Inevitable Disclaimer: None of the characters from "Ronin Warriors" belong to me, surprise, surprise. ^.^ If they did, they would still be coming out with new episodes. Now there's a thought - let's pitch in our savings and buy the copyrights, you and me! (holds out arms to encompass all otaku) I love you all. (flashes a cheesy grin and wanders off)

(I thought I was being mildly original at the time, but now I realize it's been done before. Well, I'm just having fun. It's short, I know, and maybe a little sick, because it involves poultry crossing highways. But please don't judge me by it, I'm a very nice person and usually a good writer, and this is just for fun!)

Note to SPCA: Caspian, being the nice little fangirl she is, would like everyone to know that no actual chickens were harmed during the making of this fic, despite the fact that large, hungry tigers played a large role in it. (A few rubber chickens were utterly destroyed during the stunt shots, but that doesn't count, does it? Does it?)

"Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?"
By Caspian

So, anyway… why did the chicken cross the road?

Ryo: (kneeling next to limp carcass of chicken, stretched prone on the pavement and covered with tire-marks) It's (sniff) all my (sniff, gasp) fault! Oh, chicken, I'm so (gasp) sorry! (sobs) Why? Why? WHY?! Why did you have to (sniff sniff) CROSS THE ROAD?? (bursts into tears)

Anubis: Because it had discovered the true nature of its armor.

Mia: The answer is in my grandfather's files, under the folder "Ancient Legend of the Chicken"!

Badamon: This road-crossing behavior seems to be caused by some sort of evil spirit or demon using the chicken as a host - and don't look at me like that, I have an alibi.

Talpa: WHAT? YOU ALLOWED THE CHICKEN TO CROSS THE ROAD? INCOMPETENT FOOLS! NOW THEY CAN FORM THE WHITE ARMOR!

The Ancient: Chicken, you have many roads to cross, but first you must conquer the demons within...

The Chicken: I won't be controlled by you or anyone. I follow my little chicken heart! And my little chicken heart is telling me to cross the road!
(splat)

Rowen: (shocked) You - you're a rooster!

Kayura: (smirks) Never send a rooster to do a chick's job.

Naria (from Kikoutei Densetsu): The chicken and the road are opposing energies and must never meet!

The Narrator: Previously on Ronin Warriors; can our heroes defeat the Evil Chicken in time? Or will they be trapped forever on the macadam highway? Stay tuned...

Talpa: (returning from Laa-Laa-Land) Erm... what were we doing again?

Rowen: (utterly amazed) Ryo - she's a HEN!

The Ancient One: Now there are five; Anubis of the Ogre, Cale of the Jackal, Dais of the Tarantula, Sekhmet of the Cobra, and the fifth and final Dark Warlord... Mary Sue of the Chicken.

Mia: Grandfather, come look… thousands of chickens seem to be spontaneously crossing the highway!
Dr. Koji: It's as I thought. They're possessed. The Dynasty is behind this. The END has COME!

Cye: So there I was, fighting for my life against a vicious chicken, but it was nothing I couldn't handle...

Kento: (pounds fist vehemently) To see how much damage it could do!!

Talpa: (predictably) Because it couldn't resist my mega-evil powers any longer! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... ALL must cross to the Dark Side of the Road!
Dais: Actually, it's because Sekhmet was chasing it with a five-foot cobra and a butcher knife.
Talpa: Wha-? Oh. Shut up, Dais!
Dais: Yessir.

The Chicken: The sky is falling! The sky is falling! I must tell the Ancient!

Luna (from Gaiden): I must avenge my brother. DIE, CHICKEN, DIE!

Rowen: According to my calculations, the odds of it safely crossing the road are nine-forty-eight to one against.

Ryo: (eloquently) Your rooster wears army boots!

Sage: Because our TV show got taken off the air and life wasn't worth living anymore.

Yuli: (runs around, yelling and waving arms) Because it was being chased by a bajillion Dynasty Soldiers and couldn't find the nearest crosswalk!! (trips and falls down a seven-story flight of stairs, to the delight of many)

Ryo: IT BELIEVED IN ITSELF! Yes!

Cye: Come on, chicken, there's no need for this carnage! If we all work together…
(Enter Sekhmet. Sounds of heated scuffle. Ominous silence.)

The Ancient: Because it found its center and the power within...

Kayura: (censored) (censored) (censored) CHICKEN! (censored) (censored) (censored) MEN! (censored) STAR SWORD SCREAM!

The Narrator: And so our heroes advance across the median, ready to risk their lives for the sake of the Chicken. Yet even now, evil brews… we'll be right back after these messages.

Sekhmet: Because it's not easy being green.

Talpa: It was obviously crossing the road to the Dark side. Maybe it wanted to be my gutless ninny slave! (coughs) Er, that is, Dark Warlord.
(Caspian eeps and dodges flames from bajillions of vicious Warlord-lovers on the net. Stop! Stop! I'm one of your own! I love the Warlords dearly! DON'T SINGE ME!! (leaps behind Sekhmet, who gets flamed instead) Aah! Now look what you did!)

Mia: (reciting poem) Torch of chicken, sought through highway
Drinking strength from immortal gas fumes
Burning beneath the rubber scoring
Churning beneath a swirl of exhaust
Darkest pavement sheds the light
Floating among the backdraft of eighteen-wheelers, unmoored in the tar of the road.

Sage: What is the road-crossing velocity of an unladen chicken?
Rowen: One-oh-four point nine-one kbs per weasel.

Talpa: Two words. Duck Tape.
The Ancient One: Isn't that 'Duct' Tape?
Talpa: No - it's a chicken we're talking about! Thus, 'DUCK' tape!
The Ancient: No, I'm pretty sure it's duct tape.
Talpa: Well, what do YOU know about Duck Tape? You're dead!
The Ancient: (glances from side to side nervously) Erm... no, I'm not.
Talpa: Are too.
Ancient: Am not.
Talpa: Are too.
Ancient: Am not.
(enter Anubis)
Anubis: Hey, does anyone know why the chicken crossed-
(Talpa and Ancient talk over him, screeching and frothing at the mouth)
Anubis: Heh heh heh... I'll come back later.

A Random Netherspirit: How should I know? And why do I care? (wanders off, playing a random tune on its flute)

Sage: Because ITS hair couldn't defy gravity and it got jealous.

Mia's Jeep: 'Beep'.

Any Random Youja\ Demon Warrior\ Dynasty Soldier\ Soulless Minion\ Darth Vader-Looking Thing: (absolute silence) (eyes glow pink)

Caspian, Otaku Fangirl and Deranged Fanfiction Writer: (scribbles randomly on notepad and reads aloud) It was obviously an evil chicken, judging by the long black cloak and scary beak...

Kento: Waiiitaminute… that's no chicken! It's another of Dais's cheap tricks!

Sage: It obviously didn't have a plan.

Script Writer from the Show: I originally wanted to have a chicken army attack the Ronins in "Raid on Talpa's Castle", but the Dynasty soldiers kept squishing them.

The Chicken: Armor of Shake 'n' Bake! Dao Chi!

Anubis: What do you call a chicken who crosses the road, jumps in a puddle, then goes back across the road?
Talpa: I dunno, what?
Anubis: 'A dirty double-crosser'. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Lord Saber Stryke: Black Chicken, these young men in armor need you.

The Ancient: Did the Chicken cross the road, or did the road cross the Chicken?

Anubis: Roosters crow only at daylight, but roosters that cross the road never crow again.

Kento: Beats me. When's lunch?

Mia: Its armor was controlling it! Chicken, can you hear me? You have to fight it!

Script Writer from the Show: The chicken was crossing the road to assassinate me because I was the one who decided to kill off Anubis. Hey! Wait! Put those machetes down! Stop! No! Don't hurt meeeeeeeeee...!

Sage: (not thinking) It couldn't tell the Light side of the road from the Dark side. (realizes that he just said the oldest line in the proverbial book) Oh, no! That's so cliché...! (slaps forehead and mutters)

Sekhmet: To tell you the truth, I don't know why the chicken crossed the road, nor do I really care. I don't pay attention to chickens much. They make me nervous.
Dais: (blinks) If you can put up with nasty things like cobras, why do chickens, of all things, freak you out?
Sekhmet: I like cobras. They're nice, but chickens are weird. They're vicious, unpredictable, and just plain creepy!
Dais: (blinks again, wanders off) Hooookay.

White Blaze: (eyes bug out) Igg igg-khkh igg igg *Haackh Haackh Haackh* blk blk blk nyhk-a nyhk-a nyhk-a KH! KH! KH! KH! **PTLAUH** (spits out a mouthful of bloody feathers)
Ryo: (sweatdrop)

Sage: (oblivious, still muttering) I can't believe what I just said. I mean, pick up a fantasy novel and what do you see? 'Darkness, darkness and eeevil!' I can't take it anymore. It's become so cliché that no one believes it anymore. I mean, I'm the Warrior of Light, right? So, I'm a good guy, right? So why does everyone like Cale more?!

Dais: (rolls eye condescendingly) Because it wasn't a very logical chicken.

(Chicken scampers wildly across road, spins around giddily, and flops down limply at Cale's feet)
Cale: (raises eyebrow) I'm not even going to ask why.

Sage: (continues in background, ignored by all) Ye gods, what was I THINKING? That's it! I can't take it anymore! The terms 'Light' and 'Dark' are henceforth only to be applied to actual light and darkness, also when you're sorting laundry.
Cale: (wanders by randomly) I'm the Dark Warlord of Darkness.
Sage: NYYEEEAAAAHH! (pounces)

Anubis: The chicken? Oh, yes. I chased it across the road in my underwear. (blink blink, double-take) Wait! No! Stop! Erase! I didn't say that!
The Audience: "..." (pondering that highly interesting mental image)

The Narrator: Sage of Halo and Cale of Darkness/Corruption have gruesomely murdered each other, which may or may not affect the outcome of this fic. And now, back to the chicken.

Mia and Kayura, in unison: It was a HEN, and it was protesting women's rights!

Talpa: Because I wanted to regain its armor - the awesome power of Shake 'n' Bake!
The Chicken: (bravely and defiantly) Quaawwwhhk...
Talpa: (sulking) Well, I had it FIRST!

Kento: Because it would turn evil if it called on its powers!

Ryo: Jeez, Chicken, I didn't think you were such a Yuli.

Black Blaze: Hhhiykkk- (hacks out mouthful of gravel, tar, feathers and a beak)
White Blaze: (agreeing) Nyyhhkkk- (spits up a wad of crushed pavement, fluffy down and two small, scaly feet)
Black Blaze and White Blaze, in unison: KHH! KHH! KHH! (both tigers cough up large, saliva-covered hunks of feathers, bones and pieces of road and settle down, satisfied)
Rowen: (facefaults) Can't think of an eloquent and witty comeback to THAT.
Ryo: (absently) How about 'Your mother wears army boots?' That's always good.

Mia: (typing rapidly on computer keyboard) Okay, all I've got so far is that about five hundred years ago the chicken's ancestor supposedly crossed the road, where a tribe of insane Canadian pygmies worshipped it as their god. I haven't got the rest of it translated yet - the legend is very obscure, and my grandfather's fragmenting program can't handle it…

Rowen: To pick up 'chicks', get it? 'Chicks'?

Talpa: Dirty side-crosser.

The Ancient: The chicken sacrificed itself to form an energy-road with its life-force, thus creating a pathway for its disciples to follow into the Netherworld.

Ryo: (ranting) Because deranged fan-fiction writers forced it to cross the road, fearing that it would mess up their plot devices to have a stray chicken hanging around - you know how THEY are. And then, being fickle, they resurrected the chicken, so that it could hand out the long-lost Tenth Ronin Armors left and right to undeserving Mary Sues, who inevitably end up with me. (snorts disdainfully)

The Chicken: KILLER POULTRY DRUMSTICK WHAP! Now, Ronin Warriors, let's see if you can stand up to THAT surekill! Bwa-bawk-bawk-bawk! (which is how chickens laugh evilly)

The Narrator: (sarcastically) To get to the other side. Duh. But nobody asks me, do they? No, they hate me, because I always 'state the obvious'! (rants onward)
Kayura: (cough) Terribly sorry about this, Narrator, but you brought it upon yourself. (pulls a blunt, heavy object out of the magic space behind her back and whops the Narrator neatly with it)
Kayura: That felt evilly good. (banishes blunt object, wanders off happily)
(And now, the classic line:
We apologize for the fault in the narration. Those responsible have been whopped.
You didn't think that you weren't going to see that, did you?)

Caspian: (duct-taped firmly to a chair and shrieking through a mouthful of whipped cream) BECAUSE IT RAN OUT OF PIXI-STIX!!

…And there was great rejoicing.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Endnotes/Soapbox/Rant-type Thingy
….

(Caspian stands up and rips remnants of duct tape off her mouth) Ebonhawk, one day you are going to regret putting those duct-tape ideas into their heads…! Oh, hey, minna! What did you think of my first published fanfiction? Yes, I've been a True Ronin Fan for over two years and not one published fic has come out yet. But here it is. (hugs the fic) My firstborn child. Many, many thanks for reading it.

Well, if I get ANY support via e-mail from you people, you can prepare to hear from me again in a while. I have a next-generation fic in the works as well as some odds and ends, some of it loony-tunes worse than this, some of it surprisingly serious. (falls over) Yes, me, serious! Hell hath frozen, my friends! But- (points finger in the air) no support, no fic! It's your noble duty!

In the name of Kaosu, email me! I'm caspian_scholar@hotmail.com; Fellow Otaku will be greeted with open arms and great rejoicing, while hentai bakas will be subjected to marshmallow voodoo curses and dead frogs from above. Love me. ^.^

P.S. - If you email me when I've just consumed a large amount of caffeine, prepare for an incoherent, hyperactive and very, very silly reply. Hee hee. (falls over again)

- Dark Rebel Empress of the Mortal World and Generally Deranged Otaku,
Caspian