Disclaimer: I do not own Hayate or anything associated with it. It's fun to use like this though!

Bold Type is You-Know-Who

CHAPTER 3

Is it a Bird? A Plane? A UFO? No it's the Announcer!

Some say that in this world there is a force called Karma. The kind of Karma that follows a person depends on how good that person was in their previous life. In Hayate's case he would have been a very, very bad person indeed. This has absolutely no basis for being in this story but for right now our esteemed, and very seedy-looking, butler-in-debt has found, for maybe the first time in his life, good Karma! Ah, the suspense!

The sound of a paper-fan slapping a person's face is heard, VERY LOUDLY.

Sakuya-san!? How did you get into the Narrator dimension! Now before I get slapped again, BACK TO THE STORY!

Hayate was hurt and confused at Nagi's outburst. "Ah…another day in my unlucky life; How is it that I always manage to get someone made it seems. Maybe if I could get my debt paid off and I started living by myself again everything would go back to normal." Hayate suddenly realized that normal to him had meant living under the same house as parents who only invested in dreams and not reality. A dark cloud descended over his head as his mind replayed the situation that had happened in episode 1 of Hayate the Combat Butler. (As the reference is to the show with Hayate actually in it, there will be no ** to hide the full name of Hayate the Combat Butler. Yes, I know it's disappointing) "Or maybe I'd be able to turn over a new leaf and have a debt-free life."

"Nah. There's no way I'm ever going to get out of debt in a hundred years at the rate I'm going."

Hayate's new luck, that had been a side-effect of being in the direct line of fire from one of Isumi's powerful spells, was infuriated that Hayate would think he could never be free of debt. How could someone who was suddenly endowed with so much divinely given luck, think he could never be free of debt! It was inconceivable! Of course Hayate didn't know he was suddenly lucky but so what! It would definitely prove him wrong!

This luck sure seems to have some pride to it. The narrator couldn't help commenting.

Hayate's stat sheet suddenly appeared and his luck dropped down by 20 points and a ray of light shot out from his body and sailed into the sky. Faster then a sp**d*ng b*ll*t and moving at supersonic speed, the ray of condensed luck that had at once been fused with Hayate had found its target.

Hayate saw a clock. It wasn't an ordinary clock of course and it itself was worth roughly 3 million yen, which was probably something like very cheap pocket-change to someone like Nagi, and possibly Maria, yet to Hayate it could put a year or two of service Hayate would have to give to the Sanzenin's if he broke it. It was set on a fairly random piece of furniture which was obviously expensive, probably worth around or even more then the clock was worth. Of course none of the above was on Hayate's mind because of what the clock said, or rather showed, on its face; the little hand was just to the left of the 10 and the big hand was just a notch from the 12, plus there was a second hand which was around the 6 area with only 30 or so seconds until 10 pm.

"Huh, I believe that the ticket said the winner would be announced at 10 o' clock. Well it's not like I even know what radio channel they are going to announce it on so I guess it won't affect me."

25 seconds left.

"Come to think of it, I don't even know what the prize is. Humm…I wonder what it would have been."

21 seconds left, just to be difficult.

"Maybe it would have been a new Ben* or perhaps a new X-Box 360. Ojou-sama would have liked to get that. What am I kidding she probably already has one. Ha ha ha!"

"Oh, Hayate-kun! What's that you have?" Maria seemed to have just appeared from nowhere and Hayate suddenly reasoned he was fingering the ticket unconsciously.

13 seconds left, the unlucky number, that can't be good, right?

"Oh err…nothing Maria-san." Hayate carefully stuffed it back into his suit pocket. Question marks appeared over Maria's head.

"Oh. By the way Hayate-kun; did Nagi have a talk with you?"

It seems Maria-san is still thinking about that conversation she had in chapter 2. Naughty thoughts for such a lady, shame on you Maria-san.

7 seconds left, oh a lucky number! I guess that cancels out the last one!

"Err, well Maria-san. I think she was going to but she well and there was Isumi…err; we kind of had a falling out. Heh." Hayate gave a guilty and crooked smile that a seedy-looking person would have after stealing from a candy store. It matched him quite frighteningly.

"I see." Maria paused for a very crucial second to be a tiny bit disappointed in her mind. "Well in any case Haya-" Her sentence was interrupted by the clock striking 10, which isn't as impressive or as magical as 12, but it still gets the job done. At the moment Luck was manipulating certain events which would soon become the greatest Hayate drama ever told! Or something like that.

You see everyone reading this right now; it is not the soft, musical tone of the clock which has stopped Maria in her tracks. "Then what is it," you might ask. What has in fact not only caused all talking to cease but has also blow both Maria and Hayate off there feet is the several ton helicopter which has crashed through the wall while miraculously not bring anyone to harm but also creating a terrible gust of wind which had blown many valuable and very random items onto the ground. That was a fairly long sentence.

One thing that is essential for any big crash of any sort is for a bit of drama. Like in a movie where a car blows up and one unscathed tire, except for the fact it is on fire, flies out of the wreck to bounce harmlessly down the street. In the case of this crash one large, and not very harmless, helicopter blade shoots off from the top of the before mentioned helicopter and embeds itself inches above Hayate and Maria's heads. At the moment, Maria is on top of Hayate as at the time she was blown off her feet Hayate quickly positioned himself to catch her fall. The two find themselves staring into each other's eyes like two very red and embarrassed lovers who find themselves suddenly making out in a place they thought was devoid of people.

Like every professional butler who has just found himself blown off his feet by a several ton helicopter crashing through a mansion wall he makes sure those around him are all right first. "Are you all right Maria-san?" He says from his awkward position on the floor where Maria has lifted herself off of him with her hands but finds she is unable to stand because of the rotor blade above her head and has to content herself with looking down at Hayate's face from her rather strange position.

"Umm…yes Hayate-kun I'm alright, though I hope you're not hurt." He is hurt, very hurt, but his invincible body doesn't know it even as blood starts to seep from his head, completely ruining any remote possibility of a romantic atmosphere that could happen with a couple thousand pounds of metal above their heads which could have easily killed them. Maria closes her eyes and gives a fake smile, trying to look cheerful even as Hayate's life sustaining blood gushed away. Hayate didn't buy it as he saw a sweat drop appear on her forehead.

"Ho Ho Ho!" Hayate began to hope he didn't hear that as he tried to gain a glimpse of the helicopter through all the smoke it had expelled, and around Maria's well-formed body, at least as much as you could see of it with those maid clothes on her. Ho ho ho was something that had plagued him and given him strength at the same time. It was something quite monumental in his life but he wasn't sure if he wanted to meet 'him' again.

Out of the oppressive smoke came the rather large and slightly round form, all in red and white. It was him, the great, the revered, the man totally powered on dreams, cookies, milk, and the occasional jelly bean left over from Easter that was found under the cushions. It was Santa-san.

"Ho ho ho my son! I see you have been working diligently for all this time with only one major slip up! Excellent job! Ho ho ho!" His belly wiggled a bit as he spoke through his white beard. It was definitely him all right but he seemed a bit bigger then when he saw him last and a lot jollier at that.

"S-Santa-san!" Tears started to well up in Hayate's eyes as he gazed, around Maria, at the jolly man who had never given him a present before. "You mean I've finally worked long and hard enough to achieve happiness?"

"Quite frankly I doubt it." Can Santa's reply. "But don't worry, one day you'll get it for sure and this just might be your day! And no, I am still not giving you anything except a talking to. Keep working diligently Hayate! Ho ho ho!" With those final words, the rather pointless conversation with the figment of Hayate's imagination ended and Santa-san disappeared.

"Hayate! You can hear me right! Just concentrate on my voice and forget about the hallucinations," Came Maria's beautiful voice as she tried to bring him back to realty from the dream land his lack of blood was taking him. She was also carefully scooting herself back away from Hayate and out from under the helicopter blade, still lodged in the wall. Finally she made it out and was able to go around and drag Hayate out from under the wreckage.

"Maria-san, thank you..." Maria helped Hayate up to his to his feet and simultaneously the bleeding stopped. They both looked at the nose of the vehicle which was now so disastrously parked in a wing of the mansion. Staring seemed to be about the best option they had at the moment.

"I know I said we wanted to make a SMASHING impression on the winner but I didn't mean like this!" Came a rather loud voice which sounded was if it was permanently amplified with a bass boost. A rather diminutive and fairly high voice followed.

"Oh, I'm sorry-tima. I just thought I was doing what you wanted. I suppose you wanted me to fire the fireworks-tima."

"Yes that was exactly what I wanted you to do-NO! NOT NOW!!!

Yes I know; three exclamation marks are not supposed to appear ever in writing. But it certainly does get the point across.

"Maria-san." Hayate spoke in an amazingly calm manner.

"Hayate-kun?"

"I think we better run."

"Yes, I agree." Without further hesitation to make up for the precious seconds wasted in a very short but very useless dialogue, Hayate picked Maria up bridal style and dashed away as only someone named after the wind could. That is to say, very, very fast.

Nagi was engrossed in a rather dated looking RPG on a rather dated looking console. She was trying very desperately to forget about what she had seen, or at least thought had seen, Hayate doing. Another orc fell before one of her character's sword attacks. The funny thing was that each and every enemy she killed seemed to become Hayate right before her eyes. The anger and betrayal she felt was obviously very extreme to even affect her in her 'game' world.

At the same time another attack hit and slayed the next enemy, she thought she heard a something, like a huge blast; however it was very faint after having to travel all the way from one end of the mansion to the next so it sounded more like a faint rumble.

"Maria! Is something going on?" Nagi was then greeted with silence. She shrugged and returned to her game. "This is kind of like an old version of Dr**on War*i*r. Basic story but it's all right." He eyes glazed over as she inserted herself fully into the game and managed to keep from thinking about Hayate. At least now she wasn't imagining Hayate as every enemy on the screen.

"Huh? What is that?" Asked Hakuou's Student Council President to herself as bursts of differently colored lights penetrated into her ridiculously high office where she was still finishing things up even at 10 pm at night. It had been a rather busy day for no apparent reason and so she had found herself locked up in the Student Council Clock Tower to make sure she didn't fall behind. Sometimes she wondered if she was the only person on the Student Council who actually worked. The light show was pretty impressive she had to admit. She liked the one's that burst into smiley faces, they seemed quite cute. In about a minute or two it was over though and the night turned into just the city lights again.

"Well I guess that was enough of a reward for me." Hinagiku smiled, was happy she had been able to see it without treading on the balcony and promptly forgot about it as she started getting ready to go home. She wanted to sleep in her own bed after all and not spend all her time at school.

."Ah could you pour me another cup Haru?" The young and energetic Osaka accented Sakuya asked her maid, who happened to be a member of the Student Council although not many people knew it. "I'd like to have one more before I make it a Nite."

"Of course!" Haru responded energetically while armed with a maid's genuine fake smile that has misled many a master to their doom with it. Before she could retrieve another pitcher with tea in it, the sky lighted up with the brilliant explosions that were wrecking havoc on the Sanzenin grounds. "Oh isn't that coming over from the Sanzenin estate?"

"Yes it is. Could Nagi have started a party without telling me! Haru, let's go and give Nagi a little visit!" Sakuya picked up her favorite paper fan from somewhere on her person and flared it dramatically in the direction of the short-lived fireworks display. "Come on Haru! Let's go!"

"But Sakuya-sama, I really think you should go to bed now. It's pretty late and I'm sure we'd only be imposing on them."

All of Sakuya's pent up enthusiasm vanished under Haru's tone. It wasn't a bad tone but somewhere underneath the pretty words, was something which was drying up her puns. Something that could do that had to be bad and come to think of it, hadn't she kept Haru longer then usual today? Sakuya had a feeling she knew why Haru was telling her this and Haru had always done such a wonderful job so she regretfully decided to go with her judgment. "Oh all right Haru. You can leave now."

"Thank you Sakuya-sama." The fireworks were long gone.

"I sure hope I'm not missing anything that could bust my gut out laughing."

After the smoke settled, again, Hayate and Maria cautiously tread their way back to the crashed helicopter that now resembled burnt toast; although, it was colorful burnt toast. Of course this all happened after the indoors fireworks display and Hayate had realized the way he was carrying Maria. With some embarrassment, he set her down and they both turned away temporarily to return to their normal colors.

Out of the wreckage came two ash coated figures. The first was a rather busty girl in what had been a blue mini skirt and green collared shirt with buttons. What were her most noticeable features though, were the strange red symbols that went all over her visible body, which was quite a lot of it. The second smoked out victim was a man in a rather formal looking suit and strangely informal looking polka-dot tie. What was strange about him was the face, that no matter how far they looked up at him, they could never see past his torso. It wasn't that he was insanely tall, although he was tall; it was just that for some reason their eyes automatically insisted that his head didn't exist which was very confusing for the brain. The brain had to quickly compensate for their sanity and insisted that they could only see to his torso height. His hands were quite big.

"I DID NOT TELL YOU TO SHOOT OFF THE FIREWORKS MAO!" After shouting the man that appeared to be too tall to see his head but actually wasn't smacked her on the head.

"Ow! I'm sorry-tima! I'll make sure to do everything right from now on-tima!"

"OH I'M TERRIBLY SORRY FOR CRASHING INTO THE MANSION SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING. EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF."

"Another ridiculously rich person no doubt. Will I never stop meeting such people?" Hayate thought as his brain still insisted he couldn't see past the torso. He was starting to get a headache. "I have a feeling I've heard his voice before but it's not in bold letters."

"Yes, you had better paid and fix the place up as soon as you can." Everyone felt a chill as they saw Maria's fake smile and twitching eye. There was definitely a tiger lurking somewhere in there, as long as it wasn't Tama.

"Congratulations!-Tima! You are our grand prized winner-tima! Yah!" The black-haired girl popped a party popper that was full of confetti. The man grudgingly went along with it by clapping his huge hands, very slowly.

"What?" Hayate didn't even notice when Mao took the ticket from his pocket and quickly scanned over the numbers. "But how did you even know I had it? Or where I was?"

"Well each of our tickets has its own microchip-tima! That way we can tell where each ticket is so we don't have to waste time when the winner is announced-tima! Quite ingenious don't you think-tima?"

"More like an invasion of privacy if you ask me," Thought the rather disturbed Hayate. "So what's the grand prize?"

"MAO!"

"Yes-tima?"

"GIVE HIM THE CARD." A giant hand reached into its breast pocket and pulled out a gold-trimmed card that looked super, custom made. Mao reached out for the card and took it to present it to Hayate.

"This card has all the information you need-tima. We'll see you all later-tima!" The torso man and Mao turned around and went toward the helicopter. Two large hands gripped the nose and started to push the helicopter out of the mansion while two very shocked employees watched.

"He's…very strong," Was all Maria could come up with at the moment. Then she returned to a more logical reality. "So what's written on the card Hayate-kun?" They both peered at the cards now lodged in Hayate's hands.

"Well let's see…" Hayate started to fumble with the card's seal when they both heard a noise. They both looked up. The mansion was completely fixed without a trace of anything out of the ordinary. Well except someone had obviously been in a great hurry and the clock was facing the wall but otherwise it was exactly the same as it had been. They looked at each other.

"What I have I gotten myself into Maria-san!?"

"What have you gotten yourself into Hayate-kun!?"

They said in unison as their thoughts became one for a split second. Hayate opened the card.