Author's Note: Sorry this took so long. Seeing how my girls are now school age, some the latest "inspiration" doesn't fit in with their ages here.

Marik Ishtar was known as many things. He was known to be just as powerful with shadow magic as Bakura. He was known to be mistaken as his hikari. But Marik's ice blond hair naturally spiked up and out wildly around him and his eyes was a shade darker than Malik's. Otherwise they were nearly mirror images of one another.

Marik was also known as a psychopath who, though didn't seem like it, cared for his hikari enough that he was once bent on living Malik's life just to spare him of its cruelties. Now that Malik's life was better, the yami had his own life.

A life that had him sitting in front of a computer with half of the screen taken up with a game of Civilization and the other half with an online game of chess.

The sound of a sent message tore the yami's gaze from his Civ game and turned it toward the chat box at the bottom of the chess game. He chuckled as he read.

1 Funny Bun: How goes the New Egyptian empire?

Well enough, I tore the Romans a new one, he typed back.

1 Funny Bun: LOL

1 Funny Bun: Insulted at the idea of trade with the people who destroyed the first Egyptian empire?

Marik smirked as he replied.

No. They had the idea that my workers were perfect to practice their spear throwing with. I disagreed.

1 Funny Bun: LOL

Before Marik could turn his attention back to his chess game the doorbell rang. He typed in a short message to his opponent as the doorbell rang again and walked off to answer it.

"Avon calling." Bakura announced brightly as two all too familiar little girls in his and his hikari's arms screamed in delight.

"No." Marik exclaimed eyes locked on Raven and April in horror. "Not them." He went to slam the door but a swift kick sent it flying open and Marik's four visitors walked in before shutting the door behind them.

Raven was the first to wiggle free and run off straight toward the computer where she immediately minimized Marik's games and clicked on a seemingly random icon on the screen.

April followed a moment later on the heels of her older sister as Ryou watched on in horror.

"Mind if I borrow the Rod?" Bakura inquired as his hikari started sputtering and pointing at the girls. "I still have to put up with them for two more hours."

"Marik, they're messing with your computer!" Ryou managed to cry out.

"The Millennium Rod doesn't work on them." He announced.

"Pick that one, Ray Ray." April told her sister putting her finger on the computer screen.

"They're too strong willed for it to work." Marik continued running a hand through his hair. Then he added with a devious grin, "I'll be glad to ship them off to the Shadow Realm for you."

"Marik, your computer!" Ryou cried.

"No! It's my turn." Raven whined as April went to grab the mouse from her.

"Quit fighting over the computer." Marik snapped as he marched over to the two girls. He jerked the mouse out of Raven's hands, saved his game, logged out of his chess game and shut them both off.

"Raven wanna to play Boohbah." April shouted at Marik.

"No!" Raven shouted back. "I wanna play Curious George!"

Curiosity finally got the best of Bakura and Ryou. Both of them wondered why Marik seemed nonchalant about Raven and April touching his computer. They were interested in knowing just what it was that Raven had clicked on.

So in the interest of finding out answers to these questions, both yami and hikari went over to the computer and peeked at the computer screen.

Sitting in the middle of the screen was a window to a colorful site with pictures of characters that Bakura didn't recognize nor really cared to know. April's fingerprint hovered over a picture of a pink balloon like creature with beady eyes.

"I wanna play George!" Raven said as she left her own fingerprint on the computer screen over a picture of a brown monkey.

Ryou glanced over to the right of the window and busted up laughing. There in a small corner of the screen was a series of two icons, each different from the rest. One was a picture of a pink ballerina, another was a image of Barney.

"You have desktop icons to PBS and kisekae." Ryou gasped in between giggles.

"Isn't kisekae..?" his yami asked as Marik blushed.

"Yes, I got them a paper doll game!" He snapped as Raven snatched the mouse from his hands and clicked the link to Boohbah dance. April cheered and began mimicking the characters off to the side.

"Last time I babysat Brooke's kids, they whined about their TV shows not being on and how I didn't have a single Disney movie. So I stuck the PBS link on the computer and got them some dolls to dress up." He explained.

"So that's why you said you'd baby sit them." Bakura snickered. "Bet you cried when Malik told you couldn't play dolls with them."

"Would you like to revisit the Shadow Realm?" Marik snapped drawing the aforementioned Millennium Rod out from behind his back.

Just as Shadow magic levels were about to reach their peak and both yamis were about to declare a shadow duel….

"Die!" Raven exclaimed with a cute giggle.

"Die!" April repeated even louder.

The two spirits exchanged looks and pulled in their powers at the same time. A silent promise passed between them. Another time.

"Mawik, Kura say he hurt Malik. He say he die." Raven announced quite brightly as Ryou sat down on Marik's couch.

"Uh uh, Batura say he die evie dead tat evie pepple like Batura tink of." April correctly quoted her babysitter's exact words as she danced.

"What a lovely memory you have there, April." Bakura muttered as he sat next to his hikari. "I can already picture your mother's face when she hears that."

"Brooke would be positively scandalized at what her precious daughters have learned since she began dating Malik." Ryou said to no one in particular. "Let's see, they've learned about the existence of the Shadow Realm. They've learned monsters can easily be summoned into our world..."

"Batura break into Mac 'onald's" April added.

"You didn't see a thing." Bakura snapped.

"Kura bad." Raven announced and Marik snickered as he sat down beside Ryou on the couch.

"Don't worry Bakura." He said as the yami angrily crossed his arms in front of him. "I doubt anything you've done tops what happened on this one date Malik had with Brooke."

"Oh? What happened?"

"The girls saw the cartoon version of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Marik replied.

"Sounds innocent enough." Ryou said and the blond yami smiled ominously. Bakura chuckled, he had an idea where this story was heading.

"Oh sure, to a teenager it's an innocent cartoon. But to Raven, who used to watch all sorts of movies with her mother and sister," Marik glanced at Raven and dropped his voice to a whisper, "the Grinch was the scariest monster ever."

"You're kidding." Ryou gasped. Marik shook his head.

"I heard Isis talking to Malik about Brooke missing a day of work because Raven's nightmares."

About that time, April had grown bored of the Boobah dance and came over to see what the boys were up to.

"What you doin'?" she inquired with a finger in her mouth.

"Talking." Bakura replied brushing her finger out of her mouth.

"About?"

"The price of tea in China." Her babysitter snapped and April giggled.

"Wanna hear story?" she asked and without awaiting an answer she began her tale. "Once a time, dare was a goat. He was on a school an' me an' Ray Ray saw him."

"And what did the goat do then?" Ryou inquired sweetly and was shot a nasty look from his yami who muttered a few choice words in his native tongue about encouraging pointless stories.

"He flew." April replied.

"He flew?"

"He flew" the little girl confirmed as Bakura shot Marik a dirty look for encouraging her more. "An' then a oni corn came and they flew."

It was then that Bakura had enough of 'story-time' and wandered back over to Raven. She still sat before the computer, seemingly to be randomly clicking on things but when Bakura finally sat down behind her, the yami was stunned to see the toddler surfing the site like a pro.

"Momma say don' click on da colors." Raven told her babysitter and stuck her finger over crayon icon that read 'Printables'. She moved the mouse and clicked on something called 'I love shapes', giggling at the dancing monkey as the game loaded.

"Then don't." Bakura replied. He heard April start singing a song that went along with her story and wondered how someone so young could sing on tune.

"Kura."

"What?"

"Gotta go potty." Raven told him. With a sigh, Bakura took her back to Marik's bathroom.

He had no idea this seemingly bit of good fortune would later come back to haunt him....