"WHAT?" Kento screeched. He stared at Anubis like the man had suddenly sprouted wings and said he could fly. "What do you mean, you've never seen a movie?"

Eyes wide from the teenager's unexpected outburst, the monk nevertheless calmly explained, "The Dynasty did not have such … conveniences."

The dark-haired teen shook his head. "I knew the Dynasty was old school, but damn." Kento let out a long breath and put his hand on the monk's shoulder. "Well, we're gonna have to fix that. And I know just the movie; you're gonna love it!"

"He's going to love what, Kento?" Cye asked, walking into the room. Rowen sauntered in behind him, quickly stretching out on the couch, claiming it.

"Anubis has never seen a movie before," Kento explained as he rummaged through Mia's collection of videotapes. "So I'm gonna show him the best one."

"And what would that be?"

"Enter the Dragon. Duh."

Cye snorted. "Bruce Lee. Why am I not surprised?"

Kento shook his finger at Cye. "You just don't appreciate the finer points exhibited by a true kung fu master."

"If by that you mean that I don't have a man-crush on Bruce Lee, then yes, you're right."

Rowen lifted his head off the couch, interrupting Kento's retort. "We don't have to watch it in Chinese, do we?"

Kento gave Rowen a disapproving look. "First, you can only truly appreciate Enter the Dragon in its original language. Second, no – Mia doesn't have the movie." Kento gave an exaggerated sigh. "And I thought the woman was cultured."

Rowen mouthed 'thank god' and laid his head back on the armrest. Cye just shook his head. "What about Star Wars? It's a great movie."

Rowen shrugged. "Yeah, but you have to watch all three to really get it."

"And there's no way I'm sitting through six hours just to watch the Death Ball get blown up by a lucky shot."

Cye was indignant. "It's called the Death Star and it was not a lucky shot!"

"Whatever. It's still six hours long."

"What about just Star Wars, then? It's got great lightsaber battles; he might like that."

"Yeah right. The only reason you want to watch it is because you think Princess Leia is hot."

Cye flushed. "I do not!"

Kento arched an eyebrow. "So you think she's ugly, then?"

"No – "

"HAH!" Kento crowed triumphantly. "So you DO think she's hot!"

"What? No! I mean yes – no!" The teen's face was nearly as red as Ryo's armor. "That's not what I meant!"

"Really, Cye?" Rowen said, a smirk on his face as he joined Kento in tormenting their friend. "Because that's what it sounds like." He paused as he remembered something. "You know, she does wear a pretty revealing bikini in that third movie." He grinned widely. "Actually, now that I think about it, how 'bout we watch Return of the Jedi instead?"

Kento looked at Rowen like he'd gone insane. "You mean the one with the carebears?"

Rowen's face fell. "Oh. I forgot about those."

Cye watched the exchange with his arms crossed, silently fuming at his friends.

Completely forgotten, Anubis sat with a totally lost expression on his face.

"What's a 'carebear'?"

Kento waved away the former warlord's confusion. "Don't worry, we'll get this worked out." Cupping his hands around his mouth, he yelled, "RYYOOO!"

A dark head poked around the kitchen. "What's up?"

Cye answered for his friend. "We're trying to pick a movie for Anubis to watch, but we can't agree. Any ideas?"

Ryo frowned, thinking. "Hold on." He disappeared briefly into the kitchen. "SAGE!"

Cye dropped his head into his hands. How many ronin did it take to pick out a movie? For his part, Anubis wondered why a movie was such a big deal; he'd drawn battle plans with less debate than this. He leaned over and asked Rowen, "What's so important about a movie that I must watch one?"

The blue-haired young man shrugged. "They're fun. Movies create a fantasy world, where people can forget about their troubles for a little while. And they're usually about stuff that doesn't happen in real life, like going to outer space, fighting aliens, and saving the world. That kind of thing."

The monk's brow furrowed in confusion. "But you've done those things."

Rowen didn't appear to have heard him. "Sage!" He cried as the blonde and Ryo joined in the movie debate. "Tell everyone about that movie you made me watch!"

Sage shoved his friend's feet off the couch and sat down. Rowen glared at him, but Halo ignored it and coolly appraised his friend instead. "You mean the one that is considered to be one of the best films ever made, and all you cared about was finding out what happened to the dagger?"

If Rowen was aware of the sarcasm directed at him, he didn't show it. "Yeah, that one."

Long practice kept Sage from rolling his eyes. "It is called Rashomon."

"How about that one? It's full of good versus evil … and there's a woodcutter or something … anyway, it's very moralistic and it's got a monk. Anubis might connect with it."

The group just stared at him, their collective silence a 'no'.

"What about Rocky?" Ryo suggested in the sudden quiet.

Rowen's face immediately twisted with disgust. "Ugh. That's even worse than Star Wars!"

"How'd you figure?" Kento asked.

"The entire movie is a metaphor for the might of the United States," Sage intoned. "It is highly Amero-centric."

Rowen pointed at Sage, looked at Kento. "See?"

"So you don't want to watch any American movies?"

"I didn't say that. It's just that they're so …" he fished for the right word.

"American?" Ryo offered.

"Right."

"But they make good movies! All we have is Godzilla. Hey!" Kento said, his face brightening, "What about a Godzilla movie?"

Sage raised an eyebrow. "You want to show Anubis a movie about a legendary monster from another world attacking Japan?"

Kento smiled sheepishly as he caught on to the blonde's meaning. "Oh yeah. Right. Scratch that, then."

Cye threw his hands up, frustrated. "This is getting us nowhere."

"Why don't we just ask Anubis?" Kento turned to the man, suddenly serious. "What do you want to watch: romance? Action?"

The redhead just stared at the ronin, completely confused. "What do you mean?"

"You know, kiss kiss, bang bang?"

Rowen chuckled. "I think you just summed up every movie ever made, Kento."

The warrior of strength glared at his friend. "Anyway …" he turned back to Anubis. "Do you want to see stuff get blown up, or not?"

Anubis blanched. "There are explosions when you see these movies?"

"Yeah – well, fake ones. But they look real."

Anubis gave the ronin an odd look. "Why would anyone want to see a false explosion?"

Kento had no idea why people liked that stuff, other than because it looked cool, but he sensed that wasn't the answer Anubis was looking for. Sighing, he turned to his friends.

"Okay, screw that idea." He rummaged into his pocket and pulled out a coin. "Heads we watch Rocky, tails we watch Godzilla."

This announcement was met with a flurry of protests demanding why only Kento's movie choices were included, and not everyone else's.

TWENTY MINUTES AND A LOT OF ARGUING LATER …

"There," Kento announced proudly as he dropped a stack of tapes in front of Anubis.

After considerable debate, the guys had decided to each grab their favorite movies, figuring that they'd get to enjoy whatever ones they'd picked. Even Mia and Yuli had added their movies to the pile.

Anubis skimmed the offered titles: Seven Samurai, Blade Runner, My Neighbor Totoro, The Terminator, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, West Side Story, something called Tron … Anubis silently counted the tapes. There were at least twenty of them. The former warlord gulped.

"I have to watch all of these?"

Ignoring the tremor in his voice, the ronin grabbed the first movie off the top of the stack and popped it into the VHS. Anubis sighed. This was going to be a long day.

Notes:

All movies listed are pre-1993, to align with the original series' and OVA air dates.