Author's Note: Watch for the Smallville reference here.

Dikdiks Don't Play Tea Party

By Fanficworm

Chapter 3: Mind Thy Manners

"I—If you want proof, the security camera's got it all on tape," the shopkeeper gulped, pointing a bony finger to the camera hidden behind a carton of gum. "Not that y—you wouldn't already know that, Officer…" he adjusted his thick-framed glasses and craned his neck to read the policeman's badge, "…Riley."

Officer Riley looked up from his notepad and eyed the four unconscious robbers being dragged away into custody by his fellow officers, and gave the shopkeeper a reassuring smile. "Ah, we won't be needing any more proof, I don't think, Mister Tudor," he said. "These four are wanted men. We would've arrested them even if they didn't do anything."

"Well if that there's true, Steve," Terry muttered, kicking the knee of the man who insulted Trixie, "they sure don't make wanted men like they used to. Sometimes I reckon I train for nothin' 'xcept to look good for my wife and my fans these days," he sighed theatrically as he flexed his rippling muscles. "My days as a true Justice Chôjin are over."

Officer Riley drew his attention to the four heroes. "Well, Kid Muscle, Terry 'the Grand' Kenyon and Wally Tusket are once again the heroes of the day… or should I say, 'night'? And Dik Dik Van Dik's at home doing nothing, I presume. Why am I not surprised?" He smirked. " Would you all like medals this time, or shall I just call the media?"

Wally clamped his hand over Kid Muscle's mouth before the latter got a chance to say anything stupid. "No need for any of that. We'll just get our beer and snacks and be on our way."

"O—Oh!" Tudor ungraciously hopped over one of the robbers to get to Wally. "T—Take whatever you want; it's on the house, I insist! Y—You three saved my life! I—It's the least I can do."

Kid Muscle bit the hand at the mention of free food. "Ooh!" he cried, ignoring Wally's yells of pain. "Even those instant beef teriyaki bowls?"

The shopkeeper frowned at the strange question, obviously not familiar with the Muscle Prince's love of the "cow and rice" bowls. "S—Sure, I guess."

Had Kid Muscle been a teenage girl, he would have squealed with pure joy, shattering all the glass in the small store. But since he wasn't, he did something that would've shattered all the glass in the store anyway.

Ha, ha!
With my rice I like to have some cow, cow, cow!
It tastes so very good, I don't know how, how, h—

Bam!

One of the instant beef teriyaki bowls Kid Muscle loved so much hit him smack dab in the face, and just a few feet away an annoyed Terry shrugged as he bagged what they came to the store for. "He was getting on my nerves, so sue me."

He carefully handed Wally one of the bags, careful not to hurt Wally's bitten hand. "'Sides, it's about time we be headin' back."

Wally picked up the bag and headed out the door. "Yeah, we'd better go. The kids must be driving Check and Dik Dik crazy."

Kid Muscle merrily skipped out the door, his arms full of instant beef teriyaki bowls. "Thanks for the free food!"

As the Chôjins left the store, Tudor surveyed the damage to his store, and Officer Riley noticed the outside seemed noisier than when he had entered. Surely there weren't so many officers outside for a small robbery, and surely cameras weren't needed for this. …And what were those bright lights outside?

Oh. That wasn't police activity, that was the media. Fancy them knowing about the incident at this hour. They must've been extremely bored and had nothing to do

Terry stormed back into the store, glaring daggers at the officer. "You behind this?"

Officer Riley shrugged, smiling as he returned to writing his report. "Don't look at me. I was just joking about calling the media."

"And they found out about this anyway. Aw, dangit," Terry groaned, looking up at the ceiling as if talking to a higher being. "First those idiots, and now these idiots. Why didn't I stay with the kids?"

Why didn't I go out with the guys? Dik Dik raised his eyes to the ceiling, hoping a higher being would care enough to answer his question. Unfortunately, all he got was a few specks of dust in his eyes.

Cassidy looked up. "Somethin' wrong with the ceiling, Unc?"

"There's a hole there," he rubbed his eyes, smearing his makeup. "It's pretty big."

"Oh, 'tis from an accident in the attic a long time ago. Father changed into his Castle mode on the attic's old floorboards by mistake," Victoria grimaced as she tightened a toy elephant's ribbon. He couldn't see why; if it were alive it would have gone blue and choked to death. "He never got around to fixing it."

He blinked the last speck of dust from his eye, feeling a twitch coming on. "Want me to tell him about it, Vicky?"

"Victoria." She huffed. "No thanks. I'll tell him once he isn't tired anymore." She looked at him, small turquoise iris-less eyes boring into his own black ones. "One rule for the tea party, though: no one may call me Vicky or Vic or anything else like that."

She smiled. "Now, shall we have our tea?"

"Let's." Cassidy poured some tea from the plastic teapot into the matching plastic cup and handed it to Dik Dik.

"Thanks" he said, eyeing the teacup with some confusion. Why wasn't there any tea in there?

The girls caught him staring oddly at the empty teacup and looked at each other as if he were dumber than Kid Muscle. Cassidy sighed. "It's pretend tea. We ain't allowed to have real food at our tea parties on account of it spoils our appetites-like."

Dik Dik took a pretend sip of the pretend tea, holding the teacup the same way he could his coffee mug. "I knew that."

"Ah—ah!" Victoria forced the teacup down and raised her pinky. "Another rule: you must always stick out your little finger like this when sipping."

She went on for about five more rules of proper tea party etiquette, highlighting their finer points and going into their histories. Some of it was interesting, actually. The rule of refraining from placing one's elbows on the table was a sign of trust. Back in the day, people put their elbows on the table to show that they weren't going to attack anyone, and then they started leaving their elbows down because they trusted their—

"Jeez, Victoria. We don't need to know all that, we just wanted us a good ole-fashioned tea party, was all," Cassidy frowned, dabbing at her teacup.

"Sorry."

Dik Dik took a proper sip of his imaginary tea. "I had no idea Kiki knew so much about tea parties."

Victoria blinked. "Nay, Father taught me—" She covered her mouth. "Oops. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone."

So Checkmate was a master at girls' tea parties, eh? That was something worth reporting to the rest of the Muscle League. Maybe agreeing to sacrifice his dignity wasn't a total loss, after all. If he was going to be embarrassed, he might as well drag someone down with him. And who better than the father of one of this torturers?

Maybe if he was lucky, he could persuade Cassidy to give him some dirt on Terry, too…

He leaned in closer. "What else does your dad do, Victoria?"

"Well, I don't—"

"—I can pay you." To prove his point, he produced his wallet from his back pocket.

Against all the rules of etiquette she had mentioned earlier, Victoria lay her elbow on the table and leaned on her small fist, thinking hard on the question. "Well, Father has spent most of his time with Perceval, so he maybe won't notice…"

Cassidy also leaned in closer, wanting to know what else Checkmate might have done in the past to appease his eldest. Dik Dik knew, as she knew, that Terry would pay a pretty penny for that information, and she wasn't willing to let a golden opportunity such as this slip past her. "You go on ahead, Victoria," she smiled. "We're all ears."

Victoria beamed, pleased that no one called her by a nickname this time. She removed her elbow from the table. "Well…"

"Texas Clover Hold!" a shrill voice yelled, reverberating throughout the chequered ring and the rest of the indoor training area. Luckily for them, the room was sound-proofed, so none of the shrill cries would have drifted into the bedrooms and disturbed more than just the girls.

The boy looked down at his opponent, a hopeful look on his face. Tense body, tears, cries of pain… He just had to make sure. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes! YES!" his masked victim yelled, fat tears streaming down from his brown eyes. "Make it stop! Make it STOOOOOP!"

"Okay." The boy let go, pleased. "Good. Now's I can try out Daddy's Calf Branding move… or maybe the Spinning Toe Hold."

"No! No more practice!" The older boy bolted towards the door in pure fear, whereas just a minute ago he could barely move. "Let me out! Let me out! DAAAAAD!" He failed to open the door and opted to hit it with his fists instead. "Jesse's hurting me! Jesse's HURTING ME!"

Jesse laughed, wondering why 'Taro would scream for help in a sound-proofed room. "Stop bein' stupid, 'Taro. You're older 'an me. You're s'posed to know that hollerin' like that won't do you no good, and that my practice moves ain't s'posed to smart that bad."

Taro pointed to the bruises he had gotten from the "practice moves". " 'Ain't s'posed to smart that bad', huh? I'm telling on you!" He continued pounding on the door. "Dad! Uncle Checkmate! Uncle Dik Dik! Mommy! Anybody! Please! Somebody saaaaaaaaaavvvveeee me!"

Jesse's eyes widened. "Aw, don't tell Uncle Kid, 'Taro! Please?" He whimpered at the thought of another spanking. "My daddy's gonna get real, real mad at me."

"HELP ME! UNCLE DIK DIK! UNCLE CHECKMATE!"

He blocked the door, smiling. "How's about we do somethin', else, huh? Somethin' fun? Spy on the girls? Make fun of 'em?" The smile faltered. "'Taro?"

"DAAA—" 'Taro stopped in an instant, the pure fear on his face replaced by a goofy grin. "The attic hole? Sure!" A camcorder appeared in his hands and he opened the door.

Jesse blinked. "Where'd you get that?"

"Well if you must know," he pointed to his boots, "I keep them in my boots.

Jesse followed him out. "No wonder it smells like that." Hold on a second… "How'd you open it? Wasn't it locked?"

'Taro shrugged. "I was just messing with you."

To be continued…


To my reviewers

Psycho Violinist of Silentwood: Yes, they are sadistic, aren't they? Probably got that from their fathers…

Checkmate's No. 1 Fan: Thanks for the great reviews. Oh, and Checkmate rules!

Mex Marco: Bordering on the mentally disturbing, huh? Good. That was my intention. Now I hope this story has gone past mentally disturbing.

Kaidan: Like Mex Marco and that cute Schneider mystery, I'll leave what that guy said about Trixie to speculation. Anyone's welcome to write a filler on that scene if they wish.