He loathed pity.
Pity was for imbeciles who weren't good enough, who were worth the pathetic glance over the shoulder, the prodding of another as they whispered, "He was so close."
So close.
'So close' was not nearly close enough.
It didn't take long for the news to spread- the brilliant and successful commander of the Keronian army was stripped of his position due to his incompetence in securing his solders' safety for the sake of the mission.
He certainly had a blemish in his reputation, but it was not for the failure of a correctly persecuted invasion, as he had been concerned about before.
'You may be revived to your original position,' the council had told him, 'but for now, we will give you leave to recover your thoughts; perhaps high authority has gone to your head.'
It's not uncommon for this sort of thing to happen to certain superiors, but in reality, the government wanted to peer closer into his history and see if there were any other records of fallen officers that they were not aware of. After all, if he truly felt that 'a mission fails when soldiers die in war', perhaps there were other subordinates that he had willingly sacrificed for other operations.
To which, he left the room in silent, heated dignity, simmering in absolute hatred of the ones who snagged and dragged him under the 'competence of failure' alongside them.
The Keroro Platoon had proven to be a laughingstock to Keron; yes, they were praised with fan letters and occasional gifts and merchandising, but it was not because they were respected as soldiers as they were respected as comedians.
Stories about their mishaps usually became the talk of the week. It didn't help that the government enforced their comedic episodes and allowed the Platoon residence there far longer than they would have allowed anyone else.
Yes, true, their original purpose was certainly to invade Pekopon, but after failure after countless failure, after chance after countless chance given, the government just about gave up. Certainly, however, they found their failures quite refreshing and encouraging to the fact that while they were imperfect, At Least They Weren't the Keroro Platoon (a common saying in Keron).
Of course, there would be the occasional traditional authority on the council that would protest against this idiocy, and thus, a threat would be delivered to Pekopon in an effort to get the original purpose done. Surprisingly, the Keroro Platoon would come up with the upper hand, each and every time.
To then, the favorite phrase of the week would instead be, 'At Least We Aren't That Moron Who Challenged the Keroro Platoon'.
So, unsurprisingly, this was uttered up and around the former commander, completely unaware that he was actually behind them. He broke a window on his way out the building to show his displeasure, if that wasn't striking enough.
"What's his problem?"
Geriri was convinced that revenge was a waste of time.
Now, he was convinced that it was his only means of salvation from insanity.
He awoke one morning to find that he had aggressively damaged his wall with war plans to humiliate the Keroro Platoon the way that they had humiliated him- or worse.
His back slouched against the sofa, his feet lazily propped up with an empty bottle of booze in his hand, he stared in pain from the migraine that pounded his brain as he proceeded to read the almost incomprehensible blank ink scrawls.
Some part of him, the more logical side obviously, proposed that he immediately paint over it before the landlord found it and kicked him out.
But astonishingly, he left it on, even adding to it every few days while he mulled over his coffee. He thought to himself, 'this couldn't possibly work, but it's still fun to think of the consequences'.
Yet, he was willing to help fund a laboratory that was desperate to remain open if they agreed to work for him on a side project, and thus, before he even realized it, he was beginning his vengeful operation.
Of course, the Keroro Platoon were idiots. One of the scientists went down to Pekopon and explained in a less than scientific matter that they needed two vials worth of their blood. What for? To inspect for any foreign and inconspicuous diseases.
Kururu had protested that he could easily do it himself, questioning the authenticity of the scientist that made the trip to their headquarters. And, of course, Keroro pretty much saved the entire mission by claiming that Kururu could do weird stuff with their DNA, like cloning or mutating and all that jazz. Moreover, even the yellow curry-loving inventor consented, but only after the scientist had mentioned it was mandatory and that the government would cut part of their salary for the refusal of medical services, or some sort of crap like that.
Yes, they bought it, and the operation continued smoothly from then on.
It was dubbed "Project X".
"What happened to all the dialogue?" Keroro asked Tamama, who was scarfing down a chocolate banana cream pie.
"Exposition," Kururu replied for the tadpole. He sounded bored, like there was nothing that concerned him.
"Ooohh. But wait." Keroro stood up from his unfinished Gundam model and looked at the scientist. "We've been doing nothing all day; what would it be about?"
"Kuku! How should I know? For all we know this episode could be focused on someone else." Kururu didn't even look up from his computer.
"Hey, Tamama, did I do anything stupid recently?"
Tamama swallowed his latest bite. "Ummm... nope, not recently."
"I think I even remembered to do the dishes today," Keroro mused. "So I can't possible get in trouble with-"
Heavy, violent thuds pounded suddenly against the door, each "knock" noticeably more angry and vicious. The poor door could only withstand about three of them, and was instantly shoved down like a tree to a woodcutter.
Keroro stood in horror, his eyes widening, sweat trickling down his face-
"STUPID FROG!" Natsumi yelled. "YOU FORGOT TO DO THE DISHES AGAIN!"
"Ohh, I probably dreamed about it," Keroro shrugged. "False alar-" a rubbery squeak commenced when the oldest Hinata sibling grabbed Keroro from his head and pulled him up to her face. "Hi! Wow, is that a new zit?"
"Where-?! Hey!" Natsumi scowled to the green frog. "Nice try, frogturd. Don't think you're going to get away with it this time." She gave him a smug little grin. "Because you forgot to do the dishes, you're going to have to clean out the fridge too."
"What? But that's your job today!" Keroro protested. "And plus it's like totally gross!"
"That's what you get," Natsumi said casually, dropping him on his head. "Now get to it, or I'll kick you to the kitchen!"
Geriri didn't understand why the scene changed so pointlessly, but no matter.
Ten small containers of blood would create five Keronians. He could have easily just cloned each individual member, but he recognized the flaws in doing so; basically, each member would be forced to face themselves, and they would be able to identify each weakness and personality con that the clone would possess. It would be too easy of a battle, especially if they don't decide to go against themselves.
Geriri asked the scientists to simply extract the traits that were undeniably useless, but they replied that it would be impossible; something concerning nature vs. nurture, and that the clones would have certain traits regardless.
Cloning was a procedure that didn't interest him even though it was an enormous factor to his plan. He got bored when they tried to explain the concept to him and he cut them off, giving them the freedom to do whatever they thought was best.
Instead, the scientists crossed DNA strands with another, creating five unique individuals that could, under the right training, prove to be difficult for the Keroro Platoon to defeat.
Needless to say, Project X was certainly a large enough experiment that did catch the government's attention. Geriri explicated the matter by stating that the Keroro Platoon needed to be challenged, and once again, the idea of Pekopon's invasion was highly encouraged.
While they agreed to give him authority to instruct and train this new platoon, they refused his offer of returning to his original position, and they warned him of his past actions. They assured him clearly that if he were to repeat to his former behavior, this mission would be cut off of its entirety, regardless of how far they were to go to the invasion.
Geriri grudgingly agreed.
Fortunately, the government was willing to support him as far as funding the laboratory for him, to which he used on a second project that he only revealed to a certain group of scientists.
Why would the government allow this obviously sociopathic man bent on revenge lead a mission like this alone?
They never were the best judges of character. Plus, they thought it would be hilarious.
Geriri was annoyed when he heard that the clones would take quite a while to grow; again, he cut them off when they tried to explain the necessary precautions when creating life artificially. The clones would start off as test tube babies, so to speak. While they told him that they could speed up the aging process a bit to get them where they would intelligent enough to retain information to learn, speeding up the process too quickly could hurt them in the long run. Sure, they would quickly be old enough to face off the Keroro Platoon, but within weeks or months they would be too old to do so. This was a fragile science indeed.
Why wasn't this as easy as the science fiction movies he watched with his ex-girlfriend?
Cloning was so limited. If he had known it had all these problems he wouldn't have invested so much money in it.
"The Keroro Platoon is, let me be quite frank- stupid."
The five children giggled at this, and Geriri gave them a strict look, stopping them short. He continued.
"You are the next generation- you must prove that your worth is greater than theirs. You will outshine them. You will succeed where they have failed- to conquer the planet Pekopon."
"Gesundheit," the blue one piped. This comment earned quite another number of giggles. Geriri glared once more.
"For the final time, it's a planet," Geriri stressed.
"Oh... sorry, I forgot."
"Soon one of you will be skilled enough to fight against the Keroro Platoon," Geriri proceeded, ignoring the tadpole. "I expect you to execute this plan fluidly. Prove that you are better than the Keroro Platoon. Show them that the conquer of Pekopon is possible, and that it can be performed professionally. The weight of this mission is on your shoulders, children. It all depends on you."
The tadpoles stared in silent awe. They no doubt marveled at his speech, weighing the amount of dignity and responsibility given to them...
The blue one raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"We have no idea what you just said."
Author's Note: A long time ago (well, actually a few months ago)... I came up with an idea that was just going to stay as an idea until I was encouraged to continue on with this story.
However, since I've already started so many stories and I have YET to finish them, this is going to be a very open-ended... series(?).
Much like One Hundred Days, I'm going to let people volunteer to contribute chapters, but unlike OHD, I'm letting anybody submit a chapter. Of course, I have to read it and approve it first, but yes- because of my busy schedule, I'm letting everyone help out if they want to. Please give me a ring if you're interested.
Also, thanks for reading xD