay where he was and hope that whoever it was passed him by. It could well be some of Haou's warriors, searching for duelists. He wasn't a duelist; they would leave him be. He hoped.
But as they came closer, he realized there was only one set. Haou's warriors always traveled in pairs at the very least. He cracked open his eye and carefully searched the area, doing his best not to move a single piece of himself he didn't need to. Who could be coming into this area?
Then he saw: a human, or at least a human-shaped creature, one of those with one head, two arms, two legs, and no extra body parts such as wings or horns or a tail. I wonder if he'd mind being scared? There was only one that he could find out. The human drew closer, perhaps looking for his own place to rest for the night. Pumpking waited and waited, knowing that perfect moment would come...
"Do you see-" Pumpking didn't wait to find out who the human spoke to before he leaped outward, pushing himself upward with his vines, yelling with all of his might.
"Boo!"
"Steamroid!"
That wasn't exactly what Pumpking expected. The human fell back, reached for a deck the pumpkin monster hadn't seen, and now a train monster leaped toward him, wheels up and ready to fight.
"Wait, wait!" Pumpking bounced backward, shaking his head. "I didn't mean to hurt you!" Scare him, yes, but not hurt him! Not even humans enjoyed being scared anymore and it was all Haou's fault! What a monster!
The human eyed him, an Ojama Yellow floating down from somewhere to sit on the human's shoulder. "What do you want? Who are you?"
"I am Ghost King Pumpking!" The gigantic one-eyed jack o'lantern rose up on his vines as high as he could, then sank back down, tips of his vines twitching. "I just wanted to scare you a little. What's wrong with that?" He shot a look at them. "You don't work for Haou, do you?" Because if they did and he'd offended them, he was probably going to end up wishing that he'd had the same fate as his brother.
The two of them exchanged a glance before they looked back at Pumpking. "No, we don't." The human replied, sending his gigantic monster away with a wave of his hand. "Maybe we should talk."
Pumpking relaxed. At least he wasn't going to get made into a pumpkin pie.
The End
Note: I originally posted this back in October 2012, but now am reposting these ficlets separately instead of as a collection, in order to have each listed under their proper character and rating.