113Petal: We don't own Pokemon Special. PokechuThePikachu, thank you for Yoduh! He will be in the next chapter! And thank you, Falneou17, for reviewing! Although I think we're going to disappoint you a bit about Lapis...
LAST CHAPTER, NINJA PRINCESS LYRA WAS KIDNAPPED, AND SOMEONE THREW DYNAMITE IN THE TAVERN.
Which might explain why everyone was coughing. The roof had been been blown off, and the bard, his Pichu, and his banjo were nowhere to be seen.
"A'RIGHT, WHO THREW DAT?!" demanded the tavern owner, a particularly angry housewife by the name of Sapphire. She hated it when people destroyed her tavern. It was her family's main source of income aside from her prissy husband's dress shop.
"It wasn't us! We know better!" called someone in the crowd. So they all gathered their frying pans and flamethrowers and went in search of the perpetrator. As they stormed out of the tavern, the townsfolk all hid in their houses.
"AAAAAAAAH!" Orange screamed as he went soaring through the clouds, barely able to keep hold of his sword and Jo. Chu was screaming along with him as they arced through the sky and fell on a road.
Or rather, he fell into a cart on the road.
Filled with onions.
That were raw.
And peeled.
Orange started sobbing. Wailing. Bawling like a little baby. It was rather embarrassing. Chu pretended not to know him and instead started nibbling on the onions.
Orange suddenly felt the pain of 144 square inches of tree pulp slamming into his face with the form of a pro. "THIEF! THIEF!" a shrill, screechy female voice bellowed. "ARLER, FLARE BLITZ!"
"What about the onions?" a much calmer and relaxed voice asked mildly.
The first voice quickly rescinded the order. "NO, WAIT! YOU MIGHT BURN THE ONIONS!"
A furry orange canine stopped inches-no, centimeters-from Chu's face. The poor little mouse pokemon fell backwards, foaming at the mouth and trembling, blue lines of dread sliding down his face.
"Who are you, and why are you trying to seize our onions?" the first voice-now revealed to belong to a girl-asked accusatorily after slapping Orange with her paper fan again.
"I-I'm Orange, a hero-in-training and a bard. I wasn't trying to steal your onions," Orange whimpered, cowering in fear and covering his head.
"Then what are you doing here?!" the girl hissed, thrusting her face mere inches from his and glaring. Terrified red met enraged orange. Lemon spikes clashed with a blonde horn. Staring at this odd, odd girl, Orange was hit with a startling realization.
She was really, really short.
Rather stupidly, he said, "Where are your parents, little girl? It's dangerous for children to travel these roads!"
The girl popped a vein. "Make fun of my height, will you?! GRAHHHHHH!" Her paper fan whizzed towards his head, but a hand firmly grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
"No violence, Lustrous," said a boy with short black hair and blue eyes. "Let's try to solve this peacefully."
"...Who are you?" Orange asked cautiously.
"I'm Adamant, the driver and cook," the boy explained.
"Driver...?"
All three were silent for a moment.
"GET BACK TO THE REINS BEFORE WE CRASH AND BURN AND DIE!" Lustrous screamed.
Adamant hurriedly got back to his driver seat, but he had been gone a second too long. Bandits ambushed the carriage and tied everyone up before they could get back up from the horses going wild.
"Sniff... What did I do to deserve this?" Orange wailed.
"Aw, shut up. Yer rich, so we robbed ya and yer friends," the bandit replied. Lustrous and Adamant had already been knocked out, although Lustrous had dealt quite a bit of damage. Her captors would be feeling her sharp teeth on their forearms for years to come.
"Well... can I sing one more song before I die with my beloved banjo Jo?"
Something told the bandits they shouldn't listen, but nobody ever praised bandits for being smart.
"Awright, kid, I feel for ya, but ya gotta stay in those leg shackles."
They fetched Jo.
Orange began to sing.
The bandits fell to the ground, their ears bleeding. Orange was very offended by this and hit them with Jo. Then he whistled for Chu.
Nothing happened.
He whistled again.
A tumbleweed blew by.
He whistled a third time.
A Kricketune apparently thought it was night time and started playing sad violin music.
Fed up with this, Orange yelled that he'd tell the death fairies to take Chu out of his will if he didn't show up right that second.
There was a large CRACK as the little electric mouse broke the sound barrier to valiantly rush to his partner's aid. Orange glared, miffed. Chu grinned sheepishly and untied the three captured people. Once Lustrous and Adamant had been Thundershocked awake (and Lustrous was calmed down enough not to throttle Chu and Orange), the group got back into the cart and rode off before the bandits could wake up.
"I had a terrifying nightmare," Lustrous mentioned, munching on a piece of raw onion. "A horrible demon, Count Josephinir, was attacking my ears and stole my onions."
"Gee, that Count Josephinir character... His name sounds sort of like my banjo, Josephinius..." Orange mused.
Lustrous paled. "You can come along with us as long as you don't play that banjo."
Orange was very sad that he could not play his precious Jo, but he agreed nevertheless. He was totally lost and had no sense of direction aside from his homing beacon on his sister, who, according to his big brother instincts, was with an unknown male at the moment. Oh, wait-Aquamarine just interrupted. ...Aaaaaaaaaaand he backed off. The spineless coward. Completely useless as a bodyguard.
"Want an onion?" Lustrous asked, snapping the hero bard out of his reverie.
He shook his head. "Uh, no... I'm good."
"Hey, guys, we have a problem," Adamant called back, halting the cart. "This mountain's in our way. We could take the long way around the base, or we could go over it."
Lustrous, the unofficial leader of their motley crew, frowned, thinking deeply. "Hmm... The long way around takes a month, but the road is rather safe as there are always travelers on it, sometimes even the royal guard themselves. The short way only takes three days, but the mountain is riddled with warring bandit clans, rattlesnakes that have rattles that sound like they're saying 'Kariya' (Inazuma Eleven GO reference), rocky terrain, it gets freezing cold around halfway up, and there's apparently an old hermit who hates intruders that lives up there." She pondered their predicament for a short while before standing. "LET'S DO IT."
And so they gathered the onions and their belongings, bade farewell to the cart and Ponyta, and started up the mountain.
As fate would have it, not too long after, they were in the crossfire of two warring bandit clans. From one side was a rain of five hundred flaming arrows. From the other, a rain of five hundred poisoned arrows. Lustrous and Adamant stuffed their ears with leaves as Orange and Jo sang what they thought would be their final song. Luckily, all the arrows splintered when they encountered the sound waves generated from the horrible-uh, horribly sad song. The bandits tsked and wondered what the heck was going on. Did the opposing clan have a sorceror among them?
Running ever faster to avoid getting stuck in a sticky (or pointy) situation, the group by some miracle made it to the top of the mountain.
"S-Soooooooooo c-c-c-c-c-c-cooooooold..." Lustrous complained, her teeth chattering.
"How about a group hug?" Orange suggested. As everyone was dressed in thin tunics, they all agreed that this was a good idea and tied their bundles of onions to their backs. Chu squeezed himself in between them. They shuffled along awkwardly, not quite sure how to walk in such a position, when Orange spotted something. "I see smoke!" he reported.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire," came Lustrous's muffled voice from Chu's fur. "Let's go."
They shuffled more quickly and found themselves at a modest brick cottage.
The door slowly creaked open...
Lyra was mad. No, angry. No, wrathful. No, enraged. No, furious. No, utterly berserk with rage and fury, burning with the wrath of a thousand suns.
She was wearing.
A wedding dress.
As you can probably imagine, this didn't sit well with her. At all. In fact, she was currently sharpening her kunai and shuriken that were, as opposed to the beliefs of some amateur ninja, sharp, crooning, "Just a little longer, my darlings. Just a little longer. Then we shall have our vengeance..." She giggled. Insane? Lyra? Psh, no way! She just has... anger issues. Yes, anger issues. And her anger issues were quite clear from the broken chairs on the floor and the dents in the wall. She had tried multiple escape attempts, but none of them worked. It was laughable, really; the newly inaugurated assistant captain of the kingdom's ninja force was incapable of breaking out of a prison with such a simple security system.
Magic laser alarms? It was like playing Limbo, an easy feat for a ninja.
Guard pokemon? One glare and they all turned tail, whimpering.
Booby traps? She was a master at finding and avoiding and/or disabling them.
Surveillance cameras? They didn't have that kind of technology. Null and void!
Sadly, Lyra had a terrible weakness. Not just terrible, horrible. Few knew of it, and the only reasons they were still alive were A) two of them was stronger than her, and B) they were all her friends and family anyway. Anyway, she... was afraid... of slugs.
Completely irrational, yes, but hey-it was a phobia. She hated them; hated their jiggly, slow, slimy bodies that left trails of mucus on the ground; hated the way they destroyed Healer Yellow's herb garden; hated the way she always thought they'd go down her throat if she was unwary; and she despised the way they would always cling to her when she slogged through rainforests for training. As luck would have it, the area surrounding the castle and tower she was stuck in was infested with slugs. (Slug phobia dedicated to Lina Inverse of Hajime Kanzaka's Slayers)
So since she couldn't escape, she decided to bide her time waiting for her captor who had put her in a wedding dress to arrive. That, and sharpen her pretty little weapons, of course.
Looking out the window (made of only the finest quality diamond- Drat!) Lyra noticed a hooded figure approach the tower.
Silver donned his black cloak as his wife prepared his weapon pouch, stuffing it efficiently with the most possible items and using the most possible space in the way only housewives can.
"With good luck, I'll be back by the end of the week," he said, kissing her and taking his pouch. Of course, life doesn't work that way. "Lapis!"
Another cloaked figure dropped from the ceiling. Pulling off the hood, the figure revealed itself to be a brown-haired boy about Lyra's age with an impressive hair antenna. "Yessir!"
"Go in search of allies," the man ordered, strapping his weapon pouch and a few handy swords to his belt. "I'd say your best bet is Sir Red's son, Orange. He's ranked number one in all the latest hero polls in the magazines. Oh, and make sure to take an extra sword or two with you-I've heard his is rather rusty. I will search for Lyra herself. Keep in contact with Soul, Queen Crystal, Sir Red, and me through your messenger Pidove. Understood?"
Lapis saluted his captain. He was going to help save his best friend without fail. "Understood!"
The high-ranking ninja were all hyped. Captain Silver was going to be away... Assistant Captain Lyra was at the moment missing... Lapis-Lazuli, another extremely capable young ninja, was also going to be away... Perhaps one of them would get to be the stand-in captain! Yes, they set their goals so high!
"Feraligatr, prepare for a fight," Silver whispered to his partner as he ninja-ran through the forest at mach speeds.
Orange, Lustrous, and Adamant were still waiting for the door to finish creaking open.
Petal: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's the end of the chapter!
Copper: I'm actually pretty excited. I did some of teh work in this chapter!
Petal: ...'Teh'?
Copper: Teh. Remember to remind them about OCs!
Petal: Right, right. Please send in your OCs, people! We need them for plot devices! Some bad guys would be appreciated, because I don't know how to make proper antagonists! What about you, Copper?
Copper: Hmmm... I think that antagonists would be really appreciated. Of course, reviews would be even more appreciated.
Petal: So please review and submit your OCs! Thanks for reading!