A/N: This story is not meant to be taken seriously at all (just in case you couldn't tell).
Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis. It belongs to Konomi.
A tale of great infamy spread across the seas. A terrible pirate with dark, black holes where his eyes should be, and he was pale – whiter than a fresh, powdery, snowfall. He spread terror throughout the land. It was said that anyone who met this deadly man was guaranteed certain death.
Skeleton-chan travelled the seven seas on his beautiful ship the Capricorn. It was old, falling apart, and had suffered many battle scars over the years. Quite the beauty indeed. He was very close to his crew. Or at least he considered himself to be. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure if his crew shared the same opinion. They never talked to him or really tried to get along with him at all. He tried not to take it to heart, though; his crew never really did much of anything anyway. For the most part, they just laid still on the ground, occasionally shifting a bit when the seas were particularly turbulent. Skeleton-chan didn't really mind. As long as he had them there to keep him company, he didn't mind doing everything himself. After all, it was his job as the captain to make sure everything went smoothly and to protect his crew. That's what he thought, anyway. Besides, it wasn't as if he really needed any help. So far he'd handled everything just fine by himself.
Everything was going smoothly until one day, with a crack of thunder, sheets of rain suddenly came pouring down and bolts of lightning continuously lit the sky. He noticed a trespasser on his ship – a teenage boy. Taking in his appearance – in particular the uniform he wore – the skeleton pirate was suddenly reminded of a similar encounter he had had earlier. What was his name again? Ah, yes. Byoudouin. He was quite fond of Byoudouin. Although he certainly could've done without the bossiness. The teen actually had the nerve to declare himself Skeleton-chan's new boss! The nerve! Who did that teenager think he was? Nobody orders Skeleton-chan around.
But even worse than that was meeting Byoudouin's other underling: the space pirate. Ugh. Skeleton-chan most certainly could've done without the third member of their little pirate trio – the pirate of tennis, the skeleton pirate, and the space pirate. Honestly the only problem Skeleton-chan had with the space pirate was that he was far more infamous than him. His name struck terror in the hearts of all living creatures throughout the galaxy. As if that made him superior to Skeleton-chan whose name was only infamous throughout the Earth. How childish.
Other than that, he didn't particularly mind the arrangement. It was nice having friends who actually bothered responding, though he hated the thought that he was betraying his crew by enjoying the other pirates' company. However, he didn't really understand Byoudouin. Byoudouin was only the pirate of tennis. Shouldn't that make Skeleton-chan superior? As far as he was concerned, ruling the seas was superior to ruling the tennis courts. But apparently Byoudouin was the boss, and he didn't have any choice in the matter. All he really got from Byoudouin in terms of an explanation was something about each of them being from different dimensions and he has inter-dimensional tennis or whatever, which allowed him to access different dimensions like the ones the skeleton pirate and space pirate were from. Or something. Skeleton-chan still wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to mean. All he got from it was Byoudouin's "the boss" and he wasn't supposed to question it and that the whole inter-dimensional tennis thing was probably the reason for the sudden appearance of some blue-haired adolescent on his ship.
In general Skeleton-chan considered himself to be a fairly decent person (well, skeleton). Okay, so he might've stabbed the boy through the heart for no apparent reason, but he was a pirate. And it was the boy's fault for being on his ship in the first place. Everyone knows that setting foot on a pirate ship is the same as forfeiting your life. You're as good as dead.
Besides, the boy seemed fine. Skeleton-chan was fairly sure that being stabbed through the heart usually killed most people, but the boy was still very much alive. However that works. Inter-dimensional tennis? Yeah, that sounds good. Blame it all on the tennis.
Unfortunately, this still didn't change the fact that the teen was on his ship. He was considering throwing him overboard because, if this kid could survive being stabbed, he wasn't sure he really wanted to fight him anymore. He was pretty sure that was even less fair than him being a skeleton and therefore technically already dead.
Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) for him, he didn't have to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of his fearsome reputation, for the next thing he knew there was a swirling abyss of blackness in front of him. Except it was in the air instead of at the bottom of an endless cliff, so maybe it wasn't really an abyss. Whatever. It was cool. And it looked dangerous. Like a hole of pure blackness. Suspended in the air. He wanted one. Where could he find such a deadly weapon?
His pondering of this swirling thing before him was swiftly interrupted as the gale around him abruptly stopped and his world faded into darkness.
When Skeleton-chan woke up again, he had no idea where he was. And his precious ship was nowhere to be seen, he noted sadly. Clearly, the only reasonable course of action was to wander around and try to find some clue that would tell him where he was and what happened, so he did just that.
He wandered around until finding a room that looked like an infirmary. There he saw the blue-haired teen from earlier asleep on a bed and covered in bandages. Anxiously standing nearby were two other boys his age – one a blonde with glasses and the other a red-head. In Skeleton-chan's defense, he was fairly certain that it wasn't his fault. Last time he'd seen him, he was still quite alive and well.
He quickly reached the conclusion that he must be in a different universe. Tennis Universe? If that was the case, then Byoudouin would be here somewhere. Finding him would probably be a good idea. He could help him take over this universe. Then he'd surely be better than the space pirate; he'd be infamous throughout two dimensions! Now to go establish himself as the ruler of this universe whom everyone should fear. Because if everyone's afraid of you, then you can get away with anything!
He set off again with a renewed vigor now that he had a clear goal in mind. He soon ran into someone new. "Vote Skeleton-chan for supreme dictator of the world!" he said, offering the young teen a winning smile, which, as you can imagine, looked nothing like a smile what with him being a skeleton and all.
The curly black-haired teen stared at him with a countenance of pure horror, all the colour quickly draining from his face. He swiftly turned and ran, screaming like a little girl, down the hall waving his arms frantically and yelling something about 1,2 . . . something or other. He promptly tripped and fell flat on his face.
Skeleton-chan watched him, satisfied. The teen was clearly afraid of him as he should be. Though part of him was a little bit disappointed. He didn't quite think he won the boy's vote. Darn.
Behind him he heard a faint click and saw another black-haired teen (this one with several piercings) holding up a rectangular device and snickering along with another teen whose dirty blond hair reminded him of a mushroom. They didn't seem to notice him.
"There's another one for the blog," the black-haired one said, sounding quite satisfied. "Akaya freaks out over everything."
"Hey, where do you think Kaidou went?" the blonde asked.
"He probably ran off the second we started talking about the training camp being haunted. I think he made up some lame excuse about practice or something like that. At least we got Akaya to come along."
"Hello. Do you think you could help me? I'm trying to become the supreme ruler of this dimension," Skeleton-chan interrupted.
At first the boys didn't move. They just stood there looking at the skeleton pirate, only now noticing his presence. Then:
"You can talk?! And move?! But you're a skeleton! How is that possible?!" from the mushroom.
Skeleton-chan just sort of shrugged. "I come from a different dimension?" he offered. It wasn't really much of an explanation, but he had never thought himself to be odd before. After all, as far as he could remember, he had been like this. He, of course, thought he was perfectly normal. All his other crew members were just like him, albeit much lazier. And they weren't exactly brilliant conversationalists, but he had figured that that was just how they were.
"I told you!" the mushroom shouted triumphantly to the other boy, who just kind of gave him this look. Skeleton-chan quickly departed before the mushroom could bombard him with questions.
Eventually, Skeleton-chan managed to find Byoudouin's room without running into any more trouble.
"Byoudouin. Byoudouin. Let's go conquer the world together."
Byoudouin groaned and threw a pillow at him. Yes, Byoudouin threw a pillow at Skeleton-chan.
"Watch it. You could take off someone's head like that," Skeleton-chan whined. He was very fond of having his head attached to the rest of his body. And it was true. You could kill someone with one of those pillows. What did they fill them with? Bricks?
Whatever. Skeleton-chan didn't really want to rule the world anyway. Terrorize everyone in the world was a much more accurate statement. Ruling required work and creating laws and dealing with people who didn't follow the rules when all Skeleton-chan wanted to do in the first place was get away with breaking all the rules by being so feared worldwide that everyone was too afraid to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. No. Being supreme dictator of the world was too much work. Way more work than he wanted to deal with.
Skeleton-chan left the room since Byoudouin was being a jerk and he didn't have to put up with that sort of thing. It wasn't long before he ran into yet another teen. Why were there so many teens around anyway? Wasn't it past their bedtime or something?
This time it was a dark-haired boy with a green bandana. He wore the same terrified expression as the seaweed-haired boy from earlier. Yes! That was how it was supposed to be! Everyone was supposed to fear him and run away in terror and not dare challenge him, not hit him with a barrage of questions and not look even the slightest bit afraid like the two boys from earlier. There must be something terribly wrong with those two. He had never met anyone who wasn't scared of him. Well, except Byoudouin. And the space pirate. How was he supposed to terrorize the world if there were people like that?
Unfortunately, in the middle of his thoughts, the boy with the bandana swung at him with his tennis racket and Skeleton-chan collapsed into a pile of disconnected bones. No! This wasn't how it was supposed to be!
Then the boy promptly ran off screaming, so at least there was that.
"Hey! Come back here and put me back together!" Skeleton-chan could not believe he was actually telling someone to stop running away from him in terror. The boy didn't stop; he probably hadn't even heard Skeleton-chan over the sound of his screaming.
Skeleton-chan wasn't sure how long he stayed like that before more teenagers stumbled upon the pile of bones that used to be a proud skeleton pirate. This time Skeleton-chan was quite appreciative about the abundance of teenagers throughout the camp.
The same curly-haired boy from earlier was back – this time with an exasperated-looking teen in a torn up black cap and a blue-haired boy with a green headband.
"See there it is! The skeleton from earlier," Akaya cried, pointing at Skeleton-chan from where he hid behind the capped teen's back.
The capped teen pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "Akaya, I've already told you many times that I don't have time for your foolish nonsense."
"Do you think you could spare the time to put me back together?" Skeleton-chan inquired as politely as he could even though he was slightly offended by the teens. After all, he wasn't exactly in a position where he could demand anything of them without them laughing him off and walking away. He didn't want to be left a pile of bones forever.
The capped teen just stared at him, too shocked to move.
"Please?" Skeleton-chan tried.
The capped boy and the seaweed-haired one both took off down the hall. Skeleton-chan wondered if maybe being feared by everyone was such a good thing after all.
The blue-haired teen frowned in the general direction his companions had raced off in before sighing and taking out a sack. (Why Yukimura had a sack with him in the first place isn't important.)
"Hey!" Skeleton-chan protested as the teen began putting his bones into the sack. He picked up the pirate's skull last and stared at him calmly as if he dealt with talking skeletons every day.
"Do you have any last requests before I put you in the dumpster?" he asked.
"What?!" Skeleton-chan cried. "That hardly seems fair. All I want is to go back to my ship! I'm done with your crazy world!"
"Well, seeing as how your ship is apparently in another dimension, there's nothing I can do to help you, is there?" he said sweetly, clearly not caring about the skeleton's predicament at all. In fact, he seemed to be amused by Skeleton-chan's problem.
"Wait! Byoudouin knows about dimensions and stuff! Talk to him first! I don't want to be a pile of bones in a dumpster forever!" Skeleton-chan wished he had thought to ask Byoudouin if he could send him back to his own universe when he had gone to his room earlier. Then none of this would've happened.
Skeleton-chan had never broken down like this in his life, and he had fought off all kinds of people. Yet one night in this universe had left him a pile of bones forced to beg teenagers for help. Truly a terrifying world. He was beginning to see why Byoudouin was the boss.
Yukimura didn't reply. He simply stuffed Skeleton-chan's head into the sack. Skeleton-chan couldn't see where they were going. He sincerely hoped it wasn't towards a dumpster.
After a short walk that felt like eternity for poor Skeleton-chan who had literally been left in the dark – and to make it worse, left in the dark in a sack full of his own bones which were shuffling around and hitting each other as the teenager carried him – he heard Yukimura order Byoudouin to send him back to his own dimension in this sugary sweet voice that sent shivers down Skelton-chan's spine, which is a very odd experience when your spine is detached from the rest of your body. The last thing Skeleton-chan remembered was thinking once again that the blue-haired teen was very strange indeed. And scary. Very scary.
Skeleton-chan awoke on the deck of his ship to the bright rays of the sun. He sat up groaning. He felt awful. He glanced down at himself. Yes! Whole again! Home sweet boat. He was never leaving this dimension ever again. Ever.
Whistling (well, trying to whistle, but, as you can imagine, that worked out real well), Skeleton-chan went off to go steer the boat. He spun the wheel in all directions, and it promptly broke off. He dropped it to the ground and set off to find some way to fix it. Today was going to be a great day! Yes. A very wonderful day indeed.