The sky just above the mountain range in the distance was a light orange. The sun's raze shined over the desert land, its lifeless and rock covered surface occupied only by the soothing sound of morning wind. A lone grey cloud hovered above the land, sitting silently in place before quickly being blown away by a speeding green ship that flew in unexpectedly from behind it. The green ship's engines roared with the sound of burning launch exhausts as it sped through the sky toward its new destination.

Sitting inside the control room of the large green ship were two small Keronians dressed in bright red. Tamama, the scout, was laying in the passenger seat fast asleep with his head pointing off to the side and a small stream of drool escaping his mouth. In the driver seat sat Giroro, the heavy, who was focusing all of his attention on the sky ahead of him while also trying to ignore the scout's distracting snores.

A small monitor that rested on the front deck of the ship's control panel next to Tamama began beeping. Giroro waited stoically for Tamama to wake up and notice, but quickly lost his patience and resorted to smacking Tamama across the face with his palm when he wouldn't, instantly causing the young Keronian to spring up out of his nap.

"OW! What was that fo...!?" Tamama yelled in annoyance before noticing the beeping monitor sitting in front of him. "Oh..." he finished before reaching his arm forward and pressing the activation button below the blank screen. Replacing the monitor's empty screen was a black and white visual of what appeared to be a tall teenage girl standing in a desolated underground base almost identical to theirs.

"Hi, Lady Natsumi!" Tamama politely said as Giroro did his best to not look directly at the monitor, keeping his focus completely on the sky in front of him.

"Hello, Tamama. Tell me you idiots got the Keroball." Natsumi replied in an unenthusiastic manner.

"Yep!"

"And nobody saw you?" Natsumi asked. Tamama shrugged his shoulders, a bit hesitant to answer.

"Well...basically nobody." he answered, Natsumi rolling her eyes in return.

"Tamama...I'm here right now." she admitted, causing the atmosphere around Tamama to immediately feel heavy.

"Oh...well, you see..." Tamama said before having his face pinned against the seat by the palm of an unexpected Keroro jumping out from behind the two front seats.

"Greetings, Lady Natsumi! We killed everyone and took the Keroball!" Keroro proudly proclaimed, holding the Keroball up for Natsumi to see.

"Not everyone, Toad." she responded as a small Keronian hand appeared from below the screen, slowly rising out from beside Natsumi's feet. "You guys left nine witnesses."

Natsumi pulled out her gun and fired down at the floor beside the rising hand. A painful shriek was heard as the hand froze in place before falling out of frame. "Eight."

Giroro could see the opening hanger to their base just below from where they were flying. He quickly brought the ship down toward Earth and hovered over the entrance before finally making his way inside. The ship landed with ease and eventually came to a complete stop, the rotting corpse of a Keronian soldier dressed in blue falling from the roof of the ship and onto the base's hard ground with a splat.

"Just keep the Keroball safe and don't get into any more trouble until I'm finished here. Have a good weekend, frogs." Natsumi finished, Keroro releasing Tamama from his grip and turning back where he came.

"Thank you, Lady Natsumi! I'll be leaving the ship now!" he said. Tamama rubbed his sore cheeks as he muffled crossly to himself, unlocking his side door and exiting the ship as well. Giroro, however, chose to stay inside for a few moments longer, seeing that the rest of his platoon was already out of the ship. Having finally found his chance, he turned to the monitor and spoke.

"Hey, uh...Natsumi. Just...before you go." Giroro said, feeling a heavy sweat begin to build up around his forehead.

"Yes, Giroro?" Natsumi asked, grabbing hold of the legs of a long dead Medic Keronian and dragging her off screen. Giroro scratched the back of his neck.

"You're...umm...uh..." Giroro struggled to piece together his words, a red blush line covering the front of his face.

"...You're probably...busy this weekend, right?" he finally found the courage to ask. Natsumi had finished moving all of the bodies into one stacked pile as she wiped her hands together, satisfied by her work.

"Funny that you should ask." she replied, reaching her arm out of frame and bringing it back just as quickly, now holding a large wooden ax. "It looks like I'll be burying bodies all weekend. You know, so that you guys don't go to jail."

OH! G-Good! Good." Giroro unnervingly said. "So...we're both busy."

An awkward five seconds passed by as the two silently stared at each other, both unsure of how to react. A loud crashing noise suddenly appeared behind Natsumi, who jumped back in surprise.

"Oops! Gotta' go!" she yelled, disappearing off screen moments before the monitor shut off. Giroro sat there, feeling an odd mixture of relief and humiliation, as he sighed and laid his head on the seat.

"Every damn time. What is the matter with me?" he thought out loud, instantly being given a retort by his spy teammate, who was standing just outside his open window.

"You know, you could always ask me for advice on how to ask Natsumi out if you ever need it." Dororo said, Giroro turning his head away from Dororo with a stubborn huff.

"I don't need anyone's help, Dororo! Now for the last time, stay out of my personal life." Giroro said back annoyed. Dororo sighed and walked away, arms crossed and head shaking.

"Just know that my offer still stands."

Giroro exited the ship, stretching his back out as he stood. "Yeah. I'll be sure to remember that." he said sarcastically.

Tamama looked around the base at his fellow comrades. He saw Joriri jump up into a nearby refrigerator portal and disappear, Giroro sit himself down on concrete block and begin wiping the muzzle of his gun with a white cloth, and Keroro throw the corpse of the blue team's soldier over his shoulder and throw it into the nearest garbage bin. Tamama also noticed that their Medic, Pururu, and Engineer, Kululu were standing over a wooden table in the middle of the base, which carried one of the refrigerator portals along with a few hand tools and a small remote.

"Hey Pururu. Kululu. What have you two been working on?" Tamama asked, tossing the keys to the ship toward them, only for them to fall to the floor after the two Keronians made no effort to catch them.

"Nice...catch." he commented, both Pururu and Kululu giving him blank, unreadable looks. Pururu gulped down the pressure of her and her team's present situation as she spoke up.

"Excuse me, guys! If I could have eneryone's attention!?" Pururu called out, causing everyone in the room to stop what they were doing and turn to face the pink Medic. "Me and Kululu have both been running a few experiments on the fridge portals. And I think...you all better take a look at this. Kululu?" she turned to the yellow Engineer, who graciously nodded and picked up the small remote laying on the table.

"With pleasure. Clicky!" Kululu pressed a large red button on the remote, causing the fridge to immediately open.

A few seconds of melodious sounds were heard as a single fully ripened star fruit came slowly levitating out of the refrigerator. Keroro's eyes gleamed with excitement as Tamama just shrugged what he was seeing off.

"Oh, wow. You can send star fruit through the portal. Greeeat." Tamama moaned. Pururu reached forward and took the star fruit in her hands, holding each end tightly as she looked down at it with a serious expression.

"So does anyone know where Joriri headed off to? Cause I wanted to ask him if he-" Tamama was cut off when he saw Pururu rip the star fruit in half, revealing that all of the inside was covered completely in large, pulsating yellow bulges, the largest ones dripping a steaming golden acid out of them like a recently popped zit.

Tamama jumped back in shock as he screamed at the sight of the bulging infections. "WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS!?"

Pururu looked up at Tamama with a stern expression. "Warts." she answered in a dark tone.

Kululu adjusted his hard hat before speaking to his teammates. "Kukuku! You all know what this means, right?"

Keroro grabbed the nearest person he saw, being Tamama, and forced him into the table, violently chocking him out of pure rage. "NOOO! WE CAN'T TELEPORT STAR FRUIT ANYMORE!" Keroro yelled, bringing his fist up to begin pummeling the young scout before Pururu ran up and grabbed his arm just in the nick of time.

"Woah! Woah! Calm down, Keroro! You can still send star fruit through the portal, alright! Send as much through the portal as you want!" she desperately cried as to get Keroro to calm down, Tamama nodding in agreement with a scared smile covering his face.

Keroro sighed in relief, letting Tamama go and bringing his arm down. Pururu turned to the other Keronians standing in the room with her and spoke out loud. "That goes for everyone. If there's anything any of you wanted to do before you...you know...died..." she leaned her head forward in a gloomy manner. "...now would be a good time."

"How long do we have?" Dororo asked, "Before these 'warts' kill us?"

"Well, that's simple." Kululu answered. "Since the portal I built had to bend through the laws of space and time in order to function, all we have to do is minus the energy-span of one star fruit from the Newtonian law of physics through which anything below the simple Keronian mass of one Keron multiplied by every six times we've used the portal each day over the course of four years..."

"WILL YOU JUST GET TO THE POINT!" Giroro shouted impatiently. A bright flash of light shot across Kululu's glasses as he was rudely silenced by Giroro's outburst.

"Fine, if you don't have the will to learn." Kululu continued. "Three days. We all have three days to live."

Everyone jumped back in shock at Kululu's sudden reveal, their jaws dropped and their eye lids open wide. A terrified silence filled the room as each of the red Keronians began thinking deeply about the situation they were in.

'Three days...'

'...until death.'

'Three days.'

Joriri suddenly came bursting through the refrigerator that sat atop the table, several steaming bowls of Ramen noodles sitting in his open arms as he cheered into the air.

"WHOO! WHOOHOO! Whoo! Whoo...," he suddenly noticed that everyone in the room was staring at him blankly, occasionally turning to look at each other with the same expressions before turning right back to him.

Joriri shrugged. "...What?"

EXPIRATION DATE

Yep, I'm actually doing this. The idea was just too much fun to pass up. This is only part one, however. The entire thing will be split up into four parts, depending on however long this takes. Normally I would say that I'm currently working on the next part and that I should have it uploaded soon, but I just have SOOOOO much on my plate right now. So yeah, it might be a while before I continue this. Or not? I'm honestly not sure how my schedule is going to work at the moment. But for now, enjoy this little preview of what's to come :)

FUN FACT: This story was originally going to have drastic changes from the original 'Expiration Date'. Originally, Miss Pauling was going to just be left out of the story entirely and it would have centered around Tamama wanting to go on a date with his already known crush Keroro while Joriri ended up being the one to teleport food for the three days. But after getting no where with that idea, I just decided to change it to Giroro and Natsumi.