Her Sweetness: Ah, first chapter of the new school year. Don't ya just love it?

— — —

A Tale of Two Bunnies

Chapter 8:

Number Seven had been leisurely walking down the hallway, sipping his bottle of Mountain Dew. He'd just had his second lunch break in the past five hours and was feeling rather good about it, too. In the faulty break room, he'd just traded a box of pocky and two Hershey bars to Number Twenty-two for a copy of the latest Playboy magazines. These were rare now since there was no printing of these sorts of magazines here.

As he headed back to the lab, then a few doors down from it, an agitated scream echoed from the open doorway. Number Seven took the drink away from his lips briefly and peeked around the corner. Suddenly, Kaiba popped out of the door and spotted Number Seven almost immediately. He came racing over to the poor scientist and shouted at him mercilessly.

"And just where have you been? I can't believe you actually left in the middle of testing! What the hell is the matter with you? We're handling unstable chemicals and raw metals and I tell everyone to be alert and pitch in and then I come out here to see you slurping a soda! What the freaking hell, man?"

Number Seven blinked. "I was… thirsty?"

Kaiba looked as if he were about to smack him.

"O-Okay! Wait, I'm sorry," he amended. "I guess I just didn't hear. … How'd it go?"

There was a pause. Kaiba blew air out of the side of his mouth and ran a hand through his hair. "We had to stop right in the middle. Number Seventy had to go to the bathroom."

"Then I didn't miss anything."

"That's not important!" Kaiba yelled and scared his employee. "The important thing is that you're there! Jeez, what the hell do I pay you for?"

"Sir, I haven't gotten a paycheck in months."

"You got a paycheck just last month!"

"That was January."

"Yeah, and?"

"This is September."

"…"

"Sir—"

"Oh shut up!" Kaiba glared at him and turned away. He rubbed his temples in harsh circles and let out a ragged sigh. He muttered to no one in particular, "This is just great… What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

Number Seven watched him sympathetically and finally took the closing step between them. He held up his fizzy drink in front of Kaiba's nose. "You want a sip?" he asked meekly.

Kaiba opened one eye and peered at it.

Number Seven smiled. "Come on, it doesn't bite!"

Sighing, he took it and took a swig. Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have shared a drink with anyone, much less a staff member who hadn't received a paycheck in some time and could've very well poisoned the Mountain Dew. But these were not normal circumstances; he was being forced to work on some bizarre project by an insane, albino teenager who happened to be Empress of the galaxy. If it's poisoned, he thought, then I have no reason to live anyway!

So he drank it eagerly and didn't even get halfway through the bottle before spitting everything out and onto the chrome floor below them.

"… What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" Kaiba sputtered. "This is crap! You poisoned this! Damn! I don't really want to die!"

"Poison? Sir, I would never—"

"LIES!" he wailed.

Number Seven blinked. "Okay… Mr. Kaiba, sir, you really need to chill. It's just a little backwash, it never killed anybody. What's the real problem?"

Another pause during which Kaiba sighed. He said, "I'm afraid Ryou's going to kill me."

"Gee-wiz! Why?"

"What do you mean, why? Because we're not working fast enough! Seriously, I mean, back at Kaiba Corp we could lollygag because people paid for whatever crap we put on the market but here we have a deadline!"

"When's the deadline?"

"… I think it was a few hours ago…"

"Oh…" Number Seven scratched his head and thought, He really is screwed! But he would never say it to the already upset CEO. Instead he opted for the cheer-up route. "Well, listen," he said, putting an arm around Kaiba's shoulder and immediately retracting it when he received a growl. "Um, there's nothing to worry about! Hey, I doubt Ryou will even realize we're taking so long. He's too occupied with his new toy!"

"… Bakura?"

"Uh-huh. It's like when a six-year-old gets a new puppy! He'll be so preoccupied with Empress Bakura that we can take all the time we want and by the time we finish, he'll be surprised and happy! You'll be alive and we'll all live happily ever after! What cha think about that?"

"I think it's stupid."

"What? Aw, come on!"

"Don't 'come on' me! It is stupid; Ryou's not going to forget about something he threatens me for daily just because Bakura came floating into his arms!"

"Oh yeah? Then how come we haven't heard from him since you went to Malik's cell? That had to be like a day ago, Earth time, right?"

Kaiba arched an eyebrow. "Alright, so say he is preoccupied. How long do you think that would give us?"

"That depends. How much fun can he have with Bakura?"

Kaiba received dirty pictures like emails in his mind.

Number Seven frowned. "And we're focusing…?"

"… Huh? Oh yeah. Okay… well, I'm not sure. Lots, I guess. We should speed up progress still, just in case…"

"Right."

And all of a sudden, the entire fifth floor shook violently in prologue to a ear-shattering explosion. The constant silver of the walls and floor was interrupted by a soft green glow that came from the laboratory that Kaiba and Number Seven stood a few feet from. It all stopped suddenly and a bit of smoke came floating out of the door and with it popped out the head of a random employee.

Kaiba gritted his teeth at the man. "What… happened?"

"Urm… well… the lab's bathroom is out of toilet paper again… and Number Ten told us to use those rags in the corner… the ones with acid all over them?"

Kaiba held his head with his hand. He growled, "And it mixed with the bases already on your skin, right? How many times do I have to tell you people not to pick up random things in a chemical environment to wipe your asses with!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kaiba—"

"AAAHHH!" came a voice followed by Number Ten who came running from the lab and out into the hallway, half his coat scorched and his rear on fire. The scientist who'd been informing Kaiba of the earlier mishap gasped and ran inside, returning a second later with a bucket of liquid.

Kaiba and Number Seven shouted, "THAT'S NOT WATER—"

Number Ten busted into flames.

— — —

"We're not going in there," Yami stated firmly.

Everyone else in the car simply stared at him and, after a moment, Yugi nodded shakily. "Yami's right. It's too dangerous!"

"Well hell, I'm not suggesting it because it seems like a land of flowers and smiles," Marik snapped, "but it's our only choice! Go in there or stay out here and run out of air. These tanks can't last forever and we cannot stay here. We need to keep going. And the only way we're going to do that is to get some fuel."

Yugi looked defeated. He couldn't argue with what was true. He looked at his other half to help him out.

Yami folded his arms. "You can go out there, Marik. But I don't recommend it. They'll see your human and immediately gut you and use your intestines as boas to attend their fancy parties."

An awkward pause followed.

"You let him watch too much TV," Marik said to Yugi and then turned around. He put the mouthpiece of the tank over his mouth and made sure it was secure before turning it on.

"W-Wait a minute!" Mokuba raised his hand to Marik and fussed with his oxygen tank with his free hand. "I'm coming with you!"

Yugi gasped. "Mokuba, no! You can't; you'll be killed!"

Mokuba was about to say something but Yami put a hand on the boy's shoulder and stopped him from buckling the strap. He looked at Marik sternly. "You can do what you want but you're not taking Mokuba out on your suicide mission. You're insane, you'll get Kaiba's little brother killed!"

"I'm more than Seto's little brother," Mokuba said and tore his shoulder angrily from Yami's grip. "And I don't consort with naked people. So leave me alone. Let's go, Marik."

"Fine," Marik said, not caring.

There was silence as Mokuba continued to buckle his straps and then fixed his mouthpiece. Yugi said, "Alright, alright! Wait, just hold on. I think you should have… a disguise. Yami's right—in a weird way—what if they don't like humans? What if they think you look weird?"

"Well what would you have us do?" Marik asked. "Put on an alien outfit? Sure, okay. Let me just go to the Party Store down the street. DAMMIT, YUGI, WE'RE IN OUTER SPACE!"

Yugi yipped and hid.

Yami folded his arms. "You're going to do what Yugi said, not just for your safety but for Mokuba's!"

"WITH WHAT, YAMI? WITH WHAT?"

Five minutes later, Marik and Mokuba stepped outside of the car. Marik, with his mask made from the black leather from part of the backseat in the car, the googly eyes made from cut locks of Yugi's hair. And Mokuba, his small face wrapped in a similar mask taken from the steering wheel making him look like road kill. Their oxygen tanks were loaded and hooked over their mouths so they could breathe under the suffocating masks.

As they walked, their footsteps bounced due to the lack of atmosphere. Mokuba, being smaller than Marik, bounced higher and once almost flew away.

Marik caught him by his sneaked and threw him back onto the ground. "Stop that flying," he reprimanded.

"Oh, sure, like I tried to fly away!"

"Be quiet. Look." Marik pointed just a little ways across the land of red dirt and Mokuba looked up, seeing that they were now at the gas station they'd seen that horrid creature come out of. Both Marik and Mokuba snuck to the side of the building where nothing but a few empty boxes and ripped posters were.

They listened for a second and Mokuba breathed in deep, his voice trembling. "I'm getting scared, Marik…"

"Oh, stop being a baby."

"I'm not a baby!"

"Stop shouting," Marik whispered harshly, "You want them to come out here and eat your voice box or something, huh?"

Mokuba yipped and shook his head violently.

"Alright then. We're going in now, don't shit your pants." Marik held up his hand and counted down from three to one. When he reached one, he scampered from behind the wall and ran out into the outside lobby where there were fuel tanks much like on Earth. Marik turned and went inside the establishment, the doors opening automatically before him. Mokuba tiptoed in behind him.

They were greeted with a sight and smell which was utterly disgusting. For the second time that day, Marik's hands flew up to his nose and he immediately accused the small boy behind him. "Mokuba, I just told you—"

"For crap's sake, that wasn't me! Look, over there!" Mokuba pointed onto the stocked shelves of the gas station. "And there! And there!"

Marik looked around saw that small individual packages, no bigger than peanut bags, lined the shelves and were filled to the brim with feces. That was the smell. The sight which was so terrible was coming out of the back room and approaching the counter.

"Can I help you two?" ask the thing they'd seen earlier, looking at them with a slightly raised eyeball.

Mokuba squeaked and felt his bowels become loose and hot. He made a thick sound in his throat. "I think I'm going to be sick," he muttered.

Marik, who was just as disgusted but much more familiar with the unnatural, coughed twice and sauntered up to the counter, ignoring the gruesome sight before him. He said, "Hello, dear sir. We were just wondering if you sold fuel here? We seem to be all out." Marik sounded a lot more like a telemarketer than he meant to but the alien bought in.

"What kind of vehicle you got?" the proprietor's voice softened. He peeked out of the window and looked back at the only thing in sight, Kaiba's hover car. "That thing?" he exclaimed. "I thought that was some sort of food, I was fixing to come out and eat it!"

Both boys gasped.

"Well… I dunno." The thing scratched his head. "As long as I've been alive, I've never seen something like that. Sorry, guys. I only fuel g-34s through 55s. You'll have to go into town if you want some gas… Hey, I got it. Ask for Jarrt. He's good at classifying things like that."

Marik paused and looked at his little companion. Mokuba shrugged. Marik turned around and asked, "Well where do we find him?"

"It's not far, a few miles that way maybe," he pointed. "Mars ain't such a big planet, huh?"

"… Mars?" Marik and Mokuba said in unison, looking at each other.

There was a long pause.

The shopkeeper tilted what was supposedly his head. "Where'd you think you were?"

Marik's eyes widened suddenly. He didn't want to seem like such an outsider that he didn't know which planet he was on. "Um," he grinned slyly, "well, I knew it had to be either Mars or Mercury. See, I was driving with my eyes closed."

"Why?"

"It was a dare."

"Oh. Well… alright. Just go down a ways and you'll find the city. Ask around for Jarrt. Tell 'em Bog sent ya."

Marik sighed and nodded. This had been somewhat of a waste of time, he thought. Before he reached the door, Bog motioned to some of the "foodstuffs" around the store and said, "Wanna take anything with ya?"

Mokuba heaved.

Marik grabbed him and yelled before the door closed, "No thanks!"

— — —

Her Sweetness: Alright, so it was a long wait. I was getting adjusted! That, and I had, like, the hugest writer's block of all time. We're lucky I got this out even this late. Oh well. Tell ya what. Some reviews might motivate me.