Chapter 38, everybody! In which the Chaos cleanse….

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Yes, he did—this is good for him. :D We shall soon see….

Blanket disclaimers are in Chapter 1 (I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, I do not own Avatar, I do not own Don't Starve, I do own Chaos Creatures, etc., et al…).

"Miss Elsie's Special Treatment" turned out to be akin to a cat cleaning her kitten: held tight in her claws, being licked clean.

For Yugi, who had always been terrified of Elsie, the experience was nothing short of horrifying.

"Honestly, you all are filthy," she was chiding between licks. "You're lucky you taste like fruit right now."

Yugi didn't feel lucky.

The others, meanwhile, seemed to be enjoying the whole affair, mostly the part where Wilson flung them into the water. It was the same river that Yugi, Kelsey and Cory had seen the other day, so it was shallow enough that none of the Chaos had to worry about drowning, but still….

"Stop squirming," Elsie chided, snapping Yugi back to his own problems. "You can go as soon as you're clean."

"Me next!" Cory chimed happily.

"Of course, dear."

Joey, meanwhile, was busy enjoying being the center of attention. He was out in the river getting clean, yes, but he kept flapping his new wings, splashing the others and laughing at their protests.

Yugi noted that despite all the flapping, Joey hadn't taken off yet. He wondered why.

"There," Elsie said finally. "I suppose I've gotten the worst of it off. In you get!"

Before Yugi could react, she had flung him into the water.

He surfaced, sputtering, only to be assailed by the Chaoslings, who seemed to view the whole event as one long game. Oi.

And then he noticed Anzu next to him, which helped matters.

"You looked uncomfortable up there," she observed.

"I was being licked to death," Yugi muttered, up to his nose in the water.

Anzu laughed. "Aw, come on, don't sulk—you're a lot more fun when you don't sulk."

"I don't always sulk."

"I'm not sure what it is you do then," she returned, but with the smile that said it was good-natured, as opposed to Kelsey's semi-hostile looks. "I think that fruit fight was the first time I've ever heard you laugh."

"I had just suffered multiple blows to the head, you realize."

"No excuses," she commanded, dunking him in the water. Yugi resurfaced, spluttering.

"I don't think I deserved that," he finally managed.

"Ooh, are we dunking him now?" Kelsey asked, swimming over.

"No, we are not," Yugi told her.

"Don't you think he's more fun when he's happy?" Anzu asked her.

"Why do you think I was throwing fruit at him in the first place?" Kelsey asked.

"Can we please act like I'm actually here? Oh good grief, I'm talking like them!" Yugi mock-wailed.

"Oh yes, this is a vast improvement!" Kelsey said, grinning. "I might just move up to tolerating him!"

"Yes, you can't give him too much!" Anzu returned. "It'd go straight to his head!"

"If this is the abuse I'm going to receive, I'm leaving," Yugi announced, trying to move away with as much dignity as he could muster. It was difficult, considering his feet barely touched the bottom there, and he really didn't think swimming away had as much clout.

Water splashed against his head.

He turned and glared at the girls. Kelsey pointed at Anzu, while Anzu pointed at Kelsey.

Yugi sunk in the water for a bit, debating. Did he really want to do this?

Oh yes I do.

"All right, it's on," he said, pushing up off the bottom to give himself some room to splash the girls good. They shrieked, and when the water settled, they were gone.

Yugi felt a flash of panic. "What—" he managed to get out—

And then he was pulled under.

It took him a panic-filled moment to realize that Anzu and Kelsey had dived under and yanked him down by his legs. They waved happily at him before swimming away, their tails giving them an extra, speedy push through the water.

Yugi pushed himself back to the surface, laughing as he went. Oh, they were going to get it now. He began paddling after them, instinctively knowing how to swim despite never entering water in his life.

Mai's warning from ages ago came back to him—ignore those impulses.

And you'll drown if you do.

Yugi stopped swimming, letting his feet touch the bottom. He glanced around at the other Chaos playing in the water, splashing and generally enjoying the day. A few were on the rocks by the stream, soaking up the sun. It was a lazy, loose atmosphere, showing how relaxed the Chaos could be.

Not like the compound at all, is it? Is the Desertion really the nightmare they say it is—or is it the other way around?

Yugi felt his ears flatten at that. No. Stop thinking like that.

And then he spotted something that made the whole thing worse.

Wilson was looking at him again, with that same inscrutable expression. It was impossible for Yugi to define it, but it reminded him of confusion somehow.

Yugi sunk beneath the water.

But he knew the former human would still be glaring after him.

There it was again.

That same…that same weird feeling that Wilson had felt earlier whenever that boy Yugi was around—

That same feeling, he realized, he had felt when the CAD was taking effect.

Wilson turned to Elsie, glancing about first to see if anyone was paying attention. He needn't have bothered—they were all too busy turning "bath time" into "play time." Ah, such short attention spans—he was fairly certain Yugi was the only one who remembered he had been cross with them. He was fairly certain Yugi was the only one who even cared.

"You can't tell me you didn't feel that," Wilson chided.

"What?" Elsie asked, distracted. She was busy supervising the Chaoslings as they turned her tail into a water slide.

Ah, but how to explain this, when he wasn't even certain what it was he was suspicious of? "When I…right before I left that first time, did you notice something…odd?"

"You're always odd—you'll have to be more specific."

"Like there was something there that you couldn't see, but you could sense it."

"I can do that with these Chaoslings—again, you'll have to be more specific."

"Something that put you on edge."

"Are you still on about the boy?"

"I think there might be something following him."

Elsie finally gave him more than a spare glance. "Like what?"

"That's why I'm asking you—I think it was similar to what happened to me."

She paused, thinking, then shook her head. "I was busy at the time, you recall."

Wilson sighed, the very noise having a musical tint. Yes, he remembered.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Elsie asked him.

Wilson tilted his head, thinking.

"I'm going to do a little digging," he announced finally.