THIS TIME ROUND: CRECHE GROOVE by BKWillis Just a typical day at Day Care... "Stay back! I will have this power, and none of you can stop me!" "Look out! He's got that Compressed-Tissue thingie!" The Baby Master (by which we mean the Master in the form of a baby, and not the Master _of_ Babies, which is a different and totally unrelated thing) smiled evilly, showing all six of his pearly teeth. His weapon, the ominous black tube that had already claimed so many victims, was centered squarely between the Fifth Baby Doctor's eyes. He turned suddenly and shot, hitting a toddler in the camo-patterned diaper of a UNIT baby who had tried to sneak up from his side. "Waaah!" The UNIT baby turned and ran off crying, a spit-soaked wad of compressed tissue paper stuck on his face. Baby Death bonked him on the head with his Nerf scythe as he went by, while the Baby Master slipped another spitball into his black straw. "That wasn't necessary," the Fifth Baby Doctor said coldly. "You could have just warned him off." The Baby Master sneered back. "Get used to it, Goody-Two- Shoes. You're going to watch me as I achieve my triumph, and then I'm going to spitball your friends one-by-one. NYEHEHE- HEHEHEHE!" "Let's rush him, Doctor!" The Doctor caught Baby Tegan by the collar as she began to crawl forward, stopping her. "No, Tegan! We'd be spitballed before we made it halfway!" He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "There's another way. Just look up." "Ah, ah!" called the Baby Master. "No secret plotting, now! I want you all to look at me in the moment of my sweet victory! Watch, as I EAT ALL THE COOKIES! NYEHEHEHEHEHE!" With that, the villainous preschooler lifted the first of the choco- late chip cookies to his mouth, wondering why his victims were looking just over his head and grinning. He looked up. "Hello," said Baby Nyssa brightly, leaning down from the crib that the Baby Master had set his back against. She gave him a cold smile and held an object out for him to see. The Baby Master gulped, eyeing the item nervously and trying to surreptitiously bring his straw around to bear on her. "Aheh heh... You wouldn't really trigger that, would you?" he asked with a sickly grin. "Yes, I would," Baby Nyssa answered, dropping the object on the evil Time Toddler's head. "AAAAAH!" The Baby Master screamed and clawed at his head as the thing struck him, trying to knock it loose, but he was too slow and Baby Nyssa's aim too good. The rolled-up rubber band landed squarely in his hair and began to unwind, pulling his hair into a tight, snarled knot as it did so. In less than a second, the band was irrevocably wound into the heart of a horrifying tangle of hair. "AAAAH! AAAH! Get it out! It huurrrrrts! Waah!" The Baby Master dropped his straw and his bag of stolen cookies and tod- dled off crying. Baby Death swiped at him with his foam blade, and said some naughty words when his target ducked under it. "Good going, Nyssa! You saved the cookies!" The Baby Doctor crawled over and scooped up the bag. "Now, we can turn these over to the proper authorities and-- YEEEEOOW!" He grabbed at his head as a rolled-up rubber band landed on him and began winding his hair into a knot. "OWW! Nyssa, you meanie! I'm -- OUCH! -- telling on you!" With that, he crawled off squalling, leaving the bag of cookies behind. Baby Tegan glared reproachfully at her little friend as Nyssa climbed down from the crib and pounced on the cookie bag. "That _was_ pretty mean, Nyssa." The Trakenite rugrat just shrugged as she began rummaging in the bag. "People write me that way lately," she said nonchalantly. She sorted out a few cookies onto the floor, then held out the bag to Tegan in one hand, while pulling out another rolled-up rubber band with her other. "Now," she said bluntly, "you get to choose between the moral high ground and a haircut on the one hand, or crunchy cookie snack time goodness on the other." "I think I liked you better before these psycho moods of yours," Baby Tegan sighed. "Oh, well. Did you leave me any chocolate chip?" "There's a couple in the bottom," Nyssa answered around a mouth- ful of cookie as Tegan rooted through the bag. The two girls were abruptly bowled over as Baby Davros swept between them in his roller-chair, snatching a pair of cookies from Nyssa's pile as he rolled through. Nyssa tossed her last rubber band at him, but it merely unwound harmlessly on his bald head. "Neener neener on you!" the young mutant scientist yelled, turn- ing around to better taunt his victims as he continued to roll across the room. "I got your cookies! Nyah Nyah! I am the superior mind! Kaleds rule, Trakens suck!" "You know," said Tegan to Nyssa conversationally, "it would be a really good idea for him to look where he's going in that thing. Especially now." "True," Nyssa agreed in the same even tone. "It would also be a good idea for the adults to not be so careless about leaving the basement door open. Especially now." "I'm the man! Davros is the bestest! I'm the-- OH NO!" THUD! WHUMP! Crash! Thump! "Ouch!" Whump! Thud... thump... crash... In the sudden silence, a distant and raspy "Waaaah!" could be heard from downstairs. "That was easily worth two cookies, I'd say," Baby Nyssa laughed. Baby Tegan shook her head. "Sometimes, I worry about what you will be like when you grow up," she said. "Oh, poo," the Trakenite scoffed. "I just hope I get to have as much fun then as I do now." She grinned as she caught sight of something on the other side of the room. "Hey. After we eat, let's go over and play with Adric." "With Adric?" Tegan asked in surprise. "Why would we want to play with someone icky like him?" "'Cause I learned a new game, silly. It's called 'Giving a Wedgie'..." --BKWillis