(insert disclaimer here)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Part I: The Long Trip Home

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The Ronin Warriors are the saviors of this world and in some ways, the saviors of the netherworld. Without them we'd all be dust, emotional-batteries, or mindless tin cans. These guys are the ultimate heroes of our time. They saved the world!

Kinda funny how no one remembers them, ne?

And let me tell you…that can really cause some serious complications. Myself speaking from personal experience here. I mean, fuck! Things would have been a hell of lot easier if the whole human race weren't suffering from amnesia.

And now, getting past my grumbling, here is the story of how I, the great Mimi Roua the first, set off to save the earth from the depths of evil only to find that someone had already beaten me to it.

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CHAPTER 1: Pigs Are Smarter Than Dogs

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With a rush of unfamiliar adjectives – dumbfounded, overwhelmed, flabbergasted – Rowen Hashiba was discovering that there truly were some things he just didn't want to know. Sure, knowledge was all well and good, but who needed the aggravation? Not to mention the headache.

The morning news flickered across the television screen in front of him as he sank speechlessly into Mia's large, designer couch. "What is this?" he finally demanded of the empty room. "Do they not understand that they're idiots? Hello?" The TV didn't answer. With an offended snort, Rowen threw himself back into the brown suede. The full pillows gave way slowly, sucking him in like expensively upholstered quicksand.

While he watched, irritated yet comfortably mesmerized, a few more minutes of the program verified that however ludicrous its content, it was no joke. Infuriated more than usual by the stupidity of the human race, Rowen almost abandoned his cozy haven in search of more worthy food for thought. Instead he kicked his heavy shoes off in the general direction of the delicate, glass coffee table to keep himself distracted. "Hey, you in there! This is a stupid idea!" he snapped again at the T.V. for good measure.

But despite his fervent efforts, the people on the screen continued to ignore his advice. At length, he crossed his arms across his chest, squirming deeper into the luxurious suede and sank into superior pout. "It's frigging inhumane!" he muttered, but his heart wasn't in it.

With a creaking of old hinges, Kento's head popped out the kitchen door, chewing on a caramel apple. "Hey Ro?" he inquired politely between large, slurping bites.

 "What?" Rowen retorted ill-naturedly.

"Did you just say 'frigging'?" He asked, noisily sucking at the apple's caramel coating.

"…" was Rowen's intelligent reply.

Kento removed the apple from his mouth. With a contemplative look, he drew back his arm and paused for one comment. "Thought so," he said and let fly. The candy apple soared across the room and rebounded off Rowen's head with a loud thwack. It bounced off and rolled on the thick carpeting, dust and lint gathering on the caramel coating. Rowen jerked his back his head in disgusted surprise.

"Well, it's justified! And besides," he ran his fingers through his hair, scowling, "That was nasty…no, that was frigging inhumane." Leaning down and discarding his frown, Rowen gingerly picked up the apple from the carpet and shook it at Kento for emphasis. "Is this a healthy snack?"

"Frigging justified?" Kento asked in amusement, ignoring the question.

"…yes! If you don't believe me, why don't you come in here and just look at this nonsense?" Rowen snapped.

Kento wandered over obediently to lean on the back of the couch curiously. Rowen's rather odd and noisy commentary had been directed in the general direction of the five o'clock news. Okay, nothing of interest so far. It wasn't anything of any particular note, not one of those "we interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast…" so that scratched off one explanation for Rowen's hyperactivity.

At the moment the screen was showing footage of an older short, curly haired reporter in front of police station on the outskirts of Tokyo, but there was no movement besides the occasional pedestrian. No police tape, no ambulances. Hmm...perhaps Rowen was protesting the station's switch from the cute female reporter to this old guy? Kento himself felt a little put out by it. Probably not Rowen though. Maybe he had eaten some of those bad grapes before Cye remembered to toss them…?

Then Kento listened to what the reporter was saying and as the expression on his face turned from amusement to astonishment, he had to agree with Rowen….

It was ridiculous.

~~~~

Numbly, Sage listened to Minako whine. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but Minako was not the kind of girl to allow herself to be ignored. She was a master at getting what she wanted. No one unfamiliar with Minako would ever know she was whining. She'd  smile with her perfect teeth, and laugh with her practiced laugh. And then, every once in a while, she'd toss her thick, ebony hair with a little "mmph" of frustration so the whole thing wouldn't seem too contrived. Of course, that part was contrived too. It seemed a little too perfect. Recently she'd cut it to shoulder length and when she shook her head the ends who just brush her shoulder, sending shining waves up and down the silky strands. Sage found it strangely engrossing as he stood there seeking some escape. Minako noticed his distraction and seeing it, she tossed her hair again in irritation, momentarily breaking the smooth flow of her self-control. Sage was mildly surprised.

Maybe he really did have the power to annoy her. Maybe he could unnerve her as much as she unnerved him. The sudden thought animated him from his paralysis and he studied her face with new interest, but her black eyes didn't tell him anything.

Despairing, he fell back into his stupor, listening to the way she drew out his name, giving it two syllables when it only needed one and the way her soft voice disguised the fact that she was whining like a child after the candy bar her mother wouldn't give her. Confidently, she presented him with the easy, the obvious way to solve his problems, but frankly they were problems he didn't remember having before this conversation started, though her voice almost made him wish he did. Certainly he had some problems – everybody did – but these few that she'd thought of didn't ring a bell. Listening to her as she persuaded him, he wondered how he could ever possibly have thought that listening to Minako would make his life easier.

Sage had problems with girls. So many of them seemed so fond of him, but he just didn't understand what he was supposed to do about it. It wasn't that he was shy exactly. He possessed, among his many talents, perfect social skills. Suffice to say, small-talk wasn't the problem. He could even flirt sometimes. The problem was that he could never get that to work the way it was supposed to because, most of the time, he was being social, flirty even, so that they would go away. They didn't quite understand that.

Okay, so maybe he was a little shy.

But it was the same way the rest of his dealings with other people. He just didn't make friends, didn't depend on other people. But that was okay. It made things easier. As long as the people he was to associate with – to be "friends" with – were not to mean anything to him anyway, it didn't matter that many of them were vapid and shallow. There simply weren't any standards to be met. He didn't need them after all. So Sage moved up on the social ladder with little effort, completely unhindered by any actual friendship. He had no difficulty associating with the "right" people because everyone met his standards. And yet this did not make Sage appear of any less depth to the people he associated with, though that does not quite seem the right word. He was and always would be something alien and unknown. It was as if his indifference to the people around him lent him an air of casual superiority so unshakeable it had no choice but to become reality.

Girls were the worst part of this. Usually, people were content with his indifference. That he was Sage Date, he was there, and he was acting his part. But some of the girls that liked him weren't content with flirting. To them there was supposed to be something after flirting. There was supposed to be a relationship.

And Sage couldn't do that.  When his friends defining characteristic was their unimportance he could not jump from a meaningless activity to something personal. He knew that some of his friends – no, acquaintances – sought a partner purely for physical companionship, for added social status, or for – god forbid – fun.   But… Sage had to admit that in the deepest recesses of his mind, places he dared not tread, beyond all his common sense and collected wisdom…. he was a bit of a hardcore romantic. Oh god, not like Ryo. But he was, and it would rear its idealistic head whenever the newest dating prospect came by, moaning about true love and eternity. Luckily, he was reasonably able to control it. Er…as long as you didn't count that little incident with Miki last year. Or Naomi. But that was a long time ago. She'd probably gotten the juice stains out of that dress by now, and besides, he'd been – what? – eight?

Of course, Sage only thought this cynically when he was feeling melancholy, but melancholy had been his almost perpetual state of being until just a short while ago. Until Ryo, Kento, Rowen, and Cye.

Since then, he had found his present social situation somewhat lacking. He had begun to spend more time in the company of his four than his many. And while he could still flawlessly and effortlessly move among his social companions, their company and his own indifference now grated heavily on his nerves. Having made friends, real friends, true friends, wonderful friends, he could not help but find the unconcern in which he and his acquaintances carried out their "friendships" somewhat revolting. He knew that it was not as if they were completely heartless. To be so cold and callous and still act in a lively, friendly manner so completely opposite required more control of a situation that any teenager could possibly have. Didn't he know that so well? Ha!

But, even so, his dealings with them lacked any real closeness and he was beginning to think that he could not carry on like this much longer. What's more, his social friends had recently begun to notice something different; that perhaps Sage did not possess the same self-assurance that he used to or that he was not as composed as his reputation required. Oh yes, god forbid the ice should break!

Sage had been caught so off guard by this that he actually felt pressure to act. As he saw it, he would have to do something to placate them soon or abandon them completely. The other option was ridiculous of course. Like he could actually become friends with them. You know, confide in them. Nonsense. Utter nonsense.

This brings the story back to Minako. Sage's decision was that the solution to his problem was a simple one. He'd do something simple, something that would make them happy, and above all something that would distract them while he decided whether or not he could take any more of this. Yes. He'd do something simple.

He'd bribe them. With Minako.

Yes, that's right. Sage went out – on a date – with a girl.

And what a disaster that was turning out to be.

~~~~

In the center of the white tiled floor of the super mart two figures stood, staring in awe at the at the high ceilings and endlessly repeating shelves that continued in every direction. Cye, who was an avid fan of small, family-owned grocery stores, was enjoying his foray into big business with a sort of guilty glee.

"Oooh…there's a swimming pool – hanging from the ceiling!" Yulie cried, pointing happily. Pointing somewhere off to the back of the store.

"No," Cye corrected him, still in shock at the sheer size. "I think that's the Pacific Ocean. They've got room for it. Egads, is there anything they don't have?" Cye glanced around the aisle in admiration and picked up an item on the shelf next to him. His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Oh dear, the answer appears to be an unfortunate 'yes'." He held the object up the light, squinting uncertainly. "A Pokemon nail file?"

 "Aw, that's nothing," Yulie dismissed it easily. "My Mom bought some of those things that girls use to hold their toes apart while they paint 'em. They were shaped like pigs." He nodded sagely.

Cye tapped his chin and cocked his head slightly to the right. "Hmm…except that with the whole 'this little piggy' rhyme, toes are associated with pigs, after all. So it's not particularly unusual. I don't know. I think my nail file wins."

"They were really ugly pigs though," Yulie insisted. He giggled.

Cye seemed to think about this. "How ugly?"

"Really ugly." Yulie assured him with another giggle. Cye considered that too. "With green and purple spots," the boy added.

"Yes…well… I have some sneakers in those colors. They're really quite nice actually." Cye suddenly brightened and snapped his fingers as though having just remembered something. "Yes, that's it," he said. "My nail file still wins. Sorry." He grinned as Yulie growled and tried to tackle the older boy.

After it became apparent that Cye wasn't going to so much as lean under his onslaught, Yulie bit his lip and dashed away to the junction at the end of the aisle. He scanned the shelves of the nearby aisles intently, and after a second or two, he lifted his finger and pointed to the aisle opposite theirs, labeled 'pet supplies'. "See that one on the top shelf?" he asked. "It's dog toothpaste!"

"I don't know…"

Yulie stomped his foot, causing his short dark brown hair to bounce a little. "Pokemon is a fad! You can find it everywhere! So it's not as weird as dog toothpaste." He looked triumphant.

Cye paused and frowned in thought. "Hmm…" he said. Then he stepped out of the aisle they were in, 'cosmetics', and turned away from the pet supplies. "Hey, Ryo!" he called to a black haired teenager midway down the 'school supplies' aisle. "I need your help!"

Ryo looked up from where he was crouched sorting through notebooks and three-ring binders. "Yeah?" he asked.

Cye smiled angelically. "Would you say dog toothpaste is a fad?" he paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Or not?" Yulie followed, grinning and watching eagerly for Ryo's reaction.

Ryo blinked and paused to give his mind time to make sure he'd heard correctly. Then he gave Cye a look of utter incomprehension to put one in mind of a lost puppy. It was the big blue eyes that did it. They made intimidating evil bad guys frighteningly difficult, but that's another story (or at least another chapter). Cye, rather opposite to what you might think, did not have that problem.  "Do you think he'll figure it out?" Yulie asked softly.

"Not bloody likely." Cye whispered back and bit his lip so that he would not laugh. Yulie covered his mouth with his hands as he giggled.

Still confused, Ryo glanced at the shelves and the ceiling and back at his feet uncertainly, looking for a clue. Finding none, his eyes settled finally and obliviously on the two angelic figures standing at the end of the aisle and watching him innocently. "What?" he asked.  "Um…what?"

One cue Cye and Yulie both began to laugh outright. They were so taken with their amusement that they were forced to lean on each other on their way back to the cosmetic aisle with its Pokemon manicure accessories and canine dental products. Cye, however, wasn't so overcome that he wasn't careful not to rest too much of his weight on the 9-year-old's shoulders.

And so, Ryo, still looking not unlike a lost puppy, was left to return to his hunt for school supplies with a vague curiosity as to whether or not Cye should really have thrown those grapes away a few days earlier.

~~~~

Sitting on the couch next to Rowen, Kento rested his chin on his hand. "Think they'll have to wear uniforms?" he asked. "With bows?"

Rowen sat with his hands in his lap, his back pillowed against the fluffy cushions of the couch, and his eyes fixed on the television set. One eyebrow raised, permanently now, he snorted derisively. "I want to see the talking cat," he declared with an air of finality.

~~~~

"Sah-aaaaage…" Minako sounded exasperated, "you don't have to worry about it. The teach is so all over you. Just talk to him. He'd fix it, easy, you know. Easy. Come on…Sah-aaage…" She sighed. Actually sighed. Like Sage was being difficult. Like Sage was being unreasonable. Like he was the one being selfish and obstinate to get his way. He knew what he thought of that.

Bullshit.

And the teacher was all over him, huh? Funny, he thought he'd notice if that happened. If she meant the teacher favored him, she could at least say so.  When had she started talking like this? Minako was intelligent. She had a vocabulary. Really. It was the reason he'd decided to pick Minako. At this he sneered inwardly. 'Pick her', like a customer at a goddamn grocery store checking out the produce. I am Sage, male chauvinistic pig. Hear me belch. Damn it. That wasn't what he'd meant by that.

Mostly. Obviously, Minako was finally getting to him.

Distracted suddenly, Sage watched Minako toss her hair again, making her pouty, anguished little sound. Feh, he'd liked it better when it was longer.

Despite her present theatrics, Minako really was a smart and actually interesting. It was just that aside from that intelligence, she embodied every bad quality people ever assigned to "popular" kids. Thank god she wasn't blond. Or no, that was an American trend wasn't it? Almost all of the bad qualities then. Shallowness. Acutely egocentric. You know. That type of thing.

Of course, Sage was painfully aware that the same could be said of him.  Well... he liked to think he was never so visible. Showy. Er…well he never really tried to be. Didn't flaunt himself. Not like Minako. But…the thing bugging him was that if he could be so opposite to what he appeared, or he hoped he was, then couldn't Minako be different on the inside too? Was she really this…superficial? But even so, did whatever inner goodness she might possess really matter if she consistently acted so callous? Could you really be a good person if you so consistently acted like poor one? And maybe most importantly, did he care?

Yes. He did.

Because if he didn't he would be everything Minako seemed to be. A creature of social standing. Of appearances and pretentiousness. Sage sighed. Even if they served no moral purpose, at least his musings on Minako's hidden depths, which may or may not exist, had one practical function in keeping him occupied while Minako complained.

Complained about his new lab partner. What was she worried about anyway? Sage didn't even like redheads.

~~~~

"I didn't know cats could talk," Kento said. He scratched his head absently, deep in thought.

Rowen shook his head. "No. But it's a requirement. A cute fluffy side kick. You just can't go on without one."

Kento thought about this. "But they're cops. Isn't that why they eat donuts?"

~~~~

Mia leaned back in her computer chair with a relieved sigh. College was turning out to harder than she'd thought. Luckily though, her paper looked like it might possibly be done. As soon as she checked the grammar anyway. And the spelling. Then printed it out, after formatting to the requirements and adding on the footnotes, blah blah, and sticking it in the clear plastic folder. Then, she'd be done. And, for the first time in weeks it seemed, she could turn off the computer. Ah yes, truly a time for rejoicing.

She'd go downstairs, make herself some coffee, eat a few of Cye's cookies, not too many, only a dozen or so since she deserved it, and then she would find her book. The one with teenage science fiction heroes, mushy romances, bad grammar, no character growth, and chock full of absolute trash! (She would also avoid any grapes. Cye was very trustworthy in the kitchen -and elsewhere- but she just wasn't ready to trust that particular fruit yet.) After which she could go enjoy the sensation of reading for hours and hours just because she wanted to. Mia let out another happy sigh.

Then if all that relaxing wasn't taking up too much of her time she might get around to finding out what Kento and Rowen had been going on about for the last twenty minutes.

~~~~

Ryo waited in the check out line and tried to ignore the giggling duo behind him. What's with them? We don't even have a dog! Pokemon's a fad. Not…dog toothpaste.

With a stressed out sigh, Ryo ran his free hand through his unkempt black hair. His other hand held several school binders and notebooks. He sighed again. Their very presence was depressing. Man, he hated school. It was some conspiracy stuffy adults came up with to stress him out, and it was really good at it. He sighed again and shifted his burden to his other arm. Jeez, did that lady in front of him really need all that stuff? She was taking so long! He wanted to have some free time left to him before homework. Man…third year sucked. You really had to do the work. Last year was a lot better. Easier. Oh my god, he had a lot of homework tonight! And it was the first goddamn week! Not to mention that he still needed to pick up Sage from some school thing. (and on the weekend! What was with that kid?) Ryo groaned and shifted the notebooks to both hands.

The whispers and giggling behind him reached a climax and he glanced behind him warily. As soon as his head moved, they both shut up and gave him identical angelic faces. It was kinda interesting to watch. Cye was better at it naturally but Yulie made up for that by being younger. Then Cye smiled that trustworthy, innocent smile of his and leaned forward to put something on top of Ryo's things. "For Mia," he said. Then he stepped back.

Oh yeah, intimidating bad guys? No problem.

Ryo just looked at him.  The edges of Cye's lips started to twitch. Yulie buried his face in the back of Cye's sweater to smother his laughter. With the reluctance of a death row convict walking towards the electric chair, Ryo slowly - ever so slowly - began to look down. He was not feeling optimistic, and Cye, being the considerate soul that he was, did not disappoint him. Ryo gave a dejected sigh. The lost-puppy look was back. You see, there was a thing sitting on his binders. It was weird. It was foamy. It was a pig.

And it had purple spots.

~~~~

"Hmm…Donuts would make them round and that's kind of cute sidekick-like, I mean look at Luna's head, but… Naw. Still doesn't work."

"No?" Kento took a bite of the caramel apple he'd retrieved. (Don't worry. He cleaned it off first. I mean, he'd washed his shirt just last week…Clean. Right.)

Rowen squinted one eye and stared at the ceiling in deep concentration, taking his eyes off the TV for the first time in twenty-five minutes. "Nope. Because, you see, even though pigs are smarter than cats and dogs, they just aren't as appealing…"

Kento look surprised. "Pigs are smarter than dogs, no joke? Man, what a rip off."

Rowen turned his head slowly away from the television to face his friend. "Now, Kento," he said sternly, "it's what's inside that counts." The he gave a cough that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

"Dude!" Kento said and started to laugh. Rowen tried to maintain his severity but it was an uphill battle.

A battle he would have shortly lost to laughter except that at that moment Mia entered the room with a stack of paper in hand. Catching the end of the broadcast, (the one that was playing over and over since Rowen had taped it though Kento hadn't noticed that yet --something in the apple?) she stared at the TV open-mouthed, and said something neither of them ever expected to hear out of her mouth. Or anyone else's in polite conversation. No, it didn't involve foul language. It went like this:

"Leaping lizards!"

End Chapter 1.

~~~~

To the reader:

A few years ago, I decided to write a fan fiction because I was obsessed with Ronin Warriors. This did not work out well. It was long, it was badly written, it was pointless and unoriginal, and hell, it even had a Mary Sue.

Luckily I have stopped that, and even changed my name so none of you people can ever connect the two of us again (though it is still out there --somewhere on the world wide web).

Now, some couple of years later, I've – foolishly – decided to try again. This is the first chapter of said second try. It's an experiment and subject to removal or revision at any time (I've already done so once). I'm not objective enough to judge my own work, so I'm putting it to you.

Is this thing worth it?

Melee