Just a crazy one-shot I thought up. I noticed all the top rangers had the craziest hair - I mean look at Keith's! It looks like something exploded! So there's only one answer: a lot of hair gel!
I know all the rangers don't stay at the Ranger Union, but let's just say for this story takes place when Ben and Summer have briefly returned from Oblivia after the main bulk of the Guardian Signs game, and Lunick and Solana have come to the Ranger Union for a visit or something. The story also includes Vatona and Nage, the two scientist brothers in the Ranger Union, since they never really seem to do zillions in the games and there are literally no fics with them in - so this is a little of the recognision they deserve.
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon - otherwise Ash would actually grow up instead of being permenantly 10 and the rangers would get their own anime series.
Vatona and Nage go shopping, Keith and Ben embark on a quest, Kellyn reads a newspaper and Lunick gets really mad...what common trait brought these events together?
"Careful..." Keith muttered, staring at his ginger hair in the mirror. "Must get this perfect..." he trailed off, running his palm through his hair. He placed his hand at the front of his head, quickly and evenly applying the gel to his hair. Slowly, he worked it in deeply using his fingers.
If there was a common trait between the seven main top rangers, it was hair gel. Keith and Ben use up three tubs worth of it between the two of them every day, Kellyn used a little bit for special occasions and even Kate must use a little to get her pigtails as spiky as that. So naturally, every morning was mayhem in the bathroom. Thankfully, Kate had a habit of waking up at the crack of dawn and Ben never rose before 9am every weekend, so Keith had the full run of the bathroom.
Carefully, he used the gel to carve the many Afro-like spikes surrounding his head. This was one of the few things Keith could actually concentrate on for more than a few seconds. Well, this is if you don't have a certain blue-haired ranger trying to kick down the door.
"Keith! What are you doing in there?!" Keith heard another bang as Lunick reinforced his angry tone with yet another relentless attack at the bathroom door "Hurry up! I need to use the bathroom!"
"Use the other one!" Keith yelled back.
"I can't!"
"Why?!"
"It's occupied!"
"By who?!"
"I wasn't going to find out!"
Keith rolled his brown eyes and continued styling his hair whilst the older teen smashed his foot into the door so hard Keith heard the hinges creak.
"Come back in a minute! I'm busy!" Keith told him.
"Doing what?!" Lunick sounded like he was positively fuming right now.
"You wouldn't understand!" Was Keith's answer. Lunick growled.
"If you're applying hair gel again..." he threatened, his voice lower than usual. It was beyond him why it took an hour for someone to create 'spiky' hair. Personally, he thought the whole gravity-defying 'spiky' hair thing was ridiculous. All he needed was a headband and his hair was fine. He didn't require an hour to style it to the point it was practically glowing with gel!
Realising Keith wasn't going to be coming out of the bathroom any time soon, Lunick gave the door one last kick, careful not to set fire to it with his glare (Seriously, it had happened before, he had set Ringtown Ranger Base on fire with his glare when Solana had Pokénapped his Minun) and stormed out of the side door into the main corridor.
"Stupid, vain, ginger..." he mumbled under his breath. He was so busy mumbling he didn't realise he was about to walk straight into a fellow ranger.
"Ow! Watch it!" Solana complained as she sprung back a foot after walking into him. She had apparently been playing games on her styler which she had slotted back into its carrier at her hip.
"Sorry" Lunick mumbled an apology.
"Geez, what's up with you this morning?" Solana blinked at his tone of voice "Did Summer and Kellyn drink all the coffee from the machine or something?"
"Keith's busy 'beautifying' himself in the bathroom again! He does this every morning!" Lunick raged "I don't mind if he has to use it... if only he stayed in there for less than ten minutes! Between him, Ben and Kate they're the three vainest people I've ever known when it comes to hair gel!"
"Spenser wasn't far behind" Solana agreed "He used to spend hours in the bathroom, and then blamed any money problems on Murph's pie obsession."
"They're all nuts" Lunick nodded, his blue eyes still blazing with fury.
"Say, weren't you lot supposed to be doing the shopping run this morning?" Solana asked, trying to change the subject before Lunick let another fire break out, this time in the Ranger Union.
"I got Vatona and Nage to do it, since they had nothing to do" Lunick grunted "Keith's too preoccupied with his hair, Ben's still in bed, Kate's taking the partner Pokémon for a walk, I have no idea where Kellyn is but he's probably reading a newspaper and Summer...forget that, I don't even want to know what Summer does in her spare time!" Images of the rather violent Summer as a part-time sniper or assassin or knife dealer flashed through his mind, but tried to forget them by reminding himself she was only twelve years old.
"Well we're going to have to round them up" Solana sighed "New mission starts in three hours. Some Sneasle and Weavile snuck into Almia Castle last night and are disrupting 'National Trust property'." She sighed, rolling her eyes "Why don't we ever get the cool missions anymore?"
"I heard my name mentioned!" sang a high-pitched voice. Solana and Lunick turned towards the source. Short, slender and sweet, Kate Hitomi was the ideal princess. Smiling, she walked up to them, her finger wrapped around a lock of her ginger hair that hung around her shoulders as it wasn't yet spiked in pigtails. "What's up with the long faces?"
Behind her was Kellyn, predictably with yesterday's newspaper rolled up under his arm.
"Keith is busy in the bathroom again" Lunick explained "Applying gel to his hair." He scoffed. "Stupid vain pretty-boy ginger."
"He's so cute though!" Kate squeaked excitedly. "He's got beautiful hair..." She sighed dreamily. Kellyn was offended.
"My hair's not that bad!" he protested.
Kate shook her head, making her shoulder-length ginger hair sweep across her shoulders. "It's pretty, but it's not beautiful. Keith puts a lot of work into his hair, you should give him more credit Kellyn, Lunick."
The latter folded his arms and looked away, the former glared at her.
"Oh don't give me that look! I don't prefer Keith over you!" Kate playfully slapped his arm. Kellyn stopped glaring.
"Still, Keith spends a lot of time putting effort into styling his hair" Kate added.
"Which is exactly my point!" Lunick threw his hands into the air with frustration "It's not hard! All you do is stick your fingers in a tub of hair gel and run it through your hair!"
"Yes... if you want a hairstyle likes yours Lunick. Keith likes his spiky-Afro hair, and that takes effort." Lunick was about to argue back to Kate when a loud voice cried:
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
"Keith?" Everyone blinked, Solana voiced their thoughts.
"THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING TO ME!"
Lunick, Solana, Kate and Kellyn exchanged worried glances. What had happened to upset Keith? Worried, the four quickly ran up the corridor towards the bathroom. Kate knocked on the door.
"What's the matter?" She asked.
They heard a sniff from inside and soon, the door opened. As soon as the door opened, Lunick quickly shoved the miserable Keith aside and entered.
"I ran out of hair gel... and the last tub is missing!" he cried, almost breaking down in tears. "It's terrible I tell you! Terrible! Horrible!"
Footsteps were soon heard and the four turned to face a worn out, panic-stricken Ben. There were bags under his eyes and his gel-less hair had slumped forwards over his eyes. He tucked it behind his ears and looked at them with a panicked expression on his face.
"The hair gel! What happened to it?!" he cried. Keith sniffed, holding back tears.
"I don't know. It's gone...missing" he gulped. A look of despair crossed Ben's face. He ran tanned fingers through his brown normally wind-swept hair and cast a desperate look at Kate. She sensed his thoughts.
"Nope, I don't have anything to help your hair kiddo" she said "And don't ask Solana either, she doesn't harbour such beauty products when it comes down to hair." She frowned. "How much gel do you boys use anyway?"
"I only use a tub" Keith shrugged.
"Two" Ben admitted, then saw the look on Keith's face "What? I have longer hair!" A flushing noise interrupted the conversation and Lunick stepped out of the bathroom, looking pleased with himself.
"You!" Keith accused through clenched jaws, rounding on the oldest teen "Where did you hide it?!" He jabbed an accusing finger at Lunick's chest. The Fiore ranger blinked.
"What are you talking about?"
"The jewel of life! Where did you hide it?!" Ben added, rounding on Lunick as well.
"The jewel of life? Doesn't that thing belong to Arceus or something?" Lunick asked.
"Do not insult the sacred tub of hair gel!" Keith hissed. "Come on Ben, we have to find it ourselves!" The youngest of the top rangers nodded in agreement.
"We'll be seeing you guys later..." he said, eyeing Lunick with distaste. Lunick, Solana, Kellyn and Kate watched as the two younger males ran off.
"Latios, they're so idiotic at times" muttered Kellyn.
"Agreed" Lunick nodded.
"Okay, so, what have we got on the list?" Nage unfolded the shopping list given to him by Lunick and scanned it. The streets of Pueltown were quite quiet, and Nage and Vatona were the only ones on the street. The latter brother was currently playing Pokémon Heartgold on his Nintendo DS and was thoroughly engrossed in it. When Vatona almost walked into a bench and scared off some Starly and Pidgey that had been sitting on it, Nage had enough and snatched the white DS from Vatona's grasp.
"Hey! No fair! Nage!" Vatona complained, placing his hands on his hips and pouting at his little brother "I was just about to beat Jasmine!" Nage looked at the screen and saw a Quilava nicknamed Bang about to use Flamethrower on a Steelix. He folded the top screen down and slipped the DS into his white lab coat's pocket before meeting his older brother's brown gaze.
"Play it when we get back to the Ranger Union!" Nage snapped "Now come on! We have to get this shopping done or Lunick will put us on the cafeteria menu!" Although Nage didn't know him very well, he knew one thing about the Minun owner: he was most definitely not a morning person.
Vatona's Vaporeon, Wave, rubbed her fine-haired body along her master's outer leg in order to cheer him up. Nage looked down at Jolt, his Jolteon, who was currently investigating a patch of petunias. He whistled and his one and only Pokémon trotted back over to his side. The two brothers had obtained the two Pokémon as Eevees before joining the Ranger Union, and Professor Hastings had allowed them to keep them, even giving them the water and thunder stones to evolve their respective Eevees. They were good for self-defence and protecting the lab's vital research, but were also great company for when they were stuck behind their computers for days on end.
"See, Wave's on my side" Vatona grinned. Nage rolled his eyes.
"Of course she would be" he sighed, unfolding the shopping list again "Now, let's see. We need to get milk, ham, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli—"
"No! Not broccoli!" Vatona pulled a face "I hate broccoli!"
"As I was saying!" Nage continued through gritted teeth "Broccoli, eggs, batteries, toilet paper, washing-up liquid..." He squinted at the paper "I don't even know what that says. Lunick must've been half asleep when he wrote this."
"Can you blame him?" Vatona yawned, stretching his arms and almost taking Nage's head off in the process "It's ridiculous early in the morning!"
Nage blinked in confusion. "It's 9:30."
"Exactly!" Vatona grinned. Nage blinked again before shaking his head and continuing reading the shopping list.
"Honey, bread, toothpaste, apples, potatoes..." he frowned and squinted again "Why exactly is Pokémon Deities Smashdown 4 on here?" Vatona quickly snatched the list out of Nage's hand, folded it up again and slipped it into his pocket away from his little twin brother's prying eyes.
"I asked Lunick to put it on there" he explained.
"Do you seriously need a new game?" Nage asked, folding his arms "You've already got your Nintendo DS, and you've been playing Pokémon Warriors United 3 on the lab computers when we're supposed to be doing work."
"What work?! There's nothing for us to do now the Power Styler's up and running!" Vatona mirrored his brother "And that is rich coming from the one who's been playing Pokémon Colosseum during work hours for the last fortnight!" Nage opened his mouth to argue, then realised Vatona wouldn't rest until he got the last word and just gave up. He had just sent Wave and Jolt to find a grocery store when Vatona's mobile received a message. Unlike rangers, the two scientists didn't get the liberty of stylers for communication, so they had to settle for the good old mobile phones. Vatona read the message, chuckled and then seized Nage's wrist, dragging him in the complete opposite direction to where he had been planning to go.
"Whoa! Hey!" Nage tried to pull away. "Where are we going?"
"Sudden order" Vatona grinned, looking worryingly proud of himself. "Come on, have I ever let you down before?"
"Yes!" Nage snapped "More times than I care to think about!" Vatona rolled his eyes that were a slightly lighter brown than Nage's.
"Don't make me out to be the worst brother in the whole world Nage!" Vatona gave him the puppy-dog-eyes look. "Don't worry, you can trust me!"
"That's the problem here! I don't trust you!"
Back at Ranger Union, Keith and Ben searched high and low for the tub of gel. They searched the kitchen, the common room, the cafeteria, the communications deck, the top floor, the bathroom, the lab, the trophy room, the lobby and even their own bedrooms... but with no success. The tub of gel could not be found.
"Where is it?" whined Keith "My hair's starting to stiffen." He fearfully touched one of his orange spikes "I'm going to have to start all over again..."
"Don't panic yet Keith, there is still hope" reassured Ben. His hair had flopped over his eyes again so he was actually talking to a plant in his blindness instead of Keith "Where have we not looked?"
"Er...Lunick's bedroom?"
"Lunick hates hair gel. Why would he have it?"
"Maybe he thought it was lubricant or jelly or something..." Keith trailed off.
Ben shook his head. "Lunick's smarter than that. Anyhow, he wouldn't touch your stuff. He knows how angry you get when people touch your stuff without asking."
"Well, who else would have it?! Solana?" Keith retorted.
"It's possible; after all, it's the only product she or Kate does not have that we know about."
Keith contemplated Ben's comment. Perhaps he was right...
"Right, let's check Solana's room then" the ginger agreed.
The two males walked towards Solana's room, cautiously as if they expected to be ambushed. Ben placed his hand on the door knob and turned it clockwise. The door opened and they stepped inside, gazing around the room looking for the tub of gel.
"No sign of it" Keith commented. Ben didn't reply. He was standing in front of Solana's mirror, attempting in vain to fix his hair. Keith joined him in his hair fixing activities. When both were satisfied with their appearance, they left the room.
"Nothing in Solana's room..." Keith rubbed his chin in thought "Let's try Kellyn's."
Without trading another word, both Ben and Keith crept towards Kellyn's room. Strangely, his door was unlocked, which was highly unusual for the hero of Almia who always seemed paranoid someone (coughKeithcoughBencough) was going to destroy his room.
"That's strange; his door is unlocked" remarked Ben, scratching his head.
"Who cares? The door's open" Keith shrugged. And so they entered the room.
"I've never been in here before" Ben commented, gazing around. "Didn't realise Kellyn was a neat-freak." He looked at the older ranger's bed. There were no creases in his sheets.
"He's so organized" Keith remarked, pointing at Kellyn's bookshelf. All the books were organized in height order and books that shared the same height were organized by thickness. Keith shook his head sadly.
"What a sad, lonely person he is. Because he doesn't have a daily hair routine, he spends his time organising his room" He shook his head again.
"I don't think it's in here" Ben commented then smiled evilly "Let's mess his room up!" Keith joined him in the evil smiling world.
"Sure, why not?" He picked up Kellyn's pillow and threw it across the room. Ben picked up the other pillow and hit Keith with it, laughing at Keith's expression. Keith growled, picked up the pillow and hit the brunet back, twice as hard. Fortunately, the pillows didn't hurt.
"Pillow fight!" Ben declared, hitting Keith with another pillow. Soon, a vicious pillow fight began with both boys hitting each other with the soft pillows. After several minutes of fighting, Keith called quits complaining the fighting messed up his hair. The two hurried out of Kellyn's room before the newspaper-obsessed ranger returned.
"That was fun" concluded Ben "Now, where could the gel be?" Silence fell between the two as they thought about the possible whereabouts of the gel.
"Summer?" Keith suggested. Ben didn't comment; there was no need to. He didn't think Summer of all people would have the hair gel, but Summer was a surprising individual. Perhaps she used it for something. Maybe for polishing knives or something...
The two made their way down to the end of the hall where Summer's room was. The door was unlocked so they went in. It was dark, the curtains closed and the lights off. The only light came from a lamp on the beside cabinet, pointing at the bed against the left wall. Sitting on said bed was Summer, leaning her back against the headrest and polishing what appeared to be a baseball bat, but neither had any idea what she was doing with one.
Keith shoved Ben into the room first, mumbling something about her being his partner and her going easy on him. As he stumbled into the room, Summer looked up at him with cold brown eyes.
"Yes?" she asked slowly. Ben gulped.
In the common room of the Ranger Union, the other top rangers were chilling out. Lunick was watching a movie on the television with Solana whilst Kate meddled with her screwdriver and styler and Kellyn read a newspaper. Even the partner Pokémon were having fun. Keith's Buizel was playing a game where he had to try and hit Ben's Staraptor with a water gun as she was moving, soaking several items and people in the process. Kellyn's Pacharisu was clinging onto the Staraptor's back, squealing with joy. Summer's Ukulele Pichu was playing its ukulele whilst Kate's Pachrisu listened and Plusle and Minum performed a dance to it.
All was peaceful...until two brothers stumbled into the common room. Both Vatona and Nage were weighed down with shopping bags and promptly collapsed when they entered the common room. Wave and Jolt were also carrying a bag between their teeth.
"Geez, did you guys get quadruples of everything?" Lunick blinked.
"No, you just wrote a really long list!" Nage complained, tossing Kellyn today's Almia Times.
"Yeah, necessities only next time! We've got lots of steps to climb just to get here!" Vatona added, then dug around in one of his shopping bags "Oh, Kate, I got what you wanted." He held up a yellow tub of hair gel.
"Yes!" Kate abandoned her screwdriver and styler, grabbed the hair gel tub and rubbed it against her cheek like it was her Pacharisu "Thank you so much Vatona! I knew I could trust you!" Looking delighted, Kellyn raced over to the hair gel too and the pair of them cradled it in their hands like it was a precious child.
"Oh not you two too!" Lunick groaned "Two obsessed freaks is bad enough!"
"We're not obsessed" Kellyn shook his head "It's just so hard to get ahold of this stuff with those two obsessed freaks hanging around."
As if cued, Ben and Keith raced into the common room at break-neck pace. Behind them was Summer, a crowbar in her right hand and a baseball bat in her left. She was hitting Keith on the head with the crowbar whilst bonking Ben's head with the baseball bat. Ben was screaming for help, Keith yowling about his hair being ruined and Summer was shrieking about them touching her stuff, invading her room and accusing her of being a thief. They raced around the sofa and television twice before leaving the room in a storm. Kellyn and Kate left after them, the male saying something about hiding the hair gel and his partner mumbling about going to try and calm Summer down before she damaged someone's property. Lunick just sat there, laughing at the whole scene. That was until Solana slapped his arm hard as punishment. He gave a yelp of pain and cautiously prodded his stinging skin on his upper arm as Solana turned back to watch the movie. Lunick grunted.
"Two common traits with rangers: One, they all seem to love hair gel. Two, they all end up being beaten black and blue in some way or another."