Her Sweetness: Heh heh. You know, you guys are spoiled. I used to write chapters that short on a regular basis less than a year ago! But I guess as I have evolved so have you all.

So please enjoy!

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A Tale of Two Bunnies

Chapter 7:

The first to open his eyes was Yugi. And that was more or less because of the awful smell that brought him back to reality. He blinked a few times and was able to look up from his resting place on the floor into the shadows outside of and surrounding the car. He tried to sit up and there was a crook in his back. As soon as Yugi was able to sit up straight though, he clasped both hands tightly over his nose and mouth.

"Oh Ra!" he whispered harshly and looked around.

A second after the whisper, Mokuba's head popped up from the front seat. He had a line of blood flowing from underneath his bangs and forking around his nose but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

He tilted his head. "What's wrong, Yu—Good God!"

His tiny hands clamped on his own nose and then both he and Yugi were looking around for the source of the foul smell. Mokuba forcefully tapped the shoulder of Marik who'd been unconscious right next to him, Marik stirred and then snapped at Mokuba for touching him. Marik looked at both boys and groaned. "Both of you, stop acting like idiots and—Shit!" Marik shouted, covering his own nose.

Yugi narrowed his eyes. "Marik! Kaiba won't forgive you for poisoning Mokuba's mind with your language."

"I'm not five," Mokuba said sullenly.

"No," Marik rolled his eyes. "It really does smell like shit! … Speaking of which, where's the Pharaoh?"

"Present," Yami said, popping up next to Yugi. "And, um, sorry for the smell. I guess that fall scared me more than I thought it would."

There was a moment of intense silence.

Marik pointed at him. "I knew it!"

Mokuba smacked his hand down. "Stop that. We don't have time for this. Where the heck are we anyway?"

"Um…" They all looked around and found nothing but darkness as Yugi had a few minutes ago when he awoke. Mokuba scooted closer to the window and looked down, finding that the car was actually parked on a reddish-orange ground. His eyes widened and his eyes went back to the sky, or lack thereof.

"Guys," he said shakily, "we're on the ground again."

"Really?" Yugi perked up and went to open the car door.

"No!" Marik and Mokuba shouted and grabbed Yugi by the arm, pulling him away from the handle. Marik growled, "We're not on Earth, stupid!"

"Don't call my hikari stupid," Yami countered.

"Hey, I call 'em how I see 'em," Marik said, glaring.

Yugi hurried to calm the rising tension. "Oh, it's alright, Yami. That would've been very stupid of me. If we're not on Earth and I opened the door, I'd let out all our air. We're going to run out soon anyway."

Everyone stared.

"… Huh? What?"

"Run out of air?" Yami cried.

"Well of course. I mean, there's four of us and this car is a beetle. It's so small, we're bound to run out of air and soon. I'm actually surprised we're not flopping around like trout on a deck right now."

Everyone stared some more.

"Oh crap," Mokuba said.

Marik's eyes were almost bulging out of his head. "And you didn't mention this before why?"

"I-I didn't think it was important—I mean, you were busy and—please don't hurt me!" Yugi held his hands up to guard his face.

"Well this is absolutely fabulous," Marik shouted. "Not only am I trapped with idiots but I'm going to die with them, too!"

"Hey!"

Mokuba had been looking sadly at the ground since the "Oh crap," comment. He agreed that this was pretty sad. He didn't even get close to rescuing his brother but he'd still gotten into space and risked his life being in the same car as Marik, only to die of lack of oxygen? He shook his head and then his light bulb flashed.

"I-I got it!" Mokuba cried happily, raising his hand to get attention.

Yami and Marik were on the verge of war but they stopped to look at Mokuba. He nodded and smiled. "My brother actually has oxygen tanks in the trunk of the car! They're there because when he was painting it, it was so toxic he claimed he needed extra air!"

Yugi squealed and hugged Mokuba tightly. "Oh, that's a great—"

"Hey! You're still naked, get off of me!" He struggled to get out of the grip.

Yami petted his sad hikari on the head while saying, "Well this is great, we now have a plan. But someone has to go get them; they're not going to float in here. And if this planet doesn't have any atmosphere, whoever ventures out there won't have any air to—"

"Thank you, Mister Boring." Marik blinked. "Listen, whoever goes out there can hold their breath and run real fast. Now who's going?"

No one raised their hand.

"Listen, someone has to go! Or do you all want to die right here?"

"Well why does it have to be one of use? Why not you?" Yami asked while narrowing his eyes.

Marik barked a laugh. "Alright, alright. Let's do this the fair way. Whoever's a virgin has to go."

Yugi raised an eyebrow. "What? That doesn't make sense."

"Like hell it doesn't. Listen, if you're a virgin, you have nothing to lose, right? Because you haven't done anything worthwhile!" He winked. "Understand?"

"… Okay…"

"Pharaoh," Marik began, "you a virgin?"

"No." He looked at Yugi.

Yugi nodded. "Ditto. What about you?"

"Hah!" Marik fluffed his hair. "I can't remember the last time I was a virgin. I was born with a smirk on my face and a bottle of lube in my hand."

Everyone sweatdropped.

"Well, if you don't believe me, ask Malik or Bakura or Otogi or—"

"OTOGI?" Yami and Yugi shouted, aghast.

Marik shrugged. "Don't give me that look. He was in the supermarket and one thing led to another…"

"Oh Marik, in the store?" Yugi frowned.

"Hey, we were behind the potatoes! It's not like we were in front of everybody."

"… Moving right along," Yami said sternly. They were quiet for a second and then all looked at Mokuba who had been hiding under the dashboard ever since Marik's idea of "sacrificing the virgin" was thrown into the air.

Marik grinned down at him and said in a mock-kind voice, "And what about you, Mokuba? Are you a virgin?" His voice changed back it's normal malicious tone then, "And playing with yourself while your brother's at work does not count."

"W-Wait a minute," he shouted, "I'm not going out there because I'm a virgin! Let's draw straws!"

"No," Marik said and picked the boy up by his hair.

"AHHHH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Yugi gasped. "Marik, be gentle!"

"STOP IT! MARIK, PLEASE!" Mokuba screamed, punching and kicking but with no success of getting down. Marik ordered both Yami and Yugi to get ready to open the door on the passenger's side. They nodded and had their hands on the handle, ready. Marik had Mokuba up to the window and said to him quickly, "Hold your breath and hurry it up out there."

With that last thought, Mokuba was tossed out and his the dusty, hard ground. The car door slammed behind him. When he looked up, three faces were pressed against the glass and three sets of eyes were watching him as if he were a bug in an exhibit. With a mouth full of air, Mokuba jumped up—jumping highly that he thought was normal—and ran towards the trunk. When he reached it he realized that he needed the key card to open it and that was with Marik. Surely if he went back, they would kick him out again, stating that the card key was just an excuse.

So, using his tiny yet cute Mokuba-brain, he decided to open the trunk by force. He lifted his leg and brought it down as had as he could on the latch. That didn't seem to do much and he kicked again and again. He was almost out of breath and was about to faint but from out of the car came Yugi, running over to him with his cheeks puffed out. He nodded to Mokuba and they both sent high kicks to the latch of the trunk. It busted open and they grabbed the four oxygen tanks and ran for the door.

Just as they jumped in, Yami slammed the door shut once again and looked wide-eyed at Yugi who was gasping for breath on the floor of the car between Marik and Mokuba.

"What the hell were you thinking, Yugi?" Yami yelled, shaking his fist. "You could've run out of air, you could've—"

"Oh, I see!" Mokuba yelled back, "It's a disaster if Yugi falls down dead but if I die, everyone carries on with life as per usual, is that right?"

Yami paused and then scratched his head. "Well…"

"Shut up, alright, just shut up!" Mokuba was clearly hysterical.

"Calm down." Yugi said, patting Mokuba on the head soothingly and at the same time giving a warning look to his other half.

Mokuba swatted his hand away. "I'm not a puppy! Don't pet me!"

Meanwhile, Marik was doting over the oxygen tanks, picking one up and strapping it over his shoulder with both of the dark blue bands over his shoulder blades. "Good," he said aloud but not necessarily to anyone, "now if the car runs out of oxygen, we'll be in pretty good shape, at least for a while." The other three in the car continued to argue but Marik proceeded to ignore them and dug in his back pocket to check Malik's current location.

Upon first glance, the two transmitters didn't seem all that far. Malik's tracker was in the center of the screen and his was about half an inch away. But Marik zeroed in on the two points and was utterly speechless at the reading—he and his hikari were 227,900,000 kilometers apart.

With his mouth open, he sat back in the leather-covered chair. The arguments beside and behind him sounded as if they were a million miles away. Suddenly, it stopped for a moment and he heard Yugi's faint voice ask, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Mokuba blinked at him and then peered over his shoulder. "Oh, hey! So how far are we from my brother, Marik?"

Marik gave a maudlin clown laugh. "Oh… a ways…"

"And how far is—OhmyfreakingGod!" Mokuba squealed, finally seeing the reading at the bottom of the screen. "W-What the heck? Is that right?"

At hearing his little squeal of terror, Yami and Yugi joined in the rubbernecking and their eyes were wide as well.

"Well," Yami croaked, "I guess walking is out of the question."

— — —

Back at the newly named Sunny Tallywhacker castle, a happy feeling was buzzing around the grounds. And that was simply because Empress Ryou was happy. And if Empress Ryou was happy then everyone else was happy. That was something you didn't forget when you were in the palace. His moods would directly effect the mood of everyone else in the vicinity. If he was happy, all the servants and soldiers looked like someone had just injected them with a questionable serum that left them with a goofy grin on their face as an after-effect. And if Empress Ryou was feeling rather pissed off, no one laughed, no one smiled and no one spoke to him if it wasn't of the most important news.

Ryou smiled deeply at his companion standing before him. "You are so cute! I could just die!"

"Yeah, well, I wish you would," said Bakura sourly.

"I know you're happy, you just don't want to show it. That's fine with me though, at least I'm enjoying it."

"I know you are, you pervert."

Ryou smiled again and tugged on one of Bakura's bunny ears. It was part of the agreement for the renaming of the castle shared by the two. Bakura wanted the word Tallywhacker in the title and Ryou agreed but Bakura had to wear the fluffiest bunny headband that Ryou could stir up. Ryou was unaware of this but the servants, when Ryou wasn't around, laughed at Bakura. They didn't take him seriously at all.

The two were currently relaxing in what Ryou presented to Bakura as the master bedroom. It was about the size of an Olympic swimming pool and had a small stream traipsing through the room, from the upper left-hand corner and swaying drunkenly until it met a two inch high wide and three inch tall waterfall at the bottom right corner of the room, going into an unseen part of the castle. Ryou had told Bakura that since he began to rule over the Milky Way he'd his servants from various planets make concealed trips back and forth from here to Earth to retrieve things that Ryou simply could not live without. One of those things being water.

"Wouldn't it be terrible not to be able to bathe?" he'd said a while back. "Well I said the word 'bath' and they looked at me like I was insane! They've never washed themselves…! What a horrid thought. Of course it made sense, seeing as how the general population of Mars bursts into flames when coming in contact with water—found that out the hard way, hehe—but still."

Another being actual sustenance.

"Most beings in the galaxy are self-sustaining. Know what that means, right, 'Kura? They eat their own… well, you know… The very idea made me gag. Why do you think so many of the best chefs from Earth have been disappearing lately, hmm? Well I have them here. In the basement."

Bakura was rather disturbed at hearing that but he couldn't deny the pride he felt. There had been a time when he thought his hikari would never appreciate his love for causing worldwide mischief. He seemed quiet good at it now. Bakura didn't know then that someday very soon he would find out just how good his hikari had become.

Now, in the master bedroom, Bakura grunted and took his bunny ear out of Ryou's hand. "Never mind that," he said. "I want to know more about what you're planning to do with Malik. Are you going to boil him?" Bakura sounded somewhat excited as he continued: "Maybe pluck all his hairs and feed him to our freakish servants? Those are good ideas, aren't they?"

Ryou blinked. "I would never do those things."

"What? Not bad enough? 'Cause I can think of more."

"… I'm sure you can… Bakura. Am I sensing some… hostility here?"

"What, for Malik? Nah, not really. He just annoys me with his poofiness. …You annoy Marik, you know."

"I do what?" Ryou gasped, horrified.

"Yeah, he told me that he thought you were clingy. He really didn't want to look for you when we were back on Earth," Bakura said thoughtfully. He tapped his chin. "Actually, he was downright sour about it."

Ryou's eyes were stoic. "Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"I see." Ryou looked towards the window as Bakura talked some more about Malik's fate.

— — —

Meanwhile the despair in Kaiba's hover car over the distance between the two trackers—and ultimately the two parties—was diminishing at an alarming rate. And that was probably because the fear was rising like the temperature during a Texas summer. Through all their crying and worrying, Yami's head had slipped to the side and at that strange angle, he could see over the hood of the car and off to the side.

His eyes had widened immediately and he shouted and screamed like a man possessed. Everyone first ignored him and then peered over the hood and began to scream and accompany him in his possession. It seemed that there was some sort of gas station or convenient store just twenty yards away. There were no cars but suddenly someone came out of the front door. But in the boys' opinions, it was more of a something.

A rather robust, red creature with his eyes hanging at the end of two antennas on his chest stood outside the establishment with a puzzled look on his discombobulated face. He scratched what was supposed to be his head briefly, looking at the car, and the boys immediately ducked, hoping he hadn't seen them. A moment later, he went back into the building.

All four of them were panting heavily.

"Oh… my gosh… alien," Mokuba said, trying to take another peek.

"Stop that, Mokuba, he'll see you!"

"N-No, he's gone back inside… What the heck is that thing?"

Marik blinked and then peeked himself, followed by Yugi and Yami. Yugi said, "It looks like a rest stop."

"Wonderful," Marik rolled his eyes. "An alien-gas station. Let's leave. Now. It's already gonna take us fifty years to reach Malik, Bakura and Kaiba as it is."

"Uh, good idea." Everyone agreed and Marik sat back, taking the key card and turning it again. The car's engine sputtered and then stopped. Marik tried again, this time with more force. Nothing happened. Mokuba blinked and looked over at Marik's shoulder. "We're… out of gas," he said.

Marik stared.

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Her Sweetness: I had a problem with the damn linebreaks... Anyway, please review and tell me your thoughts.