Title: The Best Years of Our Lives [TBYOL]

Author: Seadragon

Genre: Humor/Action/Adventure

Rating: Pg-13

Summary: Alanna, Jon, Raoul, and Gary decide to play a little prank, you know for old time's sakes. Unfortunately, they played a prank on the wrong people… Soon, they find themselves reliving some of the most, let's say interesting, years of their lives. Oops! Next time guys, chose someone else to prank!

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Chapter 1: Very, Very, Er, Busy.

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"Alright, so, in, dump the frogs, out?"

"Yup, but don't forget the last step!"

"Which is?"

"Run for our freakin' lives."

"Oh…"

The King's Champion, Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau, King Jonathan of Tortall, Knight Commander Lord Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak of the King's Own, and Sir Gareth the Younger of Naxen, Prime Minister to the King of Tortall, were very busy.

At least, they were pretending to be very busy by locking themselves into a conference room, after all, they had lots of work to do! At least, they should have lots to do. Together they were in charge of the entire kingdom. This was quite worrying, if you thought about it. Who would suspect that they were just pretending to be busy so that they could lock themselves in a conference room, thus letting the kingdom fall apart into itty bitty pieces and burn- er, wrong story. Continuing on, who would suspect that they were just pretending to be busy so that they could lock themselves in a conference room, just to plan their prank on some very important people, which would cause great amounts of havoc, which would result in their imprisonment of a third kind?!

Good, now say that very fast.

They had decided that life at the Royal Palace was getting a bit boring, and that it needed livening up. Of course, livening up is just a politer way of saying raising all hell, but we'll just stick to livening up. Maybe these four weren't the best for the job, seeing as they had a certain talented for wrecking havoc. But, they were also the best at getting away with murder, quite literally in Alanna's case.

Their plan was, er, different. It was like a sort of cross between the chipmunk invasion of '33, and one of the more frequent pranks Alanna used on Jon. In other words, lots and lots of frogs.

Enough said.

Now, perhaps they hadn't exactly chosen the right victims. Those they had chosen were some of the older, strictly conservative, more restrained members of court, who wouldn't take kindly to pond animals taking over their conference room. But did that worry our demonic pranksters?

Not in the slightest.

Besides, they were four of the most powerful people, or most feared in Alanna's case, in all of Tortall. I mean, who was going to argue with the King? Or a crazy, short lady with a very sharp sword, which was no match for her temper?

No one.

So, there was nothing to worry about. Everything would be fine. It's not like they would care if the people were angry, they couldn't exactly send the King to his room!

Or so they thought…

Anyway, it wasn't like they were even going to know who did it. Hence the 'run for our freakin' lives' part, as Alanna so eloquently put it. Therefore, they couldn't be punished, it wasn't like they were going to torture every resident of the Royal Palace until they found the culprits! They might run into a bit of legal trouble there.

They were all set, all they actually had left to do was, well, do it. (No not that! This is a pg-13 story!) They had everything they needed. Frogs, bags, bags with frogs, frogs with bags, and a very detailed map of the castle with their escape route clearly marked.

After all, just because they were the most powerful people in all of Tortall, didn't mean they were smart. You would think that would worry the people of Tortall, but I guess not. Anyways, as I said before, who is going to argue with a crazy, short lady with a very sharp sword, which was no match for her temper?

No one.

Which left them free to do anything. Well, almost anything. I don't think people would take too kindly to them blowing up the Palace, or using the Dominion Jewel to turn the snow into sugar and the water into acid. Or fill a conference room with frogs… But they didn't care, did they? But anyways, basically stuff like that.

But back to the prank.

It was quite simple really, just like Alanna said. In, dump frogs, out, run for lives. Four very simple, very foolproof steps, or so they said. These four would be very insulted by that line a little while later, but we aren't quite there yet, so sorry.

But now they only had one thing to do, and that was…

Liven things up a bit.

And we all know what that means…