This is complete madness that my sister (Reborn the Monster) and I wrote. It's the boys in band. That's it. Except it's freaky... Because it's marching band! This to everyone who enjoys a good laugh at the strange and mystifying. It is also dedicated to all band geeks out there: YOUR AWESOMENESS RULES!
You do not have to be a band nerd to enjoy this story. It may or may not be continued. It won't be a main update. I just thought I'd post it to see if I got any reactions.
Both my sister and I wrote this. Both my sister and put our band expertise into it. And neither of us own anything that belongs to YYH. Abbey and Jessica and all other characters outside of YYH are ours. Watch out! Many of our own characters are based on real people!
I hope this makes at least one person laugh. That's the goal. I'm not looking for another masterpiece type work, just some good ol' rumble-tumble fun. This story is a little strange and oddly oriented, so you might want to get ready for its quirkiness. It's good though. I like it.
Enjoy (I hope!)
"Band! Ten-hut!" a shout echoed across the football field. About 82 high school students stiffened, as their supervising adult called out commands. Yep. These guys were special; so special, that they were standing in the middle of the football field, in the pouring rain, holding various musical instruments. If you haven't guessed, it's a band.
It was your average marching band in any case…or so they thought. Granted, the attack of the strange flying monkeys was a little weird, and when that one kid who used to play sousaphone sprouted horns and began to eat the flutes, people were a little worried, but hey, they all had their quirks. However, these quirks were beginning to be a problem. Not many people know this but, the band used to be a good 120 strong. All of a sudden the monkeys attack and everyone's afraid to be a band kid…or maybe they got kidnapped…or turned into flying monkeys themselves. In any case, strange things were happening at Talisman High School.
On this particularly miserable day, the band was desperately attempting to put together a marching show centered on The Wizard of Oz, (inspired by the flying monkeys) but with people vanishing left and right, the show was kinda suffering. Fortunately for this rag-tag group of stragglers and people brave enough (or stupid enough) to stick around, Koenma, almighty baby of the spirit world had noticed these strange things. At least, he noticed the green, horned, people eating ones. With his American spirit detective team pretty much caput after a massacre involving anvils, he was hard pressed to find another replacement, and with the world going to hell in the proverbial hand basket, it was time for him to call on another of his teams. The one he really didn't want to call. Please tell me that you know that Koenma spends a lot of time with Team Urameshi, because that's who we're talking about.
Koenma knows that Team Urameshi is the strongest team he was ever fortunate enough to stumble upon and so he was pretty sure that anvils and green cannibals were not going to phase them. What would phase them, and probably doom us all, is the undercover fact. Uh-huh, the undercover as band students fact. And the worst part was telling them; which is what he was about to do…tell them, that is.
At this very opportune moment in our story, the team (Urameshi) had just arrived with a bang. Literally; Yusuke kicked the door open and it banged against the wall. Koenma just flinched and hoped that wouldn't be him meeting the end of Yusuke's shoe.
"Wassup shorty?" Yusuke yelled ebulliently into the silence. Glancing at the author, wondering what "ebullient" meant, he started toward Koenma's desk; where he was busily attempting to look busy by shuffling papers around.
"Yusuke, glad you could make it," Koenma told him around the pacifier in his mouth.
"Uh-huh. Did you want something?" Yusuke continued, as though he didn't hear a word Koenma said.
"Yes actually," Koenma took a deep breath. Here goes: "strangethingsarehappening inAmerica andtherewereanvils anditwasbadandIneed youtogoundercoveras bandstudents." There. Really fast (in one breath!) so that they couldn't understand. Perfect. He was met with several blinks…and the authors attempting to say what they had just written.
"What?" was Yusuke's articulate reply. Koenma sighed and began to scoot away from his spirit detective. Alright, break the news take two…slower.
"Well, as you know there are other countries in the world, and each of them has a spirit detective team, except they were all smushed by anvils and so I need you to go undercover as band students to find out why there are flying monkeys and green people eating things." Koenma answered, hoping they didn't hear the "band students" part.
"I'm still not sure I comprehend you completely," Kurama cut in, using big words that Yusuke didn't want to think about.
"This is getting ridiculous, just tell us what you want us to do, so I can get on with my life," Hiei snapped, folding his arms.
"ALRIGHT THEN!" Koenma yelled, jumping on top of his desk and throwing his busy papers in the air. "I need you to go to some random school in America and pretend to be band students and figure out why the heck people are turning green and cannibalistic and there are flying monkeys and general havoc."
"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?" Kuwabara asked. Koenma promptly fell off his desk.
"Why band students? Those guys are freaky," Yusuke added, folding his arms and crossing his legs.
"Don't forget, they're also American. That makes them twice as strange," Kurama put in.
"An excellent point Kurama," Yusuke said, giving him a thumbs-up.
"I need you to be band students because for some reason, they are the target and it is debatable whether they might branch out from there," Koenma answered.
"Might I point out that I don't know how to play an instrument?" Kurama asked. Koenma watched as he received nods from the rest of the team.
"That question is answered easily enough. I will present each of you with highly technological, extremely expensive musical instruments. They are powered off your spirit energy, so the higher the spirit energy the better the instrument sounds, and the more you will know how to play. Needless to say, you all have more than enough spirit energy to suffice. Now, if there are no more questions I will present you with your equipment." There was no reaction. Koenma continued: "Alright then. I have here assembled," he gestured to several file folders on his desk that were miraculously untouched, "every scrap of information we have based on your personalities. Based on stereotypes and personality traits of a sample of band members, we have matched you with your corresponding instrument." He picked up the files and opened the top one while a row of ogres filed through the door holding instruments.
"Let us begin with Yusuke. Judging by your dismal scholastic record, your tendency to leap before you look, and your ability to think fast on your feet and multitask in a weird, disorienting way, I present you with a pair of drumsticks. Congratulations, you are a drummer." A purple ogre stepped forward and handed Yusuke a pair of wooden sticks and a duffel bag full of other mallets and equipment.
"Next, let's take a look at Kuwabara. After much deliberation, it has been decided that you, with your tendency to boast that you are better than you really are, your kindhearted nature and sometimes easygoing nature, it has been decided that you shall play baritone saxophone." A green ogre with a large, shiny instrument hanging from a strap around his neck and a large, black case in his hand stepped forward and presented it to Kuwabara.
"Alright, third we'll examine Kurama. Based upon your extreme intelligence, relatively gentle nature and ability to stand out whether you want to or not, we have decided that you shall play French horn. You are the more common of the two different types of French horn players. The other one tends to be certifiably insane and extremely energetic. I just want to prepare you for what you might find."
"Finally, Hiei. You were by far the hardest to place, given your violent nature, tendency to be extremely quiet, and your willingness to murder people. In any case, we offer you a choice. You can join the legion of conniving, world-dominating flute players, or you can become a thinks-they're-incredibly-talented, usually unobtrusive clarinet players." Hiei looked between the two instruments presented to him. "I advise you on one fact: some flute players are incredibly thick and ditzy and you'll probably want to kill them. Goodness, there are some flute players (the dominating type) who want to kill them."
That made up Hiei's mind. He grabbed the clarinet out of the waiting ogre's hands.
"I assume you can all read music; being a compulsory part of an elementary school education." The human-ish members of the team nodded. Hiei just stared at the varnished piece of wood in his hands.
"Okay, that means Hiei can't read music. I guess when you get there, you're gonna need intensive training by your section leader. Get ready guys, it's going to be difficult and there's going to be lots of work to be done. I'm not worried about you guys scholastically, just make sure you keep your grades up enough to stay in band; even if you have to cheat off Kurama." Kurama gave Koenma a withering stare.
"Don't sweat it, Koenma, we'll have this done in two shakes. What could possibly go wrong?" Yusuke said, waving a negligent hand and shouldering the mallet bag.
Two days later, Yusuke was going to regret saying anything. He seemed to have forgotten that he was going to deal with band students. Things always go wrong with band students. They are magnets of wrongness and chaos. Unfortunately for our beloved detective and his team, they were going to find this out the hard way.
It was the first day of Team Urameshi's adventures in high school band land. The four of them had just stepped into the music building to find total destruction. People were running everywhere, paper was flying in the air and loud blats and squeaking noises were erupting from all over the place. Yusuke immediately took a defensive stance, looking around for a source of trouble. He was caught off guard by two heads popping in front of his face and screaming "NEWBIES!" in his ears. As Yusuke peeled himself off the floor, the chaos froze and all eyes turned in their direction. Almost instantly they were bombarded with people, all wanting to know who they were, where they were from and what they played. They were all extremely friendly, one had Kuwabara in a bone crushing embrace, five were attempting to help Yusuke off the floor, and many girls (at least the ditzy ones that everyone wants to kill) had pretty much dried out their mouths with drool when setting eyes on three of the four boys.
"Band! Ten-hut!" a very angry order echoed around the room. Instantly everyone stiffened. Yusuke found himself back on the floor as he was released. A young man stepped out of an office and glared around at the band kids, who were completely immobile.
"I think we need to learn this trick," Kuwabara muttered to Kurama, who was looking at the man with interest.
"Yes, you will learn this 'trick' eventually. Am I correct in assuming you are my new students?" the man asked. Yusuke finally managed to get off the floor.
"Yeah, name's Urameshi," he answered holding out his hand for a shake. The director took it and shook firmly.
"My name is Mr. Mozart. No relation to the composer of course," the director turned to the rest of the band populace that had yet to move from their straight-backed stance. "Everyone back in your seats, I want to hear some tuning from your sections. Section leaders, Urameshi, other new students, I'll see you in the office, please. Fall out." With that, Mr. Mozart turned and walked back in the office. It was like a switch had turned on. All of a sudden there was a mass exodus toward the chairs set up in arcs, and suddenly the air was filled with the sound of people tuning their instruments and practicing their parts. A group of students had detached themselves from the rest and were on their way into the office. Yusuke looked back at his companions, shrugged and they followed.
Upon reaching the doorway, they found that the office was little more than a closet with a desk in it and there was barely room for anyone to stand. Sighing, the four boys began the intricate process of stuffing themselves inside the office.
"Alright everyone," Mr. Mozart began, once everyone was in and the door was shut. Hiei found himself being squished into a file cabinet in the corner, and therefore couldn't see anything that was going on because Kuwabara was directly in front of him, towering over everyone else in the room. Kurama had snagged a spot by the door, and Yusuke was front and center, hogging the lime light as usual. He was flanked by two girls, both about as tall as Hiei himself, and staring attentively at the director as he talked. "We've got some new recruits (thank God) and so we need to train them up. I will ask them to introduce themselves, and then I'd like a few of you to take them outside and train them. Do I have any volunteers?" The girls next to Yusuke raised their hands, nearly smacking him in the face in the process. "Alright, Abbey, Jessica I'm counting on you, I believe this young man (Urameshi?) is a percussionist, so he'll need to be coached by a drummer." The section leaders nodded.
"Now, when we go outside, we'll introduce you to the rest of the band and get you settled in your sections, got it?" Mozart directed, looking at Yusuke for confirmation. Yusuke nodded.
A few tense minutes later, after a traffic jam at the office doorway had been unclogged; the section leaders took their seats, leaving the boys to stand at the front of the room with their teacher.
"Alright guys, we've got us some fresh meat," Mozart began. There was a general chorus of excited whoops, mostly from the trombone section. "These guys are from Japan, and they'll be spending the year with us here. I ask you to help them (they're gonna need it) and be nice. To our newbies, I ask you to introduce yourselves, and tell us what you play. Then if our section leaders would be nice enough to stand, you can take your seats with your section."
Yusuke stepped forward: "The name's Yusuke Urameshi. I'm a sophomore, and a drummer." The percussion section had a minor riot as Yusuke trudged to their side of the room. There was a smattering of applause and catcalls from the rest of the band. Not to be outdone, Kuwabara stepped forward.
"Kazuma Kuwabara, sophomore. I play…baritone saxophone." A completely red-headed portion of the band room stood and raised their hands.
"Hey look, the entire sax section is full of red heads!" a random student shouted, and the rest of the band laughed and made several (dirty) comments about the nature of red heads.
"Thank you Mr. Kuwabara. Since we don't march bari-sax, we'll get you acquainted with an alto. Fortunately, you'll just be learning the basics, so we can leave instruments out for another day." Mr. Mozart said as Kuwabara took his seat, completely missing the panicked looks on the rest of the newcomers' faces.
Kurama stepped forward with a gentle smile. There was a collective gasp from about half the flute section and (female) parts from other sections. "My name is Shuichi Minamino. I play the French horn—"he was interrupted by a loud shout from the back of the room. Abbey, one of the short section leaders that were flanking Yusuke was doing a silly dance while pumping her fist in the air.
"Mellophoid power!" she screamed. Everyone sweat-dropped.
"I am also a junior," Kurama finished, calling above the noise the short one in the back was making. Slowly, almost apprehensively, he made his way toward Abbey, taking in the funny dance and concluding that she was the one that Koenma had warned him about.
Only Hiei was left in the front. He glared at the rest of the band. "Hiei. Junior clarinet," that was all he said. He went and sat down in the front row with the rest of the clarinets. Many of them shrank away from him. He merely stared straight ahead. The rest of the band was silently impressed.
"Great, another minion for my legions," a flute player (Jessica) mumbled in the ensuing silence. The band collectively released their held breath.
"Alright," the band director clapped his hands together, "Today we're going outside," everyone began to stand. "Not yet, listen to what I say first." The band froze. "Now hold on to your breakfrast, today we're stepping it up a notch. While you guys work on memorizing your sets, Abbey Jessica and Steven will be teaching our newbies the basics. Everyone know what they're doing? Good. If I make it to the field before you, you'll all be running laps the entire period. Ready, go." Pandemonium ensued as everyone scrambled toward the door.
Moments later, our four boys found themselves separated into groups. Yusuke was taken off by Steven, the percussion section leader, leaving the other three in the hands of the two girls.
"Alright weaklings," the shorter of the two started. "If you're ever gonna catch up, we're gonna have to learn all of this today. Mr. Mozart has requested that we all stay after school until you learn everything you need to know. Then, of course, there's band practice, so you'll probably be exhausted by the end of the day. Don't think that's gonna get you any pity. We work hard and because we work hard we sound good. Understand?" Kurama and Kuwabara nodded. Hiei merely stared straight ahead.
"'Kay. To begin with we're gonna teach you attention. Whenever the band director wants our attention or if we're preparing to do anything else, we are called to attention." Abbey (the taller one…but not by much) began. "We'll start with your feet." All of them, excepting Hiei, looked down. As Abbey proceeded to explain the 45 degree angle of their feet, Jessica stalked around them, watching their progress. On noticing Hiei's inattention, she marched up to him from behind and forced his head down.
"I knew you were gonna be a difficult one," she muttered, as Hiei stepped to the side and she tumbled to the ground. Abbey paused in her explanation.
"Hiei, please pay attention. You wouldn't want to be kicked out on your first day, now would you?" Abbey asked, helping Jessica to her feet. There was silence. Hiei was looking as though that was exactly what he would like to do.
"Whatever, just don't stand there looking like you're gonna kill me. We've got work to do," Jessica responded.
"Geez Jess, what's your problem?" Abbey asked, turning with a frown to her grumpy sister.
"Headache, and this weird feeling like my mind is being read," she responded. Kurama and Kuwabara shot Hiei a look. "Wait…now it's just a headache. Continue, I'll just stand here."
"Okay! Abbey-sensei to the rescue!" she yelled and continued to teach without further interruption from Hiei or anyone else.
By the time the bell rang signaling the end of first period, the boys had learned nearly all of their commands. They needed a little polishing (Hiei had to slow down his movements drastically, but not slow enough to make him look sloppy), but they had the general idea. They were beginning to learn how to march, and Yusuke was pretty sure that the girls got their jollies out of making his comrades stand in place with one leg held as though they were making a chair (a chair step). Kuwabara failed miserably at first (his balance sucks) and Yusuke laughed to watch him wobbling all over the place.
Yusuke himself was given a harness and a drum and told to move around with it. Needless to say, it was amusing, as the best Yusuke could do was a strange sort of waddle/shuffle, until the section leader took pity on him and taught him exactly what to do.
The next time the boys all saw each other in the same place was the lunchroom. Fortunately, they all had the same lunch. Unfortunately, so did the sisters they had met earlier. In fact, it was almost as though they couldn't get away from the girls. They were in nearly every class the others had. Granted, Abbey was only in Yusuke and Kuwabara's classes, and Jessica had Kurama and Hiei's classes, but it was almost as though the girls were stalkers. They were constantly present; and acting as though they'd known the boys for years.
"So your name is uhhh…Sneezy right?" Abbey said, pointing at Kurama with a french fry. Yusuke choked on his juice box.
"It's Shuichi," Kurama amended.
"That's what I said. Sneezy. Anyway, excited to try the mellophone?" she asked grinning widely as both Kuwabara and Yusuke continued to roll around in hysterics. Even Hiei grinned at Kurama, communicating his laughter with a look.
"Umm…sure?" Kurama replied. "If it makes it any easier you could call me by my nickname, Kurama," he suggested.
"Nah, your name is Sneezy and you said that's what you would prefer to be called, so Sneezy you are. Anyway, we have a special shank that will allow you to use your own French horn mouthpiece instead of a mello one, so you don't have to worry about learning the feel of a new mouthpiece." Neither of the girls saw the relief in Kurama's eyes as he recalled a technical question he had had the foresight to ask while still in Koenma's office.
(To Koenma's office…)
"How exactly do these work? I understand what you mean when you say that the instrument is enhanced, but how does it function?" Koenma grinned.
"It's all in the mouthpiece. Your spirit energy is absorbed by the mouthpiece and travels through the instrument, communicating with the keys and allowing the proper pitch to be heard. In reality, if you had one of these special mouthpieces for every instrument, you could be a musical genius!" Koenma laughed and spread his arms grandly.
(Back to the future…)
"Hey! Do you guys have something like that for saxophone? I really don't know if I can play the alto…you know?" Kuwabara asked, having fully recovered from his earlier hilarity.
"I don't think so," Abbey replied, exchanging a look with her sister.
"You'd have to ask Jaime," Jessica added, referencing the saxophone section leader. Kurama turned to her with a smile.
"You seem in a better mood than earlier," he observed.
"Yeah, it was just a headache. Hanging around a bunch of band students being marching band loud, kinda doesn't help in that department," she answered.
"I always lose my headaches when I go to band class," Abbey interjected.
"Yeah, well you're a freak of nature, so it's normal," Jessica responded. Then she turned thoughtfully to Hiei.
"You gonna eat something? You're going to need it to get through the rest of the day," she said, pointing at his untouched sandwich that Kurama had thought to purchase for him.
"Hn."
"Not real talkative are you?"
"Hn."
"Alright, but you really should eat. Mr. Mo works us hard," Jessica told him, grabbing the sandwich, taking a half and forcing it into Hiei's hand. Hiei glared at her angrily and took a bite. The rest of the team stared, Abbey showed no sign of noticing anything. She was too busy yammering on about band and assuming that everyone else was listening to her.
Later that afternoon, all the band kids (and the pseudo-band kids) were adjoining in the band room once again. To the boys' surprise, there were no chairs to be seen. They had all disappeared. No one else seemed to have a problem with it, but Yusuke moaned and began to grumble under his breath about slave labor. Everyone pretty much ignored him. Meanwhile, Abbey had appeared, taken a death grip on Kurama's arm and was towing him away from the safety of his teammates and toward a small group of mellophone players, shoving another mellophone in his hands and talking excitedly at the same time.
"Alright Sneezy, this," she gestured dramatically at the others, who flinched as she nearly grazed them all with her fingernails, "is the section." She made a reverent noise and began to dance.
"HI!" a boy announced just as brightly as Abbey, Kurama got the feeling that he was going to be just as scary as the girl. The other two seemed much more to Kurama's taste, quiet and unassuming.
"THIS!" Abbey shrieked, pointing at the hyper boy, "is James, a freshman. He's Mello lite, I'm hard mello," she announced, as though this made complete sense; which it didn't, at least not to Kurama, the others seemed to understand completely. Maybe they weren't as quiet and unassuming as he'd hoped.
"And this," she said pointing to a sophomore girl he'd seen Yusuke and Kuwabara talking to in the halls, "is Hana. And finally, this dear freshman is, Dakota. Aren't they amazing? They're growing up so fast!" she announced, near tears.
"So," Kurama began as everyone stared avidly at his face, he cleared his throat slightly and glanced around the room to find a few others staring avidly at other parts of his anatomy, "how long have you been playing, uh, Mellophone?"
"A couple weeks! And I'm already the leader!" Abbey boasted grabbing a set of pink goggles and strapping them to her forehead, she then proceeded to wiggle her eyebrows and the goggles moved up and down. Kurama sweatdropped and sent a desperate thought to his teammates.
"HELP!" All three boys looked in his direction, and smirked, then turned back to what they were doing. "If you're going to play it that way, just see if I help you out next time," he sent them irritably. Back on earth, Abbey, with her pink goggles were looking up at him inquisitively.
"Uhm, yes?" he answered hopefully. Abbey smiled.
"I can tell you're going to fit in here, Sneezy," she told him with a gentle smile. Kurama blinked, suddenly Abbey was completely serious and acting just like a section leader ought to, at least in Kurama's mind. Kurama's only response was to nod. It was just after that nod when Abbey went back to her usual self. Abbey took the pink goggles off and really turned serious at this moment after dancing around with James.
"Okay guys, we only have a couple of weeks until the first competition. Sneezy will need the most help, and I expect all of you to make him feel welcome here and to stick up for him. If I find out otherwise, there will be normal punishment. If it continues, Mr. Mo will be the judge on your sentence. I should hope that that doesn't happen." Abbey warned, and Kurama sensed some sort of energy after her statement. He sensed that the others had felt it as well, coming from Abbey. It quickly disappeared however, so they had no chance to analyze completely.
"With that, lets get the rest of the show on the road! Sneezy, come with me, I'll show you where ol' Milford used to be. He moved away about a week ago cuz his parents got scared of all the weird stuff that's happening around here. Psh, wimps. Now, here are your poker chips…" Abbey squealed, informing and handing different things to Kurama, who was only half paying attention. The other half (which in his mind was most important) was trying to decipher the energy that had come from the 'serious' Abbey.
'Something is amiss with her, that's true enough. I wonder if Hiei has any idea at all…' Kurama thought, fiddling with the poker chips in his hands. Whatever the hell was going on, that energy had something to do with it.
Why yes, our entire sax section was made of red heads, both when my sister was in band and for myself!
Review and tell me what you think. If there's enough feedback I might come up with more (my sis will still help, but I'm basically taking the reins on this one). Please! Just for my own entertainment!