A fill from the Tiger and Bunny Anon Meme. Prompt: A recast of "Tangled." Barnaby is Rapunzel. His parents are alive. Kotetsu is Flynn Rider, and Maverick is Mother Gothel.
As an incomplete fill from the anon meme, I will stop posting new chapters there, and once I've caught up to the currently posted chapters, all new updates will appear here. Updates will be weekly, on Thursdays.
"Centuries later, a prosperous kingdom sprouted up nearby: the great Kingdom of Sternbild, ruled by King Barnaby and Queen Emily, who was about to have a baby. Oh, the queen was, not the king. Well, the king helped, it's his baby too, but the one who was actually, y'know, fat, that was—it doesn't matter who had the baby! That's not important!
"What is important is… Queen Emily got very sick. All of Sternbild worried they might lose their queen and the royal baby-to-be, but King Barnaby worried the most of all. So, he and his knights set out on a quest throughout the land to find the mythic sunlight-flower. And what do you know, one of his knights actually found it! They dug it up and brought it back to the queen, and made it into a soup. She drank it, and the flower's magic cured her instantly.
"And that was really awesome, but the most amazing thing was that their new baby boy, born on the day of the Halloween festival, had a spectacular head of golden curls. He was like, two hours old, and he had all that hair. They named the baby after his father, and all of Sternbild celebrated the birth of Prince Barnaby. His parents loved him more than anything in the world, and the three of them were the happiest family in the whole land.
"And it would have been great, if things had just stayed that happy. But the wizard Maverick soon realized that his flower had been stolen, and used to heal Queen Emily and deliver the prince safely. Four years after the prince's birth, Maverick found his opportunity to break into the castle and take revenge. But, when he saw the young prince's golden hair, he was reminded of the flower, and he soon realized that the flower's healing power had transferred into Barnaby's hair.
"So, Maverick did to Barnaby what he did to the flower. He stole him away from his parents and hid him from the rest of the world. The King and Queen ordered a great search throughout the realm, but no one could find any trace of the wicked wizard or the little prince.
"Though their son was lost to them, the King and Queen did not abandon hope. They created a new tradition: each year, on the Halloween festival, every citizen in Sternbild would light a special floating lantern, and set it free in the sky. Those thousands of lights together can be seen for miles, and they held onto hope that Barnaby would see this signal and find his way home.
"Barnaby could see those lights. But he didn't know what they meant. When Maverick stole the prince away, he cast a spell on him, so he'd forget the four short years he spent with his loving parents. Barnaby didn't even realize he was kidnapped, and went willingly with the wicked wizard to a tall tower, deep in the forest, where no one would ever, ever find him.
"That is, until the ultra-cool, super-awesome, sometimes-crooked but always-heroic Kotetsu T. Kaburagi came and rescued him"
Kotetsu crouched in the shadow of an alleyway near the palace, coiling and re-coiling his rappelling gear and waiting for his associates to finish the final preparations. Foreboding crawled up and down the back of his neck like spiders. Of all the people Kotetsu had ever teamed up with for a heist, "the Ouroboros Bandits" Jake and Kriem were the worst of the lot. They scared the ever-loving hell out of him, tattooed head to toe with that snake and sword symbol, and he'd never before met people who took such joy in committing crimes. He knew dozens of unrepentant criminals, but very few who felt glad to subvert the law and harm innocents. That's before Kotetsu even touched on their magical abilities: Kriem could do something with her hair that enchanted inanimate objects, and Jake's barrier magic could hardly be considered "defensive" with how much damage they caused.
But, for this particular heist, the Bandits needed a specialist. Someone good at breaking and entering. Kotetsu had always been good at breaking, and since the… misunderstanding… he became good at entering and stealing, too.
Jake and Kriem had sought Kotetsu out, promising a heist so grand that all three of them could retire in style. The target of the day was a prized piece of Sternbild's crown jewels: the crown of the prince, the rightful crown of the lost prince. The King and Queen would pay its considerable worth a thousand times over to have that precious memento returned.
Kotetsu sighed and re-spooled his climbing rope again. He already felt guiltier about this heist than any of the crimes he'd committed throughout his unfortunate career. The King and Queen just wanted something to remember their child by. How could he deny them that scant comfort, especially since it had been twenty years since the prince had last been seen? Twenty years of search parties, investigations, lanterns, and it was starting to look like the prince would never be found.
But, Jake and Kriem looked a bit—well, a lot—like they would tear his arms off and dump him in a ditch if he refused to help them, so Kotetsu supposed he could take his share of the ransom quietly and then spend the rest of his life making up for it. Nobody wanted to keep the crown itself, after all; the whole plan depended on giving the crown back…
A pair of shadows blocked out the scant amount of sunlight—Jake with his scraggly beard, and Kriem with her silky bob.
"You didn't run," Jake noted. "Smart man."
"So it's my turn now?" Kotetsu stood up and stretched his legs a little, fighting to show no fear.
"Indeed it is," Kriem confirmed. "Our escape route is clear."
"Got it," Kotetsu picked up his rope and expertly lassoed one of the palace roof's stone embellishments. He tugged on the cord experimentally, testing its tension. So far, so good.
"Now, you'll understand if we have some concerns about your loyalty," Kriem mentioned. "Jake and I have worked flawlessly for years, but you… you're a wild card. So we don't quite trust you."
"Why are you telling me this right now?" Kotetsu asked. The longer he stood there with a rope attached to the palace, the greater the chance someone would walk by and notice them about to break in.
"We don't want to give you any chances to be funny," Jake continued. "So if you're not back in five minutes, we're leaving you for dead."
"If you take longer than that, don't bother meeting us. You'll prefer prison," Kriem added with a small smile.
Dammit, these two are creepy… But Kotetsu nodded and gave them a thumbs-up. "Got it. Five minutes. So, um, when do you start counting?"
"Fifteen seconds ago," Jake smirked, and without another word Kotetsu jumped onto his rope and climbed with all his strength.
He hid a grimace as he climbed. Starting fifteen seconds ago? That was not how partners treat each other, even partners in crime! Jake and Kriem obviously only cared about the money, but would it kill them to show a little respect for a comrade? Kotetsu was on their side!
One calloused hand expertly reached over the other, and Kotetsu reached the roof in a minute, which left him a scant three minutes, forty-five seconds to get the crown and escape. No biggie. Except it was the biggest biggie of Kotetsu's life. Stealing the crown and getting caught meant life in prison. Stealing the crown and somehow disappointing Jake and Kriem meant bloody, painful death. And his chances of stealing the crown and getting away clean? Low.
Well, Kotetsu never paid attention to the odds of success before. Why start now?
Once he had his feet under him, Kotetsu twisted some special roof-climbing claws onto his hands and set about climbing toward a boarded-up skylight in the roof. Once close enough, he knocked the covering aside and dropped down onto the ceiling rafters. The hall below was filled with guards, but all of them faced away from the jewels, expecting intruders to enter from the doors or windows, not the roof. Kotetsu's target, the prince's crown, sat on a fuchsia pillow in the center, well-protected but unobserved.
Kotetsu tied his rappelling rope around his waist and, looping the rope a bit to slow his descent, gradually lowered himself down to the crown. Ten feet. Five feet. One foot. Looping one finger around the gold edge, Kotetsu slipped it into his bag and started climbing back toward freedom. He couldn't believe it was that easy. He couldn't believe—
"Stop! Thief!"
Oops.
The crown bounced against Kotetsu's leg as he scrambled up the rope faster than he had ever climbed before. Once he reached the roof, he immediately ditched the rope and slid down the sloping shingles, shouting to the Ouroboros Bandits below: "INCOMING!"
At the edge of the roof, Kotetsu jumped off, aiming to land on top of Jake. The pair looked up at their free-falling associate, and Jake instinctively threw up a barrier to defend himself from the impact. Just what Kotetsu needed—the magical barrier had much more flexible properties than the cobblestone street, and as the shield deflected Kotetsu, it gave him a new trajectory, one that let him land on his feet.
"I got the crown!" Kotetsu gestured wildly with his hands. "Now, we gotta go! Right now!"
They ran out along the pre-approved escape route, but almost instantly, a guard caught sight of them and set to pursue.
"Damn, Kaburagi, you screwed up!" Jake accused, flicking barriers behind him to repel the soldiers.
"I got the crown! Within your time limit! That's what you wanted!" Kotetsu yelled over his shoulder as he ran. "Which, I gotta say, five minutes is the most ridiculous time limit ever! In case you were wondering!"
Kriem ran up alongside him and pulled ahead, pointing the way that she had cleared for them. Sternbild had a network of sentries stationed throughout the entire city, but Kriem had pre-prepared a path of guards with enchanted armor under her control. They'd be unable to chase them, trapped motionless inside of body-shaped prisons. As Kotetsu passed men locked inside suits of armor, screaming for help, he added this strategy as another point in the "Reasons Jake and Kriem are Insane" tally, a long and growing list.
The un-enchanted guards from the palace chased the trio up and down Sternbild, forcing the thieves to run way longer and faster than Kotetsu had ever run in his life, but they finally found themselves a secluded hiding place—an observation deck jutting off the side of a cliff that used to have a grand view of the Lyle River. A freak landslide ruined the beautiful sight a few years ago, and now, the deck was mostly neglected. All that was left was a rickety border fence and an old notice board.
"Wait a minute…" Kotetsu peered closer at the notice board, approaching it and staring at the wanted poster that dominated its center, featuring a portrait of Kotetsu T. Kaburagi, a 'homicidal thief' with two kitty-shaped goatees, sagging lips, and glowering eyes. "I can't believe it!" he cried. "I do not pull faces like that!"
Kotetsu ripped the poster off the board, staring at the caricature of his own face. "I don't really look like this, do I? Hey, is this—"
He turned to face the Bandits and instead found himself face-to-face with a knife in Kriem's hand.
"Woah, woah! What's that for?!" Kotetsu strafed around, trying to put distance between himself and the blade, but Kriem tracked his every move.
"This?" she asked innocently. "It's for cutting off loose ends."
"A-Aren't you supposed to tie off loose ends?"
"We prefer to get rid of them," Kriem twirled the knife around her hand, advancing closer.
"See, Kaburagi, we never trusted you," Jake ran a hand through his wild hair. "But you shouldn't have trusted us, either. And I don't even like you enough to keep you around."
"Wait a second! Just wait a second!" Kotetsu continued backing away from the crazy man with the crazy girlfriend with the crazy knife of crazy, stabbing death.
"You're going to give the crown to Lord Jake," Kriem said. "And then I'm going to kill you, and then you're going to die. Sound fair?"
"No! That sounds terrible! And what the hell is Jake the lord of, anyway?"
Kriem adjusted her grip on the knife and jabbed it at Kotetsu's neck. He barely ducked to the side.
"Hey, without me, you couldn't have gotten this crown! Give credit where it's due!" Kotetsu brandished the bag with the crown at them, a bit like a shield, as he continued backing away.
"That's true," Jake admitted. "But we don't need you around in order to share the ransom, so you're officially useless."
"Hey! Don't you dare call me—"
Kotetsu's last words were forever lost, because at that moment, he backed up so far that he literally tumbled over the observation deck's rotten railing. His words turned into a scream as he plummeted to the murky rapids below.
"Our crown!" Kriem shrieked, reaching for the railing, but Jake yanked her away from the edge.
"We'll go loot his body downstream. Come on!"