Acid's Note-
No episode of RC9GN has enraged me more than "Snow-Klahoma".
No, it's not the worst episode by any means. But the way it handled certain things just…made me angry.
So what this story does is fix what was wrong with "Snow-Klahoma". And with those fixes, the plot of the rest of the show changes significantly. Don't worry, this isn't just a giant rehash of each and every episode that follows "Snow-Klahoma"; that would be boring and stupid.
This is rated T for violence and psychological stuff. I'm gonna challenge myself and try to keep swearing to a minimum. No promises though. Sorry if I slip.
Warning: There is a lot of Juliandy in this fic. Like, A LOT. There's two other pairings, but I won't spoil them just yet (you'll know them when you see them). But yeah. Juliandy. That's basically what this entire story revolves around. I probably shouldn't have admitted that but I don't care. I understand that not everyone enjoys slash/yaoi/yuri, so if you don't like any of that, I suggest you do not read this fic because it is a major focus of the story and it will be hard to ignore. Sorry.
I'd also like to say this now; there is absolutely no sex in this story. There's one or two slightly steamy moments planned, but that's it. For the most part, there's just a bunch of drama and fluff.
TL;DR: Acid-tan is rewriting half of Season 2 to make her otp canon.
Yeah.
I'll elaborate about exactly how "Snow-Klahoma" pissed me off and how I went about fixing it in the Acid's Note at the beginning of the last chapter. I was originally going to do it at the end of this chapter, but I decided that it'd be better to let everyone try to figure it for themselves and see if they were right in the end. If I basically spell it out for you now, then there will be no point in reading the story, right?
Don't be surprised if I spontaneously rant about Howard multiple times in these notes though. I guarantee that's going to happen.
Enjoy.
CHAPTER 1: PREMONITION
Things were supposed to be easy today.
Everything always seems like it's going to be easy at first, but then life throws a curveball and everything is suddenly an obstacle course.
At least that's how things usually go for Randy Cunningham, ever since he became the Ninja of Norrisville High.
It was supposed to be a perfectly fine Friday afternoon for him; he and his best friend, Howard Weinerman, would be going to the grand opening of Snow-Klahoma, Norrisville's premiere inside outside artificial snow-park.
No monsters, no robots. Just Howard, a ton of snow, and the Brucest time imaginable.
But then Howard insisted that the NinjaNomicon remain at school. "Whenever we're gonna do something Bruce," he had said, "that book totally wonks our cheese!"
Randy knew Howard was right, but he wasn't completely sure if he should do it. He couldn't do such a thing, at least not without Nomicon's consent. So he ran to an empty bathroom stall and asked the Nomicon outright.
"A Ninja's choices must be chosen by his own choosing."
That was Nomicon's reply. And Randy decided that if it was his choice, then he chose to go to Snow-Klahoma without the Nomicon.
And then as soon he exited the stall, he walked in on something he never expected to see.
Julian, a goth boy from Randy's class, was somehow being pulled by the arm into a mirror by behind the surface. And that thing was…Another Julian? It looked just like him, yet it wasn't his reflection. His skin was much paler, his hair and clothes were all white, and his eyes were a chilling icy blue. He had an eager, twisted grin on his face. He looked ghastly…He looked evil…
Julian seemed terrified; he was screaming as he desperately tried to pull away from his evil self's grip.
Ninja instinct kicked in.
Swiftly pulling on the mask, Randy grabbed onto Julian and managed to free him from his evil self's grip. He then jumped onto the sink and drew his sword, holding it out towards the mirror, ready to attack. The white Julian hissed before suddenly fading away.
Normally, Randy would make some kind of pun about this. But right now, he was too focused on the situation at hand. What even was this? He was quite used to the Stanked students and just about anything McFist and Viceroy had up their sleeves. But this? This was something else entirely.
Pulling off the mask and hopping off the sink, Randy looked at the mirror. "What the juice was that?" he muttered.
Then he felt as though someone was staring at him. He looked behind him.
Julian was sitting on the ground, hugging his knees. He was staring straight up at the unmasked Ninja, a look of utter shock on his face. He saw everything.
"H'oh, boy…" Randy sighed. He was in a lot of trouble now…He plastered on an "everything's cool" smile. "Hey, Julian…I, uh…I know this is really hard to take in. Yeah, I'm the Ninja. But you kinda have to keep that a secret, alright?"
Julian remained silent. His body was trembling and his sky blue eyes were filled with tears.
Randy's smile instantly faded. He sat down next to the goth. "H-Hey, are you okay?"
"I…I…" Julian stammered, his voice quivering. "I was pulling…"
"I know." Randy said softly. "But it's over now…"
"He…That thing…" Julian seemed to be on the verge of completely breaking down. "He's been following me. I keep seeing him for a split second and then he vanishes. This is the first time he's ever done anything…." Tears began to roll down his pale cheeks. Each stream was dyed black from the goth's eye makeup.
"Wait, how long has this been happening?" Randy asked with concern.
"Since the day after my last birthday…"
Randy flinched in shock. That was almost two months ago; this thing has been around for that long?
Randy didn't know what else he could possibly do at this point beside comfort the poor goth. Not knowing else to do, he pulled him into a hug. Julian sobbed into his chest without restraint. Randy remained still, just letting it happen.
Ten minutes later, Howard busted in. "Cunningham!" he yelled. He ran up to them, looking down at his best friend and the goth with anger in his eyes. "What the juice is happening? What'd the book say?!"
"Forget the book, Howard." Randy said sternly. "There was this…thing in the mirror and it attacked Julian."
"And?"
"I had to help him. He…he knows now."
It didn't take much of a hint for Howard to realize what his friend meant. "Wait, he knows? Are you honkin' serious, Cunningham?!"
"I know, I shoobed up big time, but it's just…I had to do something."
"Well, what's done is done. Just get Nomicon to mind wipe him like it did with Debbie Kang. Now you can just leave him here to deal with it and we can go already!"
"Howard, I can't do that!" Randy snapped. "Are you crazy? He's totally freaked out; he'll just get Stanked if we leave him here. I need to get him home."
"But Cunningham!" Howard whined. "What about Snow-Klahoma?! We've been waiting for this for weeks!"
Randy remained silent. He hated disappointing his best friend. But he couldn't just leave Julian like this; he could transform into a giant spider at any second now. What kind of Ninja would Randy be if he let that happen?
Perhaps they could take Julian to Snow-Klahoma with them? No, Howard wouldn't want to do that, and Julian wasn't exactly in the mood to go to a place like that right now.
"A Ninja's choices must be chosen by his own choosing."
It was Randy's choice. Get Julian home ASAP, or leave him vulnerable for Stanking.
"Look, I need to get him home." Randy's tone was firm. "I'll just meet you there, alright?"
Howard sighed. "Fine…" he said huffily. He walked out of the bathroom, pouting.
Randy helped the goth get back up on his feet. "You alright, Julian?"
Julian nodded weakly, still sniveling, his legs shaking like jelly. "I'm sorry, Randall…You don't have to do this…"
"Hey, Howard can wait." Randy said with a smile, zipping up his hoodie to hide the splotch of eyeliner and mascara Julian's tears left on his shirt. "It's the Ninja's duty to protect everyone. And that's what I'm gonna do right now."
~XXX~
Julian tightly held Randy's hand during the entire walk home.
It made Randy a bit uncomfortable, but he knew Julian needed support, so he decided it was best not to object.
His sapphire eyes widened as they approached Julian's house. It was panted light purple and had an ebony roof. Its elegant architecture seemed to be of a European style. It was huge; it wasn't big enough to be a mansion, but it was still of remarkable size. It was the kind of house that said "whoever lives here has a lot of cash."
Randy was about to ask Julian if his family was rich. But then Randy began to wonder, had he ever been to Julian's house before? He couldn't remember. He had known Julian since their days at Marci McFist's daycare, so if he had been there, it must have been a very long time ago. Julian had gone to Randy's house a few times over the years for school projects and stuff like that; did it not happen vice versa? After some more thinking, Randy decided he shouldn't dwell on this subject right now.
"Hey, listen." Randy said as they got closer to the house. "I know it's hard to keep it a secret; not even my parents can know, and Howard found out pretty much by accident. But you can't tell anyone that I'm the Ninja, alright?"
Julian nodded slowly. He looked like he was going to cry again.
"If your parents ask about anything," Randy instructed him, "just say you were…attacked by some guy on your way home or something. And that I helped you, I guess. Don't mention anything about mirrors or the Ninja or anything like that."
Julian nodded again. "I understand. Again, I'm sorry about all of this."
"You don't have to be sorry. It's my job to protect you, remember?" Randy smiled encouragingly. Weakly, Julian smiled back.
A few seconds later, they stopped in front of Julian's house. They faced each other, their hands still connected.
"I'll see you on Monday, okay?" Randy said.
Julian nodded. "Okay. Thank you, Randall." He reluctantly let go of Randy's hand, and the two boys parted ways.
As Randy walked away from the house, his mind became clouded. The fact that another person now knew that he was the Ninja was bad enough. But now he had that white clad clone of Julian behind the mirror's surface to worry about. Who was he? What was he planning on doing?
One thing was certain.
If that evil Julian succeeded at what he was trying to do, something bad was definitely going to happen. And there was no telling if, or when, he would try to strike again.
With all of that on his mind, Randy decided he didn't feel like going to Snow-Klahoma today after all.
Acid's Note-
One thing I'll say right now is that Randy is a honkin' idiot for thinking that taking Julian to Snow-Klahoma was a good idea. He seriously should've just took him home; it would've saved everyone a whole lot of trouble for the time being. That's not what pissed me off about the episode though; it's just an observation.
Now I suppose this could've been done easily without Julian finding out that Randy's the Ninja. Really, all that needed to happen was Randy just taking Julian home instead of…well, anywhere else, pretty much. But…I dunno, this is just the direction I wanted to take this.
I also suppose I should explain that reference to "Debbie Meddle", since that episode aired after "Snow-Klahoma": In my version of the show's timeline, "Debbie Meddle" takes place in December while "Snow-Klahoma" takes place in January. So yeah.
I apologize for the terrible description of Julian's house. I'm horrible at imagery.
Can I just say that writing the dialogue is really, REALLY hard? Like, all these characters have such a unique way of speaking, it's hard to know when to use certain words in the show's colorful vocabulary of fake slang. The worst part is that Heidi is gonna be a major character, and I can already foresee that her dialogue is gonna be an absolute nightmare to write.
I'd also like to say that I've been having DREADFUL writer's block with this story. I had wanted to get get chapters one through five out all at once. But...it's so hard to get this all down on digital paper. I'm just getting this first chapter out now so I can get it out of the way. I'll post two and three together, and then four and five. After that, I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm not sure how many chapters this is gonna be either; right now I'd say fifteen at the least and twenty five at most. I dunno, we'll see what happens.
Now you may be wondering, "where does the title 'Moonbeam' come from?
Oho, you'll find out soon enough~
I'll try to get Chapters 2 and 3 out as soon a possible. Sankyuu for reading~
-Acid