Hello again. This here is a short piece I wrote several months back in response to Akun50's 'Unique Power-Ups' challenge on TFF. The challenge was thus: When Kakashi shows up for the bell test he notices that all three of his new students are acting or appear much different than when he met them the day before. Once the test begins, he finds out just HOW different they've really become.

Rules were as followed: 1.) Team 7's power-ups had to come from a pre-existing character of a different anime, movie, video game, book, etc. No self-made powers. 2.) Kakashi could not know about their new powers before the testing began, and he had to be defeated by them. 3.) Tell everyone whose power-ups they were given when it was all said and done, in case they weren't able to figure it out for themselves. There were a few others, but those were the important one. Anything else was fair game for the trio. You could turn Naruto into a Power Ranger, Sasuke into Sailor Venus and Sakura into a character from Fist of the North Star if that's what struck your fancy, though most of the people who responded kept their power-ups into some sort of theme. My theme, for example, as you might have guessed from the title, was a group of very creepy or just downright scary video game characters. See if you can figure them out before the end, 'k?

A Freak, A Creep & A Psychopath

A Naruto One-shot Challenge Response

By Legendary Legacy

Standard Disclaimer: Characters of Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto. Characters referenced from other series belong to whoever owns them. The challenge idea belongs to Akun50.

Please enjoy.

From his observational hiding place amongst the forest of trees, Hatake Kakashi let out an involuntary shudder. He didn't know if the Hokage had done this to him on purpose or not, but he'd been watching his three student hopefuls for some time now, hoping to get a slightly better idea of what they were like beyond what he'd learned about them at their initial meeting the day before, and he still couldn't understand it. Yesterday, the three kids had seemed pretty much normal, aside from the ramen fixation, the schoolgirl crush, and the obsession of vengeance, but now? Well, right now he had to admit that sitting in the clearing before him had to be one of the creepiest trios of genin he'd ever seen.

First there was Naruto, who yesterday had been an overbearing loudmouth wearing a headache-inducing orange sweat suit. Today however, he was wearing a brown hooded cloak and brown slippers, and opposed to all the hyperactivity that Kakashi was expecting, he was simply sitting against a tree, completely motionless as he stared through empty, glassy eyes into the small lit lantern that was held up to his face.

Kakashi had been watching the boy's face for almost ten minutes and could swear that the boy hadn't blinked once. He had no earthly idea what had come over the boy or what the deal was with the lantern, but it was really starting to worry him.

Next to Naruto was Sasuke, who had also undergone a dramatic change of appearance, though not quite as strangely as Naruto's. Instead of the blue tee-shirt over khaki shorts that he'd worn the day before, he was now wearing a tight black jacket over a long-sleeved white button-down shirt, and a pair of blood-red pants, which for reasons that Kakashi was unable to comprehend, had a long belt tied between the legs halfway between the boy's knees and ankles. Not only was it a bad fashion statement, but it would surely impede the boy's movements.

The brooding boy was crouched down between his two teammates, and though his hair covered his eyes from Kakashi's vantage point, he didn't appear to really be looking at anything. He was also muttering to himself; the jounin couldn't make out what he was saying, but judging by the twisted smirk that appeared on his face every couple of seconds, it probably wasn't anything nice.

Finally, and though Kakashi couldn't figure out why, there was the most disturbing member of the team, the girl, Sakura. She was the one he was most wary of, simply because he couldn't find a reason for her to feel as threatening as she currently did. She was dressed in a bright red dress with a matching ribbon and hood, with a frilly white apron tied on over top of it. In her hands she cradled a covered wicker basket, something that a normal person would bring to a picnic.

All that combined with the cheerful tune she was humming and the carefree grin on her face made it seem like she was on a nice family outing instead of attempting to become a shinobi.

Kakashi sat back slowly, trying to make sense of the whole thing. Were they playing some sort of prank on him? He knew for a fact that Naruto loved playing pranks, but could he have possibly talked the other two into helping him with it? Was this some way of getting back at him for making them wait around for so long? Whatever it was, it certainly couldn't be for real. Kids didn't just wildly change their entire appearance and personalities overnight like this. He frowned: Well, if it was a prank, their day was about to get even more hellish than he'd originally intended for them. Pranks like this had no place in the shinobi world; he'd just have to show them that the hard way.

Deciding that they'd waited long enough, he made his appearance, and was all but completely ignored as his new students continued staring, muttering and humming respectively. He quickly filled them in of the details to the test (and barely repressed the urge to shiver at the glint in the eyes of Sakura and the widening of Sasuke's smirk when he mentioned that they should come at him with the intent to kill. They were really going all out with this prank of theirs), and then gave the signal to begin. Sakura was the first to react, as she began skipping merrily into the woods. Sasuke quietly followed suit, walking hunched over at an almost leisurely pace in another direction. Kakashi shook his head, it looked like there was going to be no passing again this year from him. Sighing, he turned back to Naruto in time to see the boy stumble to his feet. The boy then pulled out what appeared to be a very small kitchen knife, and without a word began walking veeeeery veeerry sloooooowly toward him.

And quite frankly, the simple actions scared the piss out of the man. It was insane: In his time as a ninja he'd faced brutal cutthroats, assassins, and some of the most vicious and powerful people imaginable, and none of them even came close to freaking him out as much as this little emotionless, slow-walking, lantern-and-knife-carrying boy coming toward him did. The worst part of it all was that he couldn't even rationalize his fear: At the pace the boy was going there was no way he'd be able to catch Kakashi, but the jounin just had this icy fear in the pit of his stomach that if he did somehow get caught, something very bad would happen.

With that in mind, he decided he'd go test out his other students first, and worry about Naruto later. He quickly sprinted away with only a single backward glance to make sure the boy hadn't suddenly picked up his own pace to chase after him.

"Let's start with Sakura," he resolved.

*BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM*

"SASUKE! I MEANT START WITH SASUKE!"

*RA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TAT*

"KA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! RUN SENSEI, RUN!"

Oh and he did. From one end of the village to the other and back again he ran. He ran like a twelve year old girl, who had another twelve year old girl chasing and assaulting him with grenades and an AK-47. He ran like a cat from a starving Akimichi. He ran so fast that some weird coyote flung itself over the edge of the Hokage monument trying to catch him on a poorly built ACME rocket car. And still the psychotic girl chased after him.

Where in the HELL had that girl come across so much heavy artillery? And HOW in the hell did she manage to fit it all into that tiny basket?

"FIRE IN THE HOLE! TEE-HEE!"

*BOOOM*

And WHY THE HELL wasn't she running out of ammo?

Panting like a dog, Kakashi finally came to a stop within the thick foliage of the forest. It had taken almost fifteen minutes of constant running, (part of which consisted of explaining to Gai that no, this was not a challenge to him for a race, yes, that was Haruno Sakura cackling maniacally behind him, and yes, that really was a flamethrower she was blasting them with,) before he had finally managed to lose the girl.

Now exhausted, clothes in tatters and scared to High Heaven, Kakashi realized just how badly he needed a vacation. This whole thing was getting a bit extreme for a simple prank. That girl, if he were to so politely refer to her as, was freakin' psychotic!

"The Legendary Guy, huh? Feh!"

Looking around, Kakashi spotted Sasuke casually entering the clearing to the left of him. Kakashi kicked himself; in his terror-filled sprint around Konoha, he'd completely forgotten that he was still supposed to be in the middle of testing the kids. He straightened up, trying to get back into the swing of things. Sasuke shouldn't be too bad to deal with. At least he didn't seem to be carrying any weapons of massive destruction anywhere on his person.

Now if only he wasn't staring at him like a shark that smelled blood, though considering the amount that he was currently bleeding, the analogy fit pretty well.

Sasuke's smirk widened even further. "Don't think for one second that you can escape this. Orochi's curse is already upon you!"

Kakashi's eyes widened. Orochi? Surely he couldn't mean Orochimaru of the Sannin? What could he have possibly done to Sasuke? When would they have even met? That didn't make sense.

"What are you talking about, Sasuke?" he demanded.

The Uchiha didn't answer as his body began trembling. A deep, unnerving chuckle escaped his throat as purple flames enveloped his fists. He straightened up and fixed Kakashi with a psychotic glower. "You will BURN! Burn until your blood BOILS!"

To Kakashi's credit, even in his weakened state he managed to dodge every single purple fireball that Sasuke flung his way, though he was mind-boggled as to how the boy was doing it without forming seals. He knew Uchiha were fire specialists and that Sasuke was considered a prodigy and all, but even he couldn't be this good at such a young age. A few more seconds of careful dodging and he would have successfully been able to disable the Uchiha, until he heard the distant 'La-La-La'ing' of THAT GIRL coming closer and closer to them. Unfortunately, it caused him to tense up for just a moment, and that was all the time it took.

"Fun time's over!" Sasuke announced as he appeared directly behind the jounin instructor, and then proceeded to absolutely maul him in a flurry of kicks, punches, claws and even teeth. Kakashi lost track of how many hits he'd taken, so surprised that he couldn't even defend himself.

"Scream!" Sasuke howled. "Cry! Weep! And then-" He grabbed Kakashi around the throat with both hands, engulfing his entire body in flames. "DIE!"

Kakashi screamed bloody murder, as one is wont to do when they're being burned alive. Blowing right past the cackling boy, he made a mad dash to the clearing where they had all started and jumped headlong into the nearby lake, effectively putting out the flames and offering a slightly soothing relief to his very damaged body.

As he weakly dragged himself onto the shore, he knew only one thing for certain. He was going to have words with Sarutobi about this; that was certain. These kids…no, these monsters absolutely could not be passed. Oh sure, they were qualified enough if they could do this kind of damage to him, but if he passed them today, that would mean he would have to be responsible for them. Follow them on missions. Be within five miles of them! And that was something he just could not do, not no way, not no-

…Wait. Wasn't he forgetting something?

Looking up, he saw with great horror that Naruto was standing directly over him, lantern and knife firmly in hand. For a good ten seconds, the two did little more than stare at one another, and then-

"Doink!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

The End

So, did you figure them all out? Well, in case you didn't...

Naruto: A Tonberry (Final Fantasy) In FF games, there's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as running into a 'Creeping Death', as I affectionately call them, except maybe a Malboro, but the tonberry was funnier to me. Can't you just imagine Naruto going around Doinking people left and right?

Sasuke: Iori 'Riot of the Blood' Yagami (King of Fighters) This actually made a lot of sense to me. There's the comparison between the Curse Seal and the Riot of the Blood (both make you stronger but hurt you at the same time, or used to in Sasuke's case), the whole Orochi/Orochimaru thing, they both use fire techniques, and honestly, if Sasuke had turned out more like Iori, more people would probably like him better than what he is now.

Sakura: Bulleta B. Hood (Darkstalkers) If you've ever played a game with her in it, I don't need to tell you just how evil and utterly batshit insane Bulleta is. And the thought of Sakura acting the way Bulleta does certainly creeps me out.

So there you go, my take on the matter. If you want to read responses from other people, they're all over on the challenge thread at Hawk's 'The Fanfiction Forum'. I'd post a link to it for you, but ffnet doesn't like outside link's. You can however find it in Hawk's profile page here on ffnet, if you're interested.

All for now. Til next time. Have a nice day.

LL