Shishi was one very tired space bunny, no doubt about that but he was also one extremely happy space bunny as well.

Because despite the fact that he had shocked himself at least three times, had managed to nearly drive a screw straight through his paw and generally made a complete mess of the lab everything was finally sorted and the Christmas Present was ready to go.

He unashamedly felt very proud of himself for having managing to finish the project off just in time without getting any interruptions from the rest of his crew but he figured that Tats had been able to keep them perfectly preoccupied which was a good thing. Even though the pink faced Matoki had no idea what he was working on, Tats had easily worked out that Shishi was working on something and was not to be disturbed.

Though Shishi knew that he would have to make sure that he made up the time to Tats because running around after Dada and Joko must have been a complete nightmare for the last day and a half. Keke was less of a hassle to look after as he generally just went off and did whatever he liked. The only trouble with that was sometimes it was impossible to know exactly just what madness that little pink furred ninja was up to and usually it resulted in a hunt throughout the ship to make sure that he hadn’t gotten himself into some sort of trouble. Typically, he had and was trying to fix it in his own unique way but it was one of those things that just came with the territory.

Shishi remembered when he had been assigned to be the Commander of this particular group, how everyone else in the room had snickered because he had gotten the group that was considered to be the failures as they were more focused on having fun than actually completing their mission objectives. Shishi had come to learn very quickly that it was the actual opposite situation, they completed the mission objectives so quickly that they had to do something to keep themselves amused. Just no one ever bothered to check what they had done before hand but he soon had that changed and now they were the Best Absolute Perfect team in the entire Matoki strike force.

Even if they were still childish twits at times.

But pushing those thoughts aside, Shishi surveyed his creation once again to make sure that everything was just as perfect as possible before picking up a baby blue blanket with white bunny rabbits on it to cover the present and picking it up. He was surprised at how light it was to actually pick up since there was so much work inside but Shishi wasn’t going to complain and instead headed to the main hanger where the humongous tree had been set up with all of the glitter, baubles, tinsel and other decorations that they had been able to gather over the time of travelling around the universe.

In amongst the pile of presents, Shishi set his newest creation down in a perfectly adorable sleeping position and pressed a couple of buttons in the back of his head that were craftily hidden behind a panel to start the boot up program which would hopefully be fully finished its initial run time by the time that everyone got up tomorrow morning. Satisfied that everything was going as it was supposed to, Shishi replaced the panel, petted the now actually sleeping figure and stretched. “You’re going to be a great surprise for everyone tomorrow Toto,” he grinned before adjusting the blanket just a little to make absolutely sure that his little creation was perfectly warm and well wrapped up.

With that final check done, Shishi headed for his own bed, mentally cursing the fact that he would probably only get a couple of hours sleep before the kiddies would be up and squealing but he could only hope that they would be squeals of joy.

It felt like only seconds ago, that he had gotten onto his bed and closed his eyes before there was something heavy landing on his stomach causing a whoosh of air to escape him. “Shishi!” Dada, the youngest and most hyper of the group squealed in his sensitive ears, “It’s Christmas! Come on! Wake up! Wake up! There’s presents and everything!”

“Can’t…” Shishi managed to stammer out, “Breathe!”

“Dada!” Tats voice came from the doorway, “I said to wake Shishi up, not kill him!”

“Huh? Oh Oopse, sorry!” Dada said, hopping nimbly off of Shishi his ears dipped slightly, “I didn’t mean to kill him.”

Shishi laughed and reached across to ruffle the youngsters head, “You haven’t, yet.”

“YAY! Can we go and get presents now?” Dada was straight to the point as always without the least bit of a hint of worry about Shishi as the other wasn’t groaning at him in any way shape or form which was probably a very good thing indeed.

Glancing to the doorway where Tats was leaning almost idly whilst he held a firm grip on the back of Joko’s scruff to keep him in place and used a piece of string double knotted around Keke to stop him from ninjaing ahead to get at the huge pile of presents first, Shishi couldn’t help but smile even as he yawned dramatically only to have a sock thrown at his face.

“Don’t even try that one,” Tats said, giving a thumb up to Dada who had been responsible for throwing the sock, “I want to see what you were up all night sorting because I could hear your cursing from the other side of the ship.”

Knowing that he was beaten at that comment, Shishi nodded and hopped out of bed, catching hold of Dada to throw him onto his shoulders because despite being an adult the youngster was still little and liked to be treated that way. “Understood, coming,” Shishi grinned tiredly towards Tats as he knew fine well that there would be no escaping Tats wrath should he delay.

He even took hold of the string that was just holding Keke back, reprimanding him with a glare as they made their way to the large hanger and the mountain of presents. Though as the main door slid open, there came gasps of surprise as the large tree was teetering so dangerously far forward that it was clearly going to fall over.

Immediately there was a surge forward from the Matoki, Keke and Joko running straight for the presents to shift as many as possible out of the way whilst Tats and Dada teamed up to launch themselves at the tree and knock it back the right way up, adapting a form of Angry Birds sling shot system which had turned out to be a very useful tactic. Shishi ran straight for the unseen by the others Toto who he had clocked experimentally pulling on one of the branches where he was surrounded by various low lying ornaments. Protectively he wrapped the robot up in his arms and hoped that the tree would not be too heavy for it to be lifted up off of them.

“Shishi!” there came several frightened cries as the tree toppled forward to almost crush the leader and his newest member but the thick central trunk which would have undoubtedly caused him to be in sick bay for a week stopped just short of actually connecting with his body. In fact, it was exactly a paw length away from hitting him and Shishi blinked in surprise as he realized that Toto had actually reached up to stop the tree from hitting them. “Boop!” the robot said cutely before seeming to give the tree a light tap that sent it straight back up into its original standing position without a single problem.

Well except for a slight clatter as an ornament shaped like a red London bus dislodged itself which caused the robot to let out a series of happy noises before pointing towards it with a very happy expression on its face. Shishi stared dumbfounded towards Toto, “You knocked the tree down to get the toy?”

Toto tilted his head a little, trying to process this thought before letting out a noise which could have just been a positive response but it wasn’t quite working right.

Shishi raised his eyebrows towards his creation and felt his ears twitch at the series of clicks and squeaks that came out of the voice simulator. “What’s wrong with your voice? You should be able to…”

“Shishi,” Tats said, being brave and stepping closer, “What…whose…I mean?”

Toto turned his head towards Tats and blinked, little streams of data flipping across his eyes before a very happy squeal escaped from him followed by the words, “Mama!”

Little paws reached out towards Tats in a grabby motion and for a second the pink faced Matoki was confused before he reached forward and took the little Matoki into his arms. He stared at the blue face plated creature with large eyes and cute little white markings on his arms and forehead where there was a little key that ticked around slowly. He looked up to Shishi, “What?”

Lightly Shishi rubbed the back of his head, “Surprise. He was supposed to just stay asleep and wake up when you found him but his program must have activated earlier and he started exploring. Everyone this is Totomato. Our newest member.”

Joko prodded lightly at the creature’s cheek, “He’s a robot?

“Yes, the best that I’ve ever built,” Shishi said proudly, “He should act exactly like us, be able to interact and help out with simple tasks at the moment but as he grows his AI should adapt and he’ll be a…”

“He’s so cute!” Keke surprised everyone by jumping into the hold and squeezing the blue cheeks, “I just want to squish him! I’ll be able to teach him everything about being able to sneak and hide and…”

Toto reached across suddenly to bop Keke on the nose with a little, “Boop!”

Joko prodded Toto in the cheek again, “Hey! I was giving you attention first! No fair!”

Turning his head back around to the clown painted Matoki, Toto grew shy and hid his face in the crook of Himchan’s neck for a few seconds with some incoherent mumblings. That was until there was a gentle tap onto his arm and there came a warm smile from Dada who held up the toy which had dropped before. “Hey little bro, do you want to play with me?”

Toto squealed happily, wriggled for a few seconds to get down and then looked up at Tats who was still staring at him in completely surprise before smiling and placing a kiss on the others cheek. “Mama, Toto down!”

“Huh? Yeah, okay,” Tats said, gently placing the blue Matoki down and watched as he crawled after Dada who had returned to the small toy pile which Toto had clearly made to start playing with him. Dada seemed completely thrilled at the prospect of being a big brother and was immediately trying to teach Toto how to play. Joko and Keke were quick to follow and they were just as equally enthralled with the new youngster. Though Shishi had to stop twitching every time that a wrong noise would come out of Toto, because he hadn’t designed him to be like that in the slightest.

However, feeling Tats stepping next to him and wrapping his two paws around his own made those feelings go away and Shishi turned to his second in command with a smile. Tats looked a mixture between overwhelmed, about to burst into tears and just fascinated. “You made him…for us?”

“Well specifically for you,” Shishi smiled shyly towards the other.

“For me?” Tats said.

Shishi nodded, “You said you wanted to have kids but since we kinda can’t, I thought this would be the best for our little warren.”

It took Tats a few seconds to process that thought and then he threw his arms around Shishi’s neck and kissed him openly. Something he rarely did when the other boys were around but Shishi wasn’t going to complain about that in the slightest. When they pulled back to gain some air, Shishi smiled, “I’ll sort out the communication error though...”

“No, you will not,” Tats said with a smile, “Toto has only just been born so he needs time to learn.”

About to argue the point, Shishi instead had to turn and glare at said robot who had just accidentally flung a piece of paper at his head in order to get his attention. “Daddy! Mama!” Toto called, “Come play!”

For the rest of the day everyone virtually spent it playing with Toto, though they did eventually stop and remember to actually open the rest of the presents at some point. Though they all agreed that Toto was the best Christmas present they ever had.