A/N: To Suivre le Stylo, who gave me a challenge with the following conditions:
1. Two of the following pairings (one I'm using) (another one I'm using) SumirexYouichi, LucaxLuna.
2. The phrases, "Why does my coffeee taste funny?" and "I'd sell my soul for ..."
3. Bad sushi
4. Melonbeauty.
I have to say, however, that this is possibly the most pointless and random fanfiction that I have ever written. Of course, I am always open to new challenges, and I'm getting bored with thinking of my own boring ideas. :)
This is set in the parody universe where Melonbeauty lives, Mikan is an ALICE and Natsume is the Crown Prince of Frrance. We'll just assume that Natsume, Mikan and MB are 16, Youichi is about 10 and the sixth formers are somehow still sixth formers. No, it does not make any sense.

XXX

Bad Sushi And Frrench Girls

"Can we take a break? My feet hurt so much ..." moaned Hayate.

Persona, the newly reinstated Head Of Dangerous Ability Department, looked round and saw that Hayate indeed looked very tired, annoyed and pained by blisters. In fact, the the whole DA class (except for Youichi, who was being carried by Natsume) looked as if they might collapse from exhaustion at any moment. Pah. What a bunch of losers.

Taking a deep breath, he shouted, "Of course not!" in indignation. Hopefully that would wake them up. "This is the DANGEROUS ABILITY class, and we do NOT stop for breaks!"

The group of teenagers (plus Youichi) behind him were not at all pleased by this pronouncement. Persona distinctly heard someone that sounded much like either Natsume or Hayate mutter, "Yeah, I bet that's what they told you when you were a janitor."

He could've sworn that they had been better behaved in the old days, before he had decided that his stressful, risky career needed drastic measures and so applied for that nightly window-cleaning job.

"We have only another sixty-nine miles to walk. We do not need a break," he explained, killing a nearby sapling for dramatic effect while Rui giggled at the number 69.

There was a melodramatic silence. "Huh," said the DA class in remarkable unison. They even managed to get the same pitch as well. Natsume sat down on a barrel and set the dying sapling alight.

"Look, Tnjwctw, we're not going to go any further until we get a rest. With food. And coffee," he said. "Oh, and you're not the only one who can kill stuff," he added, pointing at the burning tree. (Everyone else was too tired to even think about saying or doing anything.)

Well, fine then, Persona inwardly thought. "Well, fine then," he outwardly said. "We'll stop off at the next cafe."

"YAY!!" shouted Rui, happily punching the air with a new burst of energy. Everyone else stared at him, including Persona.

XXX

The next cafe/rest stop/restaurant turned out to be sixty-eight and a half miles away. By the time they reached it, Nobara had fainted and was being carried by Hayate's ingenious use of his Air Alice, Hajime the weird bandaged guy had had to call up his insect helpers to help put on a new layer of bandages, and even Persona was in desperation for that coffee break.

"Hmm ... 'A Very Normal Japanese Sushi Bar'," read Rui. "Is that what they're normally called?"

"Shut up and just get inside," Natsume said. The rest of the class was piled up behind Rui, who moved and let them all tumble into a messy heap. Well, at least they were inside the sushi bar.

"Hello!! Welcome to a very normal Japanese sushi bar!! How many?"

Persona, as the leader and teacher of the group, took it upon himself to answer. With the last remaining scrap of energy he had, he said, "Urgghhh."

"OK!! Just wait over in the queue by the door!!" the very enthusiastic waitress said. (You can see you was enthusiastic by the double exclamation marks after everything she said.) The pile of Alice Academy students who had not bothered to untangle themselves or get up from the floor looked around to where she was pointing, and saw a line of people waiting for a table stretching out into the distance. No way were they going to wait that long for a table - after all, this WAS the Dangerous Ability class.

Persona grumpily killed another nearby sapling. "If you do not get us to a suitable table within the next five seconds, I swear I will dissolve you and your closest friends into black sludge and you know what, I can do it with nothing more than a simple snap of my fingers," Persona muttered into the girl's ear, yanking her obnoxiously long hair.

She yelped and said, "Eeeeeeek!! Let go of my hair!! And you just murdered my favourite cherry tree in this restaurant!! Anyway, your stupid threat doesn't scare me because I'm an ALICE with added Nullification powers (25 percent extra free), so there!!"

Natsume happened to look up at this moment. He gasped in shock. "Mikan?"

"Natsume?" said Mikan. She stepped backwards in surprise. "And Nobara-san and You-chan and Hotaru's-creepy-stalker and bandage-face and a strange girl I don't know?"

"Uh ... yeah," Natsume said. He wasn't sure if this was the right time to point out that Rui wasn't actually a girl. Ah well. Never mind.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were back at school!" Natsume and Mikan both said at the same time. "And how come you didn't recognise Persona?" continued Natsume.

Mikan was the first to recover from the mutual shock. "Well, this morning, I decided to get a summer job since I'm running out of cash and I have the Elephant Of Sushi Making, and this was the nearest sushi bar with my sacred Sakura trees to decorate it! Until you came along, that is," she said glaring at Persona. "Anyway, I was going to meet up with some of my friends in this place, so that's another reason why I'm working here. I haven't seen Persona without his Trhnjwctw outfit on for AGES."

"Oh," said Natsume. "I'm here because Mr. Janitor wanted his class to do some idiotic mission or something. Oi! I'm hotter than the "really hot" night janitor!" he added, just realising the implications of Mikan using Persona's "really hot" name.

"Urgh, can't we just leave Natsume with his girlfriend and eat something already?" a voice said from behind him. Natsume turned around to see Persona nodding in agreement and killing a second cherry tree.

"Even if we can't do anything to you, Little Miss Nullification, we can do a lot of things to Natsume here," he said. From the corner of his eye, he could see Nobara looking fearful at the thought of torturing her dear Mikan's dear boyfriend. He should really have kept her in her working personality, he thought.

Mikan sighed and duly led the group to a table. "I'm only doing this because Natsume's here, not because you threatened me," she told them, and walked off to calm down the furious line of people. Natsume thought he heard someone shout, "We've been waiting here for three days!" but that might have just been his imagination.

XXX

The group of Alice Academy students had been relaxing for an hour or so, talking about things such as Magic Sakura Fruit Pies (tm) and messy break-ups like Persona had been through with Yuka, before Nobara suggested that they should order some drinks. Maybe food would be a good idea as well. After all, this WAS a very normal Japanese sushi bar. Natsume used his powers of one-true-love-couple's-telepathy to tell Mikan their orders.

"So that's nine coffees!!" she said, coming over and putting down her tray. "But there's only seven of you ..." she added with a confused look.

"Yeah, I need to drink at least three every few hours to keep up my maniacal and glitzy vigour," explained Rui, taking the three pink mugs. The others all reached for a mug just as Mikan exclaimed, "OMG!! There they are!!" and knocked over the tray. Scaldingly hot coffee spilt onto the laps of everyone (except Rui), and there was a collective scream of agony.

"Do something, snow girl!" cried Hayate. Nobara immediately froze the coffee into coffee-flavoured ice - giving everyone frostbite in the process. Natsume rolled his eyes and defrosted everyone, accidentally on purpose singeing Nobara's elbows.

"We are never, ever coming here again," said Persona once the agonising pain had subsided into merely torturous pain (which the whole DA class had been very well trained to resist). He looked at Hajime, who obediently summoned a swarm of wasps. They flew over to Persona and were immediately killed for stress relief.

Meanwhile, the two people whose entrance had caused the whole coffee spillage were talking to Mikan, or rather, squealing excitedly and loudly with Mikan. Persona and his class squinted at the figures, trying to make out who they were, but to no avail.

But wait a moment, thought Natsume, the one on the left's chest looked melonesque-tically familiar ...

"NATSUME!!" the Princessessa Melonbeauty yelled as she hurtled towards him knocking over several waiters with trays of sushi.

"Is she your other girlfriend?" asked Hayate exactly as Rui said, "How can she run that fast with those boobs?" Nobara, Youichi, Hajime and Persona simply stared in terror.

Natsume had a split second to process these questions before Melonbeauty collided with the table and sent Rui's two empty coffee mugs flying.

"NO!" Natsume said to Hayate. "I have no idea!" he said to Rui who was clutching the still-full third mug to his chest. "Uh ... er, good to see you," he said to Melonbeauty. She beamed at him and disentangled herself from the table.

"I was just coming into this very normal Japanese sushi bar which for some reason serves coffee to say hello to Mikan! I didn't expect to see you as well! I also brought along my mum's karate and tai chi and kung fu and taekwondo instructor, who says she also knows Mikan," she said. "So how've you all been? I haven't seen you and Mikan for ages, not since I was carried off to my kingdom to sign a few adoption papers! Apparently some of our hybrids are not in accordance with The Unicorn Guidelines of 1934. I think it's all rubbish, really, but what can you do? Anyway, I must introduce you to my companion, you know the martial arts expert, Listerine LaPomme. And who are your charming companions?" She flicked her dazzling purple hair over her shoulder and fluttered her two-inch long eyelashes at Persona.

Natsume was understandably overwhelmed by this monologue and could not think of anything intelligent to say. Persona, however, was even more overwhelmed by the eyelashes which seemed to defy the laws of gravity and common sense, as well as the name Listerine LaPomme. It sounded horrifyingly familiar ...

"Sehrrio?" said the orange-haired woman who had come in with Melonbeauty. Her voice had a very recognisable Frrench accent that put Natsume in mind of his own father (remember, his father was the King Of Frrance and he was the Rightful Heir Crown Prince who had been sent back to Japan for extra Alice training - he might have been married to Mikan, we're not really sure). The whole table turned their attention from Melonbeauty's melons to Listerine LaPomme's face.

"Rina?" said Persona. He simply could not believe it.

The others, including Melonbeauty and Mikan (who had wandered over to join them) were puzzled. "Do you two know each other?" said Melonbeauty, looking from Persona's masked and ominous face to Listerine's shocked and extremely pretty visage.

"Ah ... oui, 'e, the hrreally 'ot night zhanitor 'oo cleans the windows, was one of my, 'ow do you say, ex-boyfhrriends," Listerine, or Rina, said slowly.

Persona didn't say anything. He appeared to be frozen in shock, as were the rest of the DA class. Natsume waved a flame around Persona's face, with no response.

Rina looked around the table. "Natsume?" she said, as her eyes moved onto his face.

"How do you know his name?" said Hayate, breaking the collective frozen shocked silence.

"Shut it, windbag," Rui said. He had screwed up his face in concentration. "I'm trying to sort out all these connections and relationships in my head."

Natsume looked again at Rina. Hey, those features DID remind him of someone he knew ... "LucaRuka? I mean, I remember you now! You're LucaRuka's mum!"

She smiled. "Oui, that ees correct!"

Rui smacked his forehead. "Oh damn that, I lost it again!"

XXX

A few more coffees (Rui was on his seventh) and plates of sushi later, and a whole lot more cramming into narrow seats around a table later, things were getting slightly more clear.

"So you're LucaRuka's mum, and you knew Melonbeauty because you taught HER mum taichikaratetaekwondokungfu, and you know Natsume because LucaRuka was his childhood friend, and you went out with Pehrrsona, I mean Persona, when he in his janitor phase?" said Rui, reading the notes he had made on a napkin.

Rina nodded. She glanced at Persona, who was still in catatonic mode and who had not even touched his sushi.

"Oh don't worry about him," Hayate said. "He'll be fine in an hour or so. Guys, remember when he met Yuka over at the tennis court mission last last Friday?"

The rest of the table nodded. Mikan said, "Persona went out with MY mum as WELL?"

"Yuka's your MUM?!" said Rui. "I thought she was just some random girl who liked janitors! So Rina went out with Persona who went out with Yuka who is Mikan's mother. Riiiiight. Is there anything else you haven't told us, like who LucaRuka's father was or what your Alice is if you have one?" he said to Rina.

Rina shrugged. "Well, I 'ave the Aleece de 'air Colouhrring which I, eh, etudie? Study? At the couhrrt of, euh, le Hrroi de Frrance. I was also 'ees mistrrriiss, and 'e is also Luca's father."

Natsume stopped playing with Mikan's hair and looked up. "LucaRuka's dad is ... the King of Frrance ...? THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!"

Mikan looked up at that as well. "But my darling cutie-cream Natsume, isn't the Frrench King your dad?"

"Yes he is! So me and LucaRuka are ... half-brothers?!"

Listerine scratched her head and turned her hair a psychedelic shade of holographic pink-green. "I theenk so," she said after a while.

Melonbeauty stood up and clapped her hands giddily. "That is sooooo cute! I can't believe you two are related! I always thought you two looked alike," she cried, waving her pink and flowery handbag around madly. A few more mugs of coffee were knocked off the table in the whirling confusion.

"Sit down, stupid," said Youichi.

"Eh? Who are you?" Melonbeauty said, sitting down. "I didn't know you were here before!"

"That's probably because he never speaks. His girlfriend Hotaru broke up with him, then faded out of existance and moved to Manga Heaven," explained Nobara. She had been amusing herself by freezing Rui's coffee and seeing how long it took him to notice - she's not that innocent and adorable after all.

"Don't remind me ..." said Hayate, mournfully looking out of the window at the cool blue sky.

"Who are YOU then?" said Melonbeauty, even more confused. "Why don't you all just introduce yourselves?" she said, gesturing around the whole table.

Nobara smiled sweetly, as she does. "I'm Nobara and I have the Ice Alice. I'm -" she started, but was interrupted by an angry shout.

"Why does my coffee taste funny? It's like, I dunno, poison or something!" Rui said, whining. He gave Nobara an accusative look. "I KNOW you were making my coffee go cold, ice queen! Now you're going one step too far with this assassination plan!" He took a bite out of the seaweed roll to get the taste of spiked coffee out of his mouth. Then he spat it out. "And this sushi doesn't taste right either!"

Everyone else took an experimental bite of their own sushi. "Yeah, it DOES taste kinda funny ..." said Hayate.

"Ew," said Hajime.

"I didn't know he spoke ..." said Melonbeauty.

"Thees ees why je n'aime pas la vie Zhapanese," Rina said. Her hair slowly turned a sickly shade of barf-green to match her thoughts.

Hayate had had a sudden, ghastly idea. "Maybe it's poisoned! Like, literally! I know loads of people would love to murder the whole Dangerous Ability class together with the most powerful Elephant user and the best taichikaratetaekwondokungfu fighter and the most beautiful girl in the world! Let's get out of here!"

"Maybe we should take a walk," Mikan suggested. The others agreed. After all, these little tables weren't exactly meant to hold ten people.

XXX

Persona had recovered from the terrible shock of meeting the famed stripper-cum-martial arts expert LaPomme again. (Here, the word "cum" is a Latin word meaning something totally innocent and very different from what you may imagine.)

"Rina ... I'm sorry I behaved a little strangely back there. I just wasn't ready to see you again after what happened," he said, once they were outside and again walking towards the Mission Target.

"What did happen?" said Rui, who was eavesdropping along.

"Shut up and be quiet!" said Hayate and Hajime, who were also eavesdropping along. Rui made an annoyed "pah!" sound, flicked his hair over his shoulder with a practised wrist movement, and went off to talk to Melonbeauty about haircare tips.

"So ... what are we doing, my darling love-nest snugglypoo?" Mikan asked Natsume.

"We're sneaking up onto the Very Important Person who is approximately half a mile away, then we're going to carry out our Top Secret Sneaky Plan (Part A) which is too top secret and sneaky for me to tell you," Natsume replied.

"Ah," said Mikan.

Nobara was the one chosen to carry Youichi for this half-mile leg of the journey.

"Your hands are cold, ice queen," he complained. Nobara didn't reply, but instead just smiled sweetly. She was plotting her revenge on the whole DA class which would come one day. (But maybe not today.)

Meanwhile, Rui had moved on from thinking that Melonbeauty's hair was nice to thinking that everything about her was nice. Hmm. He didn't even mind the fact that she had a chest the size of two melons. He couldn't help thinking that she was even cuter than Tsubasa, even if she was a girl. This feeling he had; it was almost like a stomach ache and yet it wasn't - is this what love felt like? Well, maybe he should ask her to make sure.

"Melonbeauty, I think I might be falling in love with you," he said in all earnestness, after she had finished describing the 32-step method of hair washing.

Melonbeauty "eeeeee!!"-ed very loudly. This caused even Persona and Rina to look round and ask her if she was quite alright. When the fuss had died down, she turned back to Rui and said, "Really?? That is so cool! ... But I'm not a lesbian, though."

"I'm not a girl!"

"Oh!" Melonbeauty turned bright red. "Oh! Sorry! That's alright then! You do look like a girl, though."

"Thanks!" said Rui, who was genuinely happy about that. "So ... what do you want to do about it?"

"Let's be going out then," suggested Melonbeauty. And so that was that, because it really is that easy to ask out someone and gain a new girlfriend just like that.

While all this drama was taking place, Persona was telling Rina about his messy break-up with Yuka while Hayate and Hajime listened behind him. In some way or another, this conversation gradually moved onto how, when and why he had broken up with Rina. (For those interested readers, it turned out to be because Rina was in some ways a rebound girlfriend after Yuka, and Persona did not think it could ever turn into a real relationship. For Rina, Persona had been a rebound boyfriend after the King Of Frrance had kicked her out of the royal court, so she had felt the same way. Aw. However, that hadn't stopped her from using her famed LaPomme-quadruple-kick-avec-double-flip-penguin-punch on Persona when he had announced the break-up.)

"Oui, je comphrrends, mais - pehrr'aps eet was a mistake, non? I hrrealised last week that I deed love you. I theenk there might 'ave been true feelings in our, uh, relationsheep, if we 'ad continued."

Persona agreed, and they decided to try the whole relationship-love thing again. He gave her a smoochy kiss, and Hayate and Hajime said, "Awww... how sweet!" Luckily Persona didn't hear, because he was engaged in the smoochy kiss.

And that is how our couples got together.

XXX

A few minutes later, the group had arrived at where the Mission Target should be.

"STOP!" shouted Persona.

The rest of the troop, who had been walking behind him, screamed in terror and hugged their respective girlfriend or boyfriend in fear. (Hayate and Hajime hugged themselves, and Nobara was forced to hug Youichi.) The scream of terror made Persona hug Rina in fear, who shook him off and said, "You hrreally 'aven't trained your team vehrry well, Sehrrio."

Persona glared at her. "DA class! We are approaching the shady backstreets of our target town, and we are now moving into the Sneaky Phase of our mission. Follow me, and Sneak as well as you can. Be on your guard at all times," he said to the assembled students.

"But ... why are we sneaking through shady backstreets in broad daylight?" said Nobara.

"No questions!" barked Persona. Then he set off into a brightly lit backstreet.

"This is stupid," whispered Rui.

"Yeah, I know. It reminds me of that video game, you know the one with the dragon. 'Alley Sneaking' I think it was called," Hayate said.

"Oh, I've played that game! Have you tried the sequel, 'Sidestreet Sneaking'?"

"I've played that one!" said Melonbeauty, randomly cutting in. She had so much in common with Rui. "I got to the level where you have to hide in a cardboard box until the BigDragonBoss comes, and I can never do that bit ... I've been stuck for a whole year!"

"You have to wait exactly 3.1415 seconds, then press the orangey-pink button as fast as you can until you freeze his toenail," Hayate told her. "You know, they're going to release a third one called 'Lane Sneaking' in 2010, I heard!"

"Coooool! I'd sell my soul to get my hands on one of those when they come out!" said Rui. There was a pause, in which the trio could hear various terms of endearment such as "luvviepear" and "wugglecream" being spoken by Natsume and Mikan. "Hey, have you guys got past the Bonus Bonus Bonus level where you need to grow the potato and roll it down the hill? I think it's a secret level in 'Alley Sneaking'," Rui continued.

"Yep," said Hayate, while Melonbeauty said, "I didn't know there was another Bonus Bonus Bonus level - I just did the tomato one with the giant pumpkin vendor."

"D'you know the secret code to unlock the Master Sneaky Boots then?"

"Yeah, I memorised it - it's -" Hayate started, but was unforunately cut off by Persona shouting, "STOP!" for the second time today.

"I thought we were meant to be silently sneaking ... ?" said Nobara. She was again met with a stern glare and "No questions!" from Persona.

"We are now at the Mission Target! Natsume, please step forwards," Persona said. Natsume stepped forwards. Then he was pulled back by Mikan, who squeaked, "But what if he gets hurt or killed or even worse scared? Don't do it, dearest NatsuNectarine dear!"

Melonbeauty sighed and took out her perfume bottle, clearly intending to spray it on Mikan to calm her nerves. But then she saw something that dismayed her greatly.

"Oh no! My perfume appears to be only half full! I'm sure it was full this morning at the Parris Airport ..."

Rui sniffed the half-empty bottle. "You know ... it kinda smells like what my venomous coffee tasted like this morning."

"Oh! Oh! Oh! You don't mean to say that ... you DRANK my perfume! Oh no!"

"Huh?"

"That perfume isn't just any old perfume! It's my SuperSmellyScentsation (tm) designed by my mother, who has the Elephantal Alice Of Perfumery. It has special powers, including love pheromones and amourous effects, and I'm sure you've had a big overdose of it if you drank half the bottle!"

Realisation dawned on Rui. "Oh. So that's why I fell in love with you so quickly! So what happens when it wears off?"

"It doesn't wear off. That's the point. So don't worry, you'll always be in love with me."

"Cool!" said Rui, who was not sure if that was a good thing.

"Hey, it kinda smells like the bad sushi we had as well," said Hayate. "So it wasn't actually poisoned then?"

Rui and Melonbeauty shrugged.

"Now, if you two are finished, we still have twenty-two parts left of our mission to steal Important Legal Documentation. Natsume, I repeat, please step fowards," said Persona. Rina was next to him wearing an annoyingly soppy expression as she looked at his masked face, and the rest of the class were behind him wearing annoyed expressions at this irritating delay in their Mission Plans.

"Why don't I just use my Elephant Of Object Summoning to get the Important Legal Documentation?" asked Mikan, confused. The others stared with incredulous expressions (except for Natsume, who stared with a loving expression).

"You have ... the power to SUMMON the Documentation?" said Persona.

"Well, yes."

"... and you could have done it back at the Academy, without having to walk seventy-two miles?"

"Well ... yes."

What a pointless, stupid, idiotic, senseless, damn crappy trip, thought the rest of the group.

XXX

Of course, it wasn't all a loss. After all, Rui and Persona had both found love. Mikan (or rather Meekanf) and Melonbeauty instantly transported them all back to Alice Academy using their handy extra Alice powers. Listerine LaPomme became the martial arts instructor at the Academy to the delight of LucaRuka. Melonbeauty decided to stay with Rui and live in the Dangerous Ability block for the rest of her days.

THE END.

A/N: Listerine is the name of a mouthwash which comes in many different colours, by the way. And Rui is now my fourth favourite character. Yay!