~*You Can't Get Ye Flask*~

These were the sort of silly things life was worth fighting for.

~*X*~

Hurrying (rather heroically he might add) down the long, dark corridor, Teddie the Magnificent waved his fiery torch, illuminating the bleakest corners of the room he had just trotted into. Fortunately there were no enemies in the chamber, just blank stone walls and what may or may not have been blood stains. Nodding his blonde head, Teddie prepared to backtrack since he was in a dead-end, but just then something caught his eye. Intrigued, he walked over to an opaque gray flask resting to the southwest. He tried to pick it up, but to no avail. It defied his efforts.

"Hmm…" Stroking his chin, the pseudo-boy looked left, then right. "It's the only thing in here, so it's got to be a clue of some sort…" He attempted all sorts of methods regarding retrieving the flask; however it seemed determined to remain where it was. Growling crossly, he was just wondering whether or not he'd have to leave and come back later when he heard a voice.

"Hey, Teddie. What are you up to?"

"Yosuke!" Teddie rounded on him, eyes wide and imploring. "You've gotta help me, I can't pick this thing up!"

Yosuke raised his eyebrows. "You can't pick up a flask?" He repeated slowly.

"Yeah! I mean look at it! It's suspicious!" He pointed at it frantically. "It's just got 'secret' written all over it!"

"You're just not trying hard enough. Here, let me see." Yosuke brushed past him, rubbing his hands together before attempting to tug it off the ground. The flask refused to budge.

"I already tried it like that," Teddie complained. "I wish Sensei were here…He'd know what to do for sure…"

"Ugh…Grr…What the…?" Yosuke scratched his head, taking a step back. "This is ridiculous! What, is this thing cursed or something? Did you notice anything when you first came in here?"

"Nothing! It's just an empty room!"

"Well, have you picked up anything else lately?"

"Of course! How do you think I'm holding this torch?" Teddie harrumphed. "Go get Sensei; he'll know what to do."

Yosuke looked affronted. "We don't need to bother him for something like this!"

"We're on a tight schedule! If this torch burns out while we're down here, we'll get eaten by shrews!"

"Don't worry, torches usually last a few—wait what? Did you say shrews?"

"I think it was shrews…But it's true! If you're alone in the darkness you get eaten!"

"Well crap…" Yosuke sighed. "Do you really want me to call Partner over this?"

"Yes! Now hurry before we get eaten alive!"

Grumbling, he stepped away with his cell phone in hand as he dialed Souji's number. Teddie resumed his valiant efforts to retrieve the flask; however he would soon have to change his title to Teddie the Magnificently Confused because the accursed thing wasn't moving an inch.

After what felt like hours of waiting, someone showed up. It just wasn't who they were expecting.

"What's going on here?"

"Kanji, what are you doing here?" Teddie sounded exasperated. He flopped down against the wall wearily, exhausted by his futile endeavors to move the flask. It was laughing at him, he knew it was. "Didn't you call Sensei, Yosuke?"

However it was Kanji who answered. "Yeah, but Sempai was with me, Rise, and Naoto helping us with our homework…Well, helping Rise and I, Naoto didn't really need any—"

"That's not important! Can you move the flask?" Teddie interrupted.

"Move the flask…? Oh it's one of those things!" Kanji approached the flask, hesitating as he thought his next action through for once. "Man, I haven't seen one of these in forever…"

"When you're done with your trip down memory lane, we're burning torchlight! We're going to be eaten by shrews if we're still in here when it goes out!" Teddie was eyeing the flickering fire uneasily, but fortunately it still had a decent amount of fuel to burn.

"You got any idea what to do? We've been at it for a few minutes with no luck," Yosuke said with a grimace. "Where are Rise, Naoto, and Partner if you guys were all together?"

"Oh, they're on their way." Kanji looked uncomfortable. He, too, was unable to shift the flask.

Teddie's quick eyes missed nothing. "Oh is that a blush I spot? Something happened between you and Nao-chan again, didn't it? Is that why you hurried over here so fast?"

"N-No! Whaddaya talkin' 'bout? There was nothin', alright?"

However, Teddie evidently didn't value his life anymore because he continued gleefully. "Was she standing too close? Oh, oh, or did she say something to you that—"

"Don't make me kick your punk ass up one hall and down the other!"

"Y-You wouldn't commit violence here would you? How would that be fair to Yosuke? R-Right, Yosuke?"

Yosuke, however, wasn't paying attention. He was clawing at his hair with a frustrated expression. "This is ridiculous…" He blew an aggravated sigh. "Well, here's Rise and Naoto. What do you two make of this?"

Rise looked perplexed whilst Naoto began pacing in circles.

"Wait, why are we trying to pick up the flask?" Rise asked after a moment. "Why's it so important?"

"First law of exploring, Rise-chan!" Teddie exclaimed, pointing dramatically at the flask. "If there's a single item alone in an otherwise empty room, it's got to be special!"

Naoto tentatively grabbed the flask and tried to lift it, but to no avail. She didn't attempt it again; instead she faced Teddie with shrewdly narrowed eyes. "I'm going to have to ask you to reiterate everything you have done since first entering this room," she said.

"E-Everything? We've been in here for nearly twenty minutes!"

"That's not very long at all."

"Let's just wait until Partner arrives. Where is he, anyway?" Yosuke asked the assembly at large.

Kanji shied away from Naoto, standing a little behind Teddie with a faintly red face. "Dunno, he was with Naoto and Rise last."

"Oh, Sempai's downstairs calling Chie and Yukiko!" Rise supplied. "He figured since we're all already here, we might as well invite them too and have a group outing!"

"It's gonna get pretty crowded in here," Yosuke grumbled at the same time as Naoto said, "I suppose we should wait for the others to arrive, to save Teddie from repeating himself. That is, if we can spare the time."

"So long as no one tries to pick up the flask, we should have plenty of—" Teddie's eyes became huge. "No!" He wailed. "Kanji, stop!"

Kanji was practically blowing smoke as he frantically tried to pick up the flask. "Crap!" He hissed. "Stupid thing won't move!"

"Hey, the torch is getting pretty low…" Rise observed worriedly.

"I'm going to guess that that is a bad thing?" Naoto walked over to Kanji. "It might be best for you to refrain from attempting to retrieve the flask for now."

"Oh, uh…" Rubbing the back of his neck, Kanji scooted away. "Right. Sorry."

"Great we've probably got three more tries at best before the torch goes out." Yosuke made a face. "You think between Naoto-kun and Partner we'll get it done?"

"I will certainly give it my best shot." Naoto smiled somewhat wryly. "However my options are running thin since you all seemed to have tried the most obvious methods, as well as some…unorthodox ones." She eyed Kanji as she added that last bit.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time…Didn't know we had limited tries, sorry." Kanji hunched his shoulders.

Teddie looked back and grinned hugely. "Sensei! Yuki-chan! Chie-chan!"

"What's so interesting that you're all standing around in a circle like that?" Souji inquired as he neared, the girls on either side. He took the situation in at a glance. "Oh, I see…Good thing Yukiko and Chie were nearby, huh?"

"We were shopping," Yukiko put in. "So what's going on?"

"This is going to sound really dumb, but we can't pick up the flask. Seriously." Yosuke's tone was rather self-deprecating. "We've probably got three tries left before the torch goes out and we all die because of shrews."

"The shrews!" Teddie moaned. "Sensei, do something!"

"Hold on, shrews?" Chie echoed incredulously. "You're kidding, right? You are kidding?"

"Shrews? Are they fluffy?" Kanji, naturally.

Teddie shook his head. "Uh, no. They're scrawny minions of the castle lord! They eat people alive and they're only afraid of firelight!"

"Who says we have to pick up the flask?" Chie took a step forward. "We can always just…hi-ya!"

The flask didn't seem at all bothered by Chie's attempt to destroy it.

"So now we've got two tries. Great work, Chie. Really." Yosuke rolled his eyes.

"H-Hey, how was I supposed to know it'd not work? You probably wasted a zillion tries already!"

"Teddie, will you please recap how you ended up in this room? Even the slightest clues could be vital," Naoto requested.

"You just might be looking into this too hard," Rise suggested. "I mean…It seems to all be in the execution. There's a trick to it."

"I have to agree." Yukiko appeared to be absolutely lost but she was still watching the proceedings with an interested air. "What do you think, Souji-kun?"

Souji didn't say anything for quite a while as the others continued to bicker. "Hey, Naoto-kun?"

"Yes?"

"So we can't pick it up, we can't destroy it, what's left?"

"All manner of options. Things of this nature are rather open-ended."

"We're going to have to eliminate the nonsensical choices then."

Teddie was completely lost as Naoto and Souji went into a long debate regarding the current situation. "That's my Sensei!" He crossed his arms and nodded firmly. "Always working out the best course of action."

"Seems like overkill, but I've got to agree." Yosuke glanced at the others. "Should we just leave them to it?"

"I actually don't know what's going on here," Yukiko said with a faint giggle.

"S'okay Yukiko, I'm completely lost too." Chie tossed one of her hands. "Wanna go get something to eat?"

"Oh not here you will! You'll eat me out of house and home, Teddie already eats a ton, and with you I'll be lucky to find a crumb!"

"Come on Yosuke, would you really make Yukiko and I go all the way to the shopping district just to get something to eat? I'd let you eat at my place!"

Rise and Kanji meanwhile were listening in on Souji's and Naoto's intense discussion.

"Sempai's so smart!" Rise crooned. "You'll have to work a lot harder to win Naoto-kun, you know."

"W-Win her? Sempai's not into Naoto, is he?"

"I don't know; he doesn't seem to be into anyone really."

"Well, uh, you'll have to work harder too then."

Rise looked aghast. "Oh, you're right!"

"We think we've got it," Souji announced, crossing over to Teddie with Naoto in tow. "Want me to do it? Or do you want to?"

"Oh, oh, I'll do it! Tell me what to do!" Teddie listened intently, and then he bent down.

The group held their breath.

Someone listening outside the door would have thought cannons had gone off in the room from the noise they were all making.

"You did it, Teddie-kun!" Yukiko said, clapping delightedly.

"It wasn't me, it was Sensei and Naoto." Teddie smugly waved the flask around regardless.

"Mostly Sempai, I'm afraid. He has more experience in this than I do." Naoto inclined her head towards Souji. "Care to tell them the trick?"

"The wording was 'get hold on flask'. Awkward but most old games like this usually are."

Teddie pushed away from the computer desk, sighing in defeat. "We should have called for Sensei much sooner!"

"Huh?" Yosuke's brows furrowed. "What's wrong? We got the stupid flask, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but the torch goes out in one more command input. And then—"

"The shrews?" Kanji guessed.

"The shrews," Teddie confirmed glumly.

Rise shrugged. "It's way too nice a day to be sitting around inside playing video games anyways! Let's go out, Teddie!"

"Go…out?" Teddie brightened instantly. "As in you…and me?"

"That was a video game?" Yukiko seemed baffled.

"Oh yeah, one of those really old text-based ones, y'know from like ages ago?" Chie told her. "What's one of those doing on your laptop, Yosuke?"

"Eh, it was already downloaded on there when I got it…"

Souji reached over and closed the laptop lid. "How about we get some ramen? My treat?"

"Chivalrous as always, Sempai." Naoto adjusted her hat. "That sounds perfect."

"Okay, but we all have to come back later!" Teddie declared as he followed his Sensei out of Yosuke's room.

"What for?" Yosuke asked, looking like he was already expecting the worse.

"That was just the first area! I hear you've got to beat a dragon to escape the dungeon and I don't even have a weapon!"

Author's Note: A random goofy one-shot that's the product of me chatting with my bro. The game Teddie was playing was a spoof of "Zork", try Googling it. Apologies on any OOC, I haven't played P4 in a bit.