Small Troubles
by HCG & WSJ
WSJ: *snickers* Oh how the fun abounds!!
Kaze: Fun?! This is torture, not fun!
HCG: ^_^ That, my friend, is the point. Fun for us...torture for you.
Kaze: ¬_¬;; How kind the both of you are.
Disclaimer: No own. No claim to own. ^^ Oh wait, we do own! :p *dances* Just not ALL of it... *pouts*
()()()()()
Kaze quickly discovered that Saguru had already hit on the quickest and easiest mode of chibi transportation. Lining the chibis up behind him like the fan of a peacock's tail Kaze offered them each a portion of his coat to hold on to. Giggling amongst themselves the four little boys each grabbed a bit, and Kaze set off for the large and well-stocked kitchens of the base, praying quietly that they met no one on their way.
Amazingly his prayers were answered (although that brought up the question of by whom) and the quintet made it to the kitchens with only minor incident. That minor incident happened just as they entered the kitchens, when Damon stopped dead in his tracks. Of course, the other four kept walking, and so the inevitable happened.
Kawari, Kaeru, and Saguru each dropped their handfuls of trench coat and pointed at Damon in unison with big-eyed, 'not me!' expressions. "He did it!"
Kaze winced slightly as he twisted around to examine the long tear up the back of his coat. He stifled a sigh as he saw Damon's eye widen. "Sowwey, sowwey!" the little falconer burbled, half-hiding behind Saguru. "Dun' make me pay fow it! I be good, I pwomise!"
Kaze had to chuckle a little in appreciation of the memory. Back when Damon had first joined the Opposition, considerably later then most of Yugi's other friends, Kaeru had been attempting to instruct the falconer on how to use a sniper rifle. Of course, Damon was complaining that he didn't like guns and didn't use them anyway, and almost as if to prove his point his rifle had misfired, sending a bullet just inches past Kaze's legs and ripping a gaping hole in his coat. Kaze had made Damon pay for the expensive garment, and had made sure never to be around the black-haired agent when he had to use a gun.
Frowning, the memory brought another thought to mind. Just how much did his agents, now little agents, remember? Apparently Damon remembered his "basic training", but Saguru hadn't seemed to understand what blackmail was, a concept all Opposition agents easily knew. Kawari had seemed to remember how to use Gin Hebi, but then again the dirk was now almost twice as long as his arm and the little hikari had to use both hands to lift it. Shaking his head slightly, Kaze pushed these thoughts away.
"Don't worry Damon," he muttered, dropping his torn coat tail with another surpressed sigh, "Why did you stop so suddenly?"
"Howus!" Damon said, his green eye widening again in remembrance. "She's gonna be hungwey!"
Kaze stifled a moan and reminded himself to scour the kitchen cabinets for headache-killer once he had a free moment. Wonderful, the four year old wanted to go feed his pet bird. Peachy. "After breakfast Damon," he said wearily. "I'm sure she can wait until then." Perhaps if he stalled, Damon would forget, and Kaze could send someone else to see to the falcon later.
Reluctantly Damon nodded, and the five entered the kitchen. Due to the fact that agents tended to eat at any and all hours, there was almost never a live cook on duty. Instead, there was a whole row of robots to dispense food. They did have AI, but, most importantly, they never asked awkward questions. Although he was the one that designed and built them, Kaze privately thought of them as vending machines on steroids.
Those aforementioned robots took up almost all of one wall. The space in the middle was taken up by round tables that seated about seven apiece. Thankfully, there was no one there now.
Scrounging several old phone books out of a drawer in the cabinets that lined the wall opposite the robots, Kaze helped the chibis into their improvised booster seats at the table nearest the center. He figured that if he set them next to the robots, the cabinets or the door they'd find some way to make mischief. Once they were all settled Kaze headed for the food bank.
"Coffee please..." he ordered wearily. "Extra black. Make it a double."
"Liquid caffeine, coming up." the robot chimed.
Kaze sighed yet again (he seemed to be doing a lot of it lately!). While his robots didn't ask awkward questions, they did tend to be rather sarcastic.
"Pegsy!"
Kaze groaned and banged his head against the wall. This was not happening. Did he even want to turn around? Eventually he did, and was rather relieved to see a very well, very adult thirty((?)) year old Pegasus standing in the doorway and blinking at the chibis in not-quite-awake confusion. After a moment he shuffled toward Kaze, who backed out of the way. With his back now to the children, Pegasus picked up the coffee that had just appeared in the robot's pick-up slot and slugged it down straight (Much to the Blue Eyes' disappointment). After a moment his brain cells began to reconnect, and he sighed, wiping his mouth off on the sleeve of his dark blue bathrobe. (Kaze could see the ends off his Funny Bunny pajama bottoms sticking out underneath, and he was wearing slippers with ducky heads on the toes, but that was another matter.)
"Ahhhh..." the silver haired millionaire said. Absently setting the empty cup down on the edge of a nearby table. "Much better. For a moment I thought I saw..." he trailed off as he turned around and noticed what he had indeed "saw". "Oh my god..."
"That's what I said." Kaze snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "What do you suggest we do about it?!" The truth was Kaze had almost been hoping to be seen by someone, because he needed advice, and badly, before he lost his mind.
"Now Kaze-boy," Pegasus said, adopting his usual nickname for the Blue Eyes. "Just stay calm."
"Stay calm?!" Kaze asked, as his fragile hold on reality finally snapped. "Stay clam!?! My four, possibly more, best agents are children, probably made that way by the Hand of Shadow or Yami or both, and you expect me to stay calm?!!?"
"Yes," Pegasus said, remarkably calm himself. It was possible that he was not quite awake yet, so the calm tone may not have been from self control so much as from a cloudy, still-sleeping head. "Because you are upsetting them, and the ones you aren't upsetting are upsetting other things."
It was so. Damon and Kawari were staring up at the fuming Kaze with wide eyes and (in the case of Kawari) a trembling lower lip. The other two were monkey climbing over the robots, which they apparently did remember how to work. "Pancakes!" Saguru chirped. "An' sywwup!"
"An' strawbewwies!" Kaeru added, nodding vehemently.
Kaze groaned and went back to banging his head against the wall. Rolling his eye and deciding to let his "fearless leader" have his bout of insanity, Pegasus crouched down next to the two tearful ones. "You two okay? Kaze doesn't mean it, he's just stressed."
"Like hell..." he heard a certain CEO mutter from behind him, but rolled his eye again and ignored it.
Snuffling slightly, Damon just leaned into Pegasus and wrapped his chubby arms around the American's neck. Kawari sniffled, but stayed back a couple steps. "...Who you?"
Pegasus nearly face-faulted. "My name is Pegasus. Don't you remember Kawari? Or at least, I assume that's you Kawari, since you have the Millenium Ring, which I notice has shrunk somewhat."
Kaze spun around. "What?"
Pegasus shrugged as best he could with Damon in his arms and gestured at the small swordsman. "See for yourself. You know how heavy the Ring is normally, being solid gold. A chibi would be bent in half trying to carry it around his neck. Apparently, either the Ring sensed this and shrunk for Kawari's convenience, or something else has made it small enough for Kawari to bear. Don't worry," he said, anticipating Kaze's next question. "I can sense no decrease at all in its power, just in its size. Hmm..." Pegasus looked suddenly thoughtful. "I wonder..."
After a moment of contemplation, the millionaire shrugged and disentangled Damon's hands from his hair, pushing the little falconer toward Kaze. "Kaeru, come here a moment please."
The little yami skipped over to stand in front of Pegasus, maple syrup dripping down the front of his shirt. "Yeth?"
"Swallow please." Pegasus commanded, and waited until Kaeru had done so. "Now, listen to me. Can you retreat into your soulroom Kaeru? Maybe if you go back into the Ring and come out again you'll get snapped back to your proper age."
Behind him Kaze was nodding. "Worth a try, at least."
Kaeru's eyes lit up, and he scrunched up his face as if concentrating on something. After several moments he blinked and looked plaintively up at the two adults. Pegasus and Kaze exchanged glances and stealed themselves for the worst. If something was blocking the power of the Millenium Ring...
Kaeru looked down at his feet for several moments before he spoke, and his comment, when he did speak, sent both adults to the floor in a duo face-fault.
"...I forget. How do I do it?"
()()()()()
WSJ: XD And so the torture continues, pulling Pegasus into its wake...
Kaze: _;; You two are positively evil...
HCG: Hey, at least you're not in it alone ^_^
Kaze: True...*sigh*