A/N: This is intended to be the start of a series of crossovers (If other people want to use the same idea to contrive a crossover, feel free. Just let me know.). Some of these will be more serious... others (like this one) bordering on the insane. All attempts will be made to keep characters accurate, and there will be no slash (though jokes implying it I'm not averse to- I just haven't written slash before) or anything more than friendly flirting simply because I'm not a traditional romance writer. This is also written to hopefully break the mould from all the OC fics currently out there (some of which are okay, but the Mary Sues... oi...). It's Pandemonium, seriously. Left, right, centre... get some new inspiration or something...
The characters and all other fictional aspects other than my own plot and original creations belong to their creators/owners.
It was the winter of the year the seemingly innocuous Junior High School National Tournament had taken place in Japan. The New Under 16 Japanese Invitational Team had gathered in preparation for their tennis tour of America, with bright innocent smiles as they stepped onto foreign soil. At least, some of the players smiled. The others who didn't either smirked or simply had no change of expression. Some also smiled a little too much. Nonetheless, despite these ominous signs, no one could have possibly guessed at the trail of pain, flattened pride, suffering and destruction (both of property and people) they would leave in their wake... this is the first of their many adventures...
Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey. The office of one Gregory House, M.D.
"House!"
"Cuddy!" The medical diagnostician replied in an equal tone of urgency, although his face betrayed his sarcasm. The Dean of Medicine, in her usual attire of suit and pearl necklace, stood at the door of his office. In a irregular leap from the norm, she appeared ruffled, scowling and apparently with a broken heel on one of her shoes. He raised his eyebrows, giving her an almost genuine grin of amusement. "And what may I do for you, this fine mourn?"
"Get down to the clinic, now."
"But it's not my hours." He turned his head slightly, intrigued by what calamity could have befallen Cuddy. He easily deduced that it was not life threatening, but something had obviously occurred to relegate her to the state he normally took pride in reducing her to. High heeled shoe an' all.
"I don't care if it's not. You don't even have a case right now. Move it." She folded her arms, meeting House's stare with a particularly vehement glare.
"You seem particularly eager today, why not any of the minions?"
"Because they don't speak Japanese." Cuddy said, before cursing under her breath as she was paged for the countless time that day.
House's eyebrows rose even higher as she hopped and fumbled to the glass door. As it swung shut behind her, he pondered her response. "Japanese?!"
"This is definitely new." House remarked upon his arrival into the clinic. He skirted to the edge of the room as he observed the throng of foreign kids currently sprawled across the chairs of the clinic area.
"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?"
"They're teenage boys, of course I don't." House said with some ire as he turned to greet his boss for the second time that morning.
"Please." Cuddy forced herself to keep her voice gracious.
"Fine. He's complaining about toothpaste and those delightful people are insulting each other in extremely colourful ways." He replied in a sardonic tone, but he caught a slight shift of movement nearby from a supposedly sleeping boy on the bench next to Cuddy. He raised an eyebrow, but quickly shifted his gaze to survey the rest of the room. "The group over there wants directions to the bathroom. The group around them are snickering." He spun around to face Cuddy and staged whispered. "They're a bunch of liars, they know English."
"What? Why would they do that?"
"Are you kidding? With this rabble of kids? No way do they want to spend their time interpreting. And it's wonderfully sadistic." They turned at a snort, but the kid was still as motionless as ever. "I think he agrees with me."
"Just get them treated and out of here. Send half of them in to Doctor Forster and see the others yourself."
"Yes, Mom."
"I'll let you skip your other clinic duty for two weeks."
"Bribery. I like it." House puckered his lips for a moment in thought before releasing them to make a decisive smacking sound. He leered forward towards Cuddy. "Alright, then. It's done."
"Thank you." She said slowly, meeting his gaze resolutely. "I'll be in my office. Don't cause any more trouble. "
"I wouldn't dream of it." He said flippantly.
"I'm warning you, again." The dean of medicine pointed at his chest as she began walking away, longingly thinking after the aspirin awaiting her in her desk.
"Don't ground me please!!" House mockingly begged as Cuddy strode back down the hall, raising her hand in a goodbye as she stepped into the lift.
"Okay...!! Ten second attention spans over here! Thank you very much." House clapped his hands, and looked amused as the whole room turned his way. Even the regular American patients. He grinned whilst many of the foreign teens tried to process the fact he had spoken Japanese and then the fact they had been insulted. Several of the older boys, who House assumed were the Team Captains, even looked relieved for the distraction. He sighed heavily, knowing it was his turn to do his job. "Look, I know it's fun to confuse all the staff here but those who speak English stand on the left and those who don't stand over there. And the little kid who is pretending to be asleep in order to hog the bench and avoid annoying people move to the English speaking side, not that I don't like your style."
"Che." The kid tugged at his cap with a scowl but he cocked an eyebrow at House. "Not bad."
"Yes, he just outsmarted you in order to avoid speaking, get over it." He told the other kids who had begun glaring at the small boy.
"Mada mada dane."
"That's pushing it." House berated, but the kid simply shrugged and settled into a bored, still rather ill-looking expression. The diagnostician frowned, as the different clues began to fit together. "Alright, what the heck did you people eat to get this many people with food poisoning this bad?"
"Inui juice." was the answer by several of the sportsmen, given with the reluctance of a dread memory.
"Never heard of it." House replied quickly, looking around for an explanation.
"It's that crazy Seigaku freak's invention." One of the kids in the orange jackets pointed at the spiky haired boy in the white and blue with a venomous glare.
House was momentarily surprised before turning on the boy with the square glasses. "Crazy Seigaku freak, whatever that means, what do you have to say?"
"Hm. I very carefully administer my health drinks. Unfortunately, there was an accident in which some unwanted substance entered the batch I was making."
"The ingredient being?"
"Expired milk." He sighed, still feeling the effects himself.
"It caused all this?" House questioned again.
This time with a surreptitious glance at a smiling boy, the proclaimed Seigaku freak coughed into his hand when the smile turned in his direction. "There was another unfortunate combination involving Wasabi..."
"I'm starting to believe you really are crazy." House stared, thoughts inscrutable.
"Yes, well..."
Now bored with waiting for an answer, the resident pain-in-the-ass of Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital abruptly cut off the renewed stir of conversation brewing among the clinic patients. "Crazy or not, you're still stuck here. You lot line up by that door, English at that door. Compredez?"
"Hai."
Some time later, Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, New Jersey. The Clinic.
"Name?"
"Be awed by the presence of-"
"Answer in three seconds, kid, or get your temperature tested rectally."
"...Keigo Atobe." The boy finished, severely affronted.
"Business moguls, right?"
"Atobe Industries is-"
"Take this now, another one in a couple of hours." Atobe blinked as he was pushed through the door and forced to hold a prescription with the hostile Doctor shouting over his shoulder. "NEXT!"
"Crazy Seigaku Freak Guy. A pleasure. What do you go by when you aren't incapacitating an entire tennis team?"
"Sadaharu Inui."
"That's... dull. Crazy Seigaku Freak Guy suits better."
"I require-"
"One of these and one of these."
"Hm?"
"There you go."
"Eh?"
"Bye bye. Although I might want to see if I can get a duplicate of whatever you used." Inui was about to answer when he, too, was shoved from the door. "NEXT."
House observed the tall teen, face shadowed by his white baseball cap. "You do speak English, right?"
There was a long pause, in which he was forced to reply, unhappily. "Yes."
"Take this one now, another in a couple of hours..."
House observed the short pre-teen, faced shadowed by his white base-ball cap. "I know you speak English."
"Che."
"Any reason you're delaying?"
"It's noisy out there."
"True. Real reason."
"Yadda."
"Real reason or I give everyone out there a reason to feel sorry for you."
It was an effective threat, and Ryoma scowled accordingly as he replied. "...my Dad's here."
"That's an interesting reason. What's your name kid?"
"Ryoma Echizen."
"Definately interesting..." House scratched at his stubble as he gave the matter some thought. He glanced at the kid, who yawned loudly.
"You bored?"
The kid shrugged.
"Yeah, me too. There's way too much ammunition in this one..." House spun his cane around in his grip. "Want to mess with people?"
The kid shrugged again.
"Fine. You're my hostage."
"Eh?!"
Nanjiroh cursed as he sneezed loudly, leaning on a nearby counter for support. The intercom buzzed overhead whilst the swarm around him moved to avoid the strange barefooted man in the dark robes.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"And what can I do for you?" He looked up and was mildly surprised to come face to face with a particular shape from the form of a large busted nurse. He grinned and chuckled, red coming to his cheeks for a different reason than the person in front of him.
"You're leaning on my coat." The woman glared at the lecher, and whipped the jacket from beneath his arm causing Nanjiroh to slip and bang his jaw on the faux-marble surface.
"...Kuso" The former tennis professional muttered forlornly after the nurse- and his favourite assets walked away.
Doctor Forster stared.
Akaya Kirihara's eyebrow twitched.
"Um, I just need to get your medical history..."
"What the hell did you say, old man?!"