Disclaimer/Note: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, or any of the characters in this story. They are the property of Kazuki Takahashi, and who ever he sold his soul to. I am not making any money off this story; it is being written solely for my own amusement, and the amusement of others who read this crap. No copyright infringement is intended. This story and all original concepts within it are original (duh) and therefore belong to me. If you steal anything, I will sacrifice you to ancient Shadow Gods. I had some help on this story and on the creation of the item list for the challenge, so I would like to thank my friends Sarah, Lindsey, Chris, Elsi, Kay, Ali, Delle and Mango for all of their ideas. This story was written as an entry for the Fanfic-Alliance's item challenge on DA. Enjoy.
Of Pudding and Rabbits
It always snowed in Domino. Come winter time, the snow would fall all through the night, leaving a thick blanket of white on the rough city. It made everything look soft and new. The world looked beautiful and innocent whenever it snowed. That was one of the reasons that Mokuba was outside right now, shivering in his large winter coat and sturdy leather gloves. Winter heralded the arrival of two great and important events: Christmas and. . .
A hard packed ball of white zipped by his head, and the dark-haired boy ducked behind the wall of his frozen fortress. "Your aim is terrible, Yuugi! Quick, Ryou; ready the rabbits!"
"I don't support the slaughtering of innocents, Mokuba, especially when you use them for ammunition."
. . .The return of the annual Snow Wars.
"Ryou. . ." Mokuba practically whined the name, looking to his pale teammate with pleading eyes. "They're made out of frozen water, okay? They're not alive, so can you please stop saying that I'm killing them?"
The white-haired boy simply sniffled, handing over an oddly shaped snowball. This snowball was an oval with a flat bottom, and two lumps pointed up in what looked to be ears. Mokuba quickly broke those bumps off, smoothing the head of the snow rabbit in order to make it more aero-dynamic. He then stood, launching the bunny over the fortress wall and ducking back down behind it when the opposite team began throwing their own snowballs. There was a shout as Mokuba's attack landed, slamming one of the other boys in the face.
"Ow! Shit, Mokuba, that hurt! You gotta stop freezing those things the day before. . ."
"Stop complaining, Jounouchi. You know that I always have a home-field advantage," the youngest of them retorted smugly, brushing back his long black hair. Jounouchi let out a derisive snort, but the sound did not carry that far. Yuugi nudged his blond friend playfully, whispering something as he pointed towards Mokuba's fort.
Honda was coming up behind the home team slowly, the crunching of his footsteps masked by the sound of Jounouchi's continued complaints:
"I think I'm bleeding, Mokuba---!"
Three steps left, and he could take the team captain hostage. Ryou would immediately surrender without a leader.
"You broke my friggin' nose, you little brat---!"
Two. . .
"I'm gonna kill you when this is over---!"
One. . .
"Would you just shut up alre---Ahh!" Mokuba screamed as he was lifted from his crouched position and thrown over Honda's shoulder.
"The sneak-attack was a success, guys; I got him!" Honda hollered over to his teammates. Yuugi and Jounouchi came out from their hiding places behind their own defense wall, cheering and congratulating the tall brunet. "Victory is ours!"
"Huzzah!"
"Put me down, damn it!"
Honda complied with a laugh, dropping the young Kaiba end-first into a pile of freshly made snow rabbits. Ryou groaned, looking up to the clear blue sky with a hopeless sigh. He raised his empty hands in a show of submission. There went all of his hard work, destroyed for the pleasure of the masses.
. . .Bunny-killers.
"Alright, we've won," Jounouchi said, jogging over to help Mokuba get back on his feet. "Do we get a prize now, or something?"
"Forget it, Jounouchi; all I want is to get inside before my fingers fall off," Yuugi emphasized his point with a shiver, rubbing his gloved hands together in an attempt to create some vague warmth. Mokuba nodded to show his agreement, brushing the snow from his butt and the back of his thighs. The blond sighed absently, slightly disappointed that they would not be rewarded for all of their efforts. Together, they all headed back into the mansion, tracking snow through the doorway to be spread across the kitchen floor.
Once inside, cabinets and drawers flew open as the boys searched for snack food. They laughed as their scavenger's hunt continued, and, at one point, Yuugi posed a curious question while checking the refrigerator:
"Hey, Mokuba. . .what's in that blue Tupperware container in the back?"
"Huh?" the teen looked up from his friendly scuffle over a half-eaten bag of Cheetos®. "Oh, that. I don't know, but it's been there ever since Nii-sama fired our last cook." – his voiced dropped a little, like he was afraid of being overheard by someone other than his companions. – "She was a witch."
Jounouchi laughed nervously, his mouth suddenly dry. He coughed to cover his awkwardness, and quickly grabbed a soda from the counter. "A witch? Are you sure?"
"Hell yes, I'm sure!" Mokuba countered defensively, prying the bag from Honda's greedy hands as he used it to gesture towards the door leading to the cellar. "She did all sorts of weird magic stuff down there! There's probably a gateway to the underworld, or something, there now."
Ryou let out a muffled squeak of fear from behind his hand, and Yuugi echoed the sound while gripping the golden Puzzle that hung from his neck as though it was a charm to ward off evil. Jounouchi was nowhere near as dignified; he yelped at the mention of the underworld, and rushed to hide behind Honda. The tall brunet just rolled his eyes and kept eating.
"You guys don't honestly believe that noise, do you?" he asked incredulously, glancing over at the door. "Mokuba's obviously making it up---"
"I am not!"
Again, the tall brunet rolled his eyes, this time coupling the action with an exasperated sigh, and began to walk towards the cellar door. He jerked the door open, peering down the old wooden staircase into the darkness below. Yuugi and Ryou jumped at the creak of rusted hinges, and clung to each other. Mokuba stood his ground defiantly, if somewhat shakily; meanwhile, Jounouchi cowered behind the table. At first, nothing happened.
Then, without warning, the refrigerator shuddered violently.
"What the---?" Honda walked away from the cellar staircase, his long strides carrying him in front of the convulsing appliance, reaching out with one hand as if to open it. Mokuba opened his mouth to tell the tall brunet to stop, but it was too late. A hideous light burst forth from deep within the cellar, and the refrigerator door flew open.
And Honda was nowhere to be seen, but on the floor in front of the now opened refrigerator lay a softly steaming pile of cloth. Resting on top, amidst the yelling and fearful cries of the other boys, lay a large, red. . .stuffed lobster.
"Oh, no!" Ryou shrieked in horror, hiding his face from the gruesome sigh. Mokuba clenched his fists at his side, the shock and horror of what had just happened melting away in a violent rage that shook his small frame.
"Why. . .why Honda?" he asked the question bitterly, not expecting an answer. "He was only an innocent bit-character; what did he ever do to deserve this?"
Jounouchi stood from behind the table, empowered by his friend's untimely demise. He shared Mokuba's feelings on the matter, but it would do little to help the situation. So, instead of rushing to the lobster's aid, he waited, silently fuming, and watched the refrigerator for its next move.
The appliance burbled happily, as if pleased with this turn of events; the door remained open as something from the back of the refrigerator slowly oozed out the front, dark and hideously lumpy. There were gasps all around while the. . .creature dripped onto the tiles in terrible blobs. Ryou promptly fainted, his delicate sensibilities overloaded by the sight before them. Rising up to the ceiling and towering about them all was. . .
"Pudding!?"
Indeed, the creature that had spawned from the back of Mokuba's refrigerator strongly resembled the contents of a bowl of pudding gone horribly wrong. Deadly so, as Honda had just proven.
"Quick, everyone! Head for the stairs!" Mokuba shouted above the pudding's ferocious roar. They all ran out of the kitchen, leaving Ryou and the Honda-lobster to their fate. Jounouchi reached the bottom of the stairs first, thanks to his significantly longer legs. It was reassuring, in a way, for him to know that he only had to outrun two midgets in order to reach safety.
"Wh. . .what now, Mokuba?" Yuugi asked breathlessly, rubbing at his face. Apparently, as he had been running, the Puzzle had bounced up off his chest and smacked him square in the eye. Perhaps it was his other half's way of calling him a sissy for abandoning two of his friends. But they were only bit-characters, Yuugi tried to explain through their supernatural link.
"That pudding has declared war on us!" Mokuba brought his fist down hard on the railing, wincing slightly in the aftermath. "So, we need to take the high ground, as it'll be easier to defend. Then, we'll bombard its desserty badness and destroy it with out superior fire power!"
"Uh. . .Mokuba, this isn't exactly Halo, you know. We don't have any fire power, just this cheese-grater I grabbed from the counter on my way out."
Mokuba's eyes gleamed brightly from beneath the fall of his dark bangs as he swatted aside the cheese-grater that Jounouchi held up, his mouth curling into an arrogant smirk a la Death-T. With one hand resting at a jaunty angle on his hip, he pointed to the upstairs rooms with his other. The two other boys experienced a sudden sinking feeling of dread.
"But we have windows and balconies, and you know what that means. . ."
They groaned as if on cue.
"Yuugi, Jounouchi: ready the rabbits!"
-----
As it would turn out, it took the pudding a long, long time to get anywhere. Because of this, Mokuba, Jounouchi, and Yuugi had time to fortify their position at the top of the stairs. They had taken all of the pillows from Mokuba's room – and his blanket – and created a barrier in the event that the pudding reached them. Besides, pillow forts are fun to build.
Jounouchi had also stolen the mini-fridge from Seto's study, which they had emptied to use as a storage unit for the snow-bunny army. Yuugi was stationed on the balcony in the room down the hall, diligently manufacturing their ammunition. He had showed amazing bunny-making potential while Mokuba explained the secret to packing the snow. Thus, he was on the balcony while Jounouchi sucked nitrous oxide from a can of WhipCream® that he yoinked from the mini-fridge.
"Here it comes, Jounouchi," Mokuba whispered, twitching the ends of his large black mustache. Yuugi had asked earlier why Mokuba was wearing it, since it was obviously fake, and had gotten a rather straight forward answer: all commanders have mustaches, which meant that he needed to get one and fast. "Fire away!"
The pudding was oozing over the first step when Jounouchi unleashed the first volley of snow rabbits with a yell, frozen water whizzing through the air before smacking into the floor. Only two or three actually hit the pudding, plunging below its inky surface and increasing its mass. It burbled strangely, the noise slightly more irate than when they had heard it before in the kitchen. From with its. ..stomach region – at least, Mokuba thought it looked like it would be about where a stomach might go – something small and white was flung out at them, shot like a cannon ball. It hit a pillow with a squeak, identifying itself as a real, live. . .
Fluffy bunny.
Mokuba cradled the unconscious bunny in his arms, his eyes filling with tears as he came to a shocking realization. This was no ordinary bunny.
"Oh God, not Ryou, too!" he cried, looking hopelessly to Jounouchi. "It's destroying our series, one bit-character at a time. How are we supposed to fight something like this?!"
"You stay here, Mokuba," he answered gravely, placing a hand on the younger boy's shoulder. His confidence was probably derived from the fact that he was higher than a kite, but Mokuba did not really care about that. He just wanted to be comforted, and in that respect, Jounouchi was doing a fairly good job. "You're in more danger than me. I'll take care of this."
With that said, he stood abruptly, knocking apart the pillow fortifications. Mokuba gasped as the blond launched himself from the uppermost step, his battle cry resonating off the walls as gravity pulled him towards the villainous gelatin.
Again, a hideous light burst forth, this time emanating from the pudding's dark core. It momentarily blinded the boys, and Mokuba was forced to look away. When he was able to bring his vision back to the scene, he was stricken to find that Jounouchi had disappeared. Steam rose from where his clothes lay piled on the third step with a small yellow Twinkie® peeking out from under the hem of his shirt. Mokuba bit back a helpless sob. He glanced over one shoulder to check for Yuugi, but the tiny duelist was nowhere to be found.
He must have escaped the mansion via the balcony.
Just then, he heard the front door open! The pudding paused its arduous ascent, twisting its blobbiness towards the source of the intrusion. Footsteps could be heard coming closer, a sharp click-snap of boot heels on tile. From the end of the mansion's entryway, the man of the house could be seen in his long, heavily starched and metal studded purple duster: Seto Kaiba had returned home, briefcase in hand.
Without wasting any time, he raised his free hand, pointing dramatically at the pudding. He shot the creature several times, shouting 'bang' just before his arm jerked from recoil and the bullet was expelled towards its victim. The pudding shuddered as the bullets passed through it, but it remained. . .slumping diabolically.
"This is ridiculous," Seto snarled, shaking his hand from its gun-like position. "No pudding, no matter how evil or cursed, can withstand my power! Behold. . .the Millenial Briefcase returns!"
Brandishing his briefcase, Seto ran to meet the pudding in battle. Once, twice, three times he swung the weapon, sending clumps of deadly pudding flying in all directions. The monster groaned, burbling its last burble in surrender to the young CEO's awesome butt-kicking prowess. A glow filled the room, and Seto pushed the briefcase into the core of the pudding. For a moment, the room was plunged into darkness, but in the next second, the pudding exploded in a wild display of golden light that warmed Mokuba's heart and brought a smile back to his face.
"How's that for a Penalty Game, biatch?" Seto asked the pudding's remains as he headed up the steps. Mokuba gently set the Ryou-bunny down on a nearby pillow, ripping his fake mustache off as he jumped up and flung his arms around his older brother's waist. They shared this affectionate embrace through Mokuba's senselessly happy babbling where he told his brother how glad he was to see him, and how bravely he had fought that pudding, and how – damn – glad he was that Seto had finally installed that Little-Brother-In-Trouble radar sensory equipment last week after the seventy-second kidnapping.
Seto took this all in stride, brushing back the tangled locks of black with a fond expression. But it was short-lived, as something caught his attention, forcing him to look to the top of the stairs. His lapis blue eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Mokuba, what is my whipped cream doing out here? And what the Hell are those things in my mini-fridge?"
"Uh. . .will I still be in trouble if I start the explanation with 'I love you'?"