Chp. 8: Rose Means Business

"Are we clear on this training exercise?" the leader of the Shinibi clan, Constant Vigil, asked the two chameleons who were going to do the exercise.

"Of course." a pink chameleon with red eyes, no older than the age of 7, responded matter-of-factly. "Just get the information from the enemy and return it here."

"That's right, Rose." Constant Vigil responded. She then turned to the orange chameleon, who was only 6 years old. "And Ben will do..."

There was only a small frame of silence before "...What?" echoed throughout. The orange chameleon was busy not paying attention, instead he was more focused on whatever else he could find at the moment. Which in this case was an old, unusable shruiken star.

"Have you been paying any attention, Ben?" Rose responded, crossing her arms over her chest. "This exam determines if we stay in the Shinobi. And you don't seem to want to stay in it, do you?"

The 6-year-old chameleon replied with, "Of course I do."

Rose sighed. Getting through this chameleon that apparently had the attention span of Charmy was a battle within itself on every single thing. And sometimes, everyone lost trying to get Ben to focus. That's one of the reasons Rose had been partnered with him, to try to knock some sense into his brain.

The other side of the field was dark, so dark that Rose couldn't even see her own scale color if she held it in front of her face. "Now, the info should be right through here..." she muttered to herself, before an ominous metal clanking sound hit her ears. She quickly turned invisible, expecting to see an enemy soldier approaching.

And then there was it again that metal clanking.

She turned in the direction of the sound, kunai pulled out and ready to attack before she even realized what it is.

Ben playing with the same ninja star he apparently had taken with him all the way from the briefing room.

Sighing, the pink chameleon quickly took the ninja star out of Ben's grasp and put it in her pocket. "Can you focus, Ben?" Rose growled through clenched teeth. "We're supposed to not make noise here!"

The 6-year-old chameleon frowned. "That was mine! Give it back!"

"After we're done." And with that Rose unlocked the door, Ben following closely behind, anxious to get his ninja star back.

There it was, the info they needed, easily within reach if one of the two stood on the other's shoulders and stood up.

That was exactly what Rose was thinking. She turned to inform Ben of her idea, only to find the orange chameleon had disappeared once again.

She quickly found him, this time playing with a couple of CD's someone had left behind. Ben was mainly tossing them around, catching them every once in a while.

The pink chameleon had to swallow her anger as she grabbed Ben's arm and dragged him back to where the info was, letting the CD's just drop to the floor, silently however.

"I will not take failure on this mission, Ben." Rose growled, her voice suddenly a lot darker than the orange chameleon remembered it to be. "If we don't come back with it, I am not losing because of the stupid errors you've done so far.

Ben flashed a goofy smile. "It's what I do best."

It was all Rose could do not to grab her gun and shoot him.

After getting the data, Rose ran back to the Shinobi base, pausing once again to check on Ben. The 6-year-old chameleon was already giving her a major headache. 'If I catch him playing with one more object, I'll shoot him to death' Rose thought, her finger already on the trigger of the gun. She turned to give Ben his ninja star back, only to discover that Ben was indeed playing with another object, a rusty sword.

Something snapped in Rose's mind as she pulled out her gun and approached Ben. "What are we doing here?" She asked, her voice really creeplily cheerful.

"Just having fun." Ben replied.

"Oh, just having fun?"

"Yep." Ben replied proudly.

"Then how's this for fun?" Rose asked, shooting Ben, laughing like an insane person the entire time. "One by one, the entire Shinobi will be wiped out."