Trapped in the Fandom Net
Moon: I know this is a really quick update, but I'm on a roll! Plus, I've set up a new poll with great importance to this story! Please check it out, and vote! Plus, the evil plot bunnies make an appearance in this chapter!
Neko: As if we didn't have enough problems already.
Kunex: I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm GLAD he drank the bottle of Insanity.
? ? ?: HAHAHAHAHA! Prepare to die, Shinryu!
Shinryu: !
Moon: I do not own TMM or MMP! On with the story!
Chapter 10: The battle with Shinryu
*With the group*
Neko and Kunex looked up at the doors, and nodded to Moon. The gatekeeper nodded, pulled out the Plot Device, turned and headed around the circular doorway, leaving the others in charge.
Destiny and Gemini nodded towards the two at the door. Neko and Kunex grabbed the door handles, and pulled them open. The group walked inside.
Shinryu was sitting in the middle of the room, wings spread and eyes glinting maliciously. Ichigo could have screamed, but threw her hands over her mouth. He looked much more terrifying up close than he had been when she was observing from afar.
"Welcome." He said cooly. His voice was still low and cold, sending shivers up everyone's spine. "I'm surprised you managed to make it here. Then again, I am not. Dark Pegasus had always been rather incompetent." Shinryu's cold gaze swivled to Lettuce, who's hands slid down to her guns. "Although I didn't imagine the green mew of all people would have been capable of defeating the Dark Avatar."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lettuce growled. "In a few seconds you'll find out exactly what I can do!"
Shinryu's gaze switched to Ryou, and it became rather questioning. "Is this some kind of side effect?"
"N-N-No, w-why?" Ryou managed, trying to sound brave but failing miserably. (sorry to any Ryou fans, but I strongly dislike him)
"Well?" Shinryu said, standing up to his full height. He was much, much bigger than the mews had realized. "Are you here to challenge me?"
"Yes." The gatekeepers replied in unison.
Shinryu's lip curled back, revealing his enormous fangs once again. "Very well then." His tail lashed once. "Come forth!"
The huge black gate behind him swung open, and a horde of thousands and thousands of black, daemonic little bunnies charged towards us.
Mika squeaked, and Gemini's eyes widened in what looked like alarm and a twinge of fear. In fact, all the gatekeepers had that expression on their faces.
"What are those?" Lettuce asked, in an almost disappointed tone. Ichigo guessed it was because she was still under the influence of the insanity drink.
"Evil plot bunnies." Neko replied. "Shinryu's pets. And they are a LOT more dangerous than they look. The fact they are bunnies is very, very deceptive. They are evil and tenacious, following their prey to the ends of the earth before biting them and making them die from receiving too much knowledge all at once."
The evil bunnies tore forward and leapt at the gang. "Go ahead and fight Shinryu!" Kish yelled. "We'll deal with the plot bunnies!"
"Wait, WHAT?" Tart shouted.
"Be careful!" Musica yelled over her shoulder before the Gatekeepers, Neko and Kunex ran towards Shinryu.
Ichigo blasted again and again, burning holes in the force of bunnies. But that didn't seem to do squat. They just kept coming, in huge black waves.
Mint continued to attack as well, spending huge amounts of ammo. Pudding was in danger of being overwhelmed until Tart and Zakuro moved to help her. They beat back hundreds of the demonic little bunnies, but they just seemed to keep coming. Even Lettuce was only making a little progress, and she was acting as if she had drunk a hundred cans of Red Bull and other caffeinated beverages. Kish and Pai were doing little better. They were destroying bunnies, but it didn't seem to make a difference.
"This is getting no where!" Ryou shouted as he blasted a bunch of plot bunnies. "It's like for every one we kill another hundred are born!" Pai muttered an agreement, unleashing his lightning and wind gun on the bunnies around him.
Adrenalin roared in Ichigo's ears as she found herself being pushed backwards by the swarm. "Ryou is right. There's way too many of them!" She cried. Pudding acted as if she hadn't heard, swinging gravity hammer again and again, causing plot bunnies to fly everywhere. Tart was doing the same. Zakuro braced herself and ran forward, forcing the swarm to make room as she tore her way through some of her unfortunate opponents.
Lettuce washed out a bunch more of them, before clearly getting annoyed that she wasn't getting the chance to properly preform a charge attack. She put one gun away while still firing with the other one, and pulled out a bottle of...something. Ichigo couldn't tell from the distance. "Kish!" she shouted.
"Yes?" Kish asked. Lettuce forced her way towards him and gave him the bottle.
"Drink!" She barked.
"But-"
"Do it!"
Kish gave her a strange look, but he did drink it. And then...
Ichigo barely had time to blink, it happened so quickly. Kish suddenly flew towards the ceiling and sliced all ten chandeliers loose, causing them to fall to the floor. The plot bunnies scattered and others got hit. Kish was now tugging loose a trap door on the ceiling. Ichigo blinked twice, and the door was open and what looked like a dumptruck full of dynamite fell onto the floor.
Lettuce smirked, as if she had planned the whole thing. "Someone light that!" She shouted, before unleashing a charge attack on some unfortunate evil bunnies.
Kish laughed out loud, causing everyone, Shinryu included, to stare at him. Mint and Kunex took the opportunity. Mint lit some with her bullets, and Kunex just grabbed a lighter and threw it into the stack.
"Getoutoftheroomgetoutoftheroomgetoutoftheroom!" Neko screamed. The gatekeepers, the mews, the aliens, Ryou and Keiichiro all ran towards the door.
Ichigo tripped over the others as they all fell to the floor. Both Kish and Lettuce jumped up and slammed the doors shut, just as the gigantic explosion racked the floor, sending shock waves through the entire palace. The explosion was felt for miles, and everyone trembled. The gatekeepers all looked towards the building, wondering what their friends had gotten themselves into. The soulless trembled at the thought of what could cause an explosion that powerful. Silvera felt it from her perch not all that far away. The majestic goddess of the cosmos raised her head and gazed towards the source. "How reckless of them," she said to herself. "But I do feel as if there a much fewer plot bunnies hanging around."
*Back with Moon and the others*
Moon stood up, dusting herself off and giving her wings a quick shake. "Is...is everyone alright?" She called.
"Yeah, we're good." Destiny replied, helping Gemini stand up again. The other gatekeeper murmured his thanks before helping out Mika, Mew and Musica, who had collectively gotten stuck under a piece of rubble. "Kish, that was both brilliant and insane."
"I know." Kish replied, his voice sounding stronger and surer than Ichigo had ever heard before, except during the battle for earth, when Deep Blue had planned to kill her. "But hey, it worked. Moon, did you get Shinryu's defenses down, at least?"
"Yeah." Moon glanced worriedly down at her gun. "This Plot Device only has one shot left in it. We're going to need to be careful with it..."
"Come on then!" Kish exclaimed. "Shinryu isn't going to die on his own! Let's get a move on!" He walked back towards the door and threw them open again.
"What happened to him?" Destiny asked. They all looked towards Lettuce, who was whistling innocently.
"What?" She asked, tipping her head to one side like every other anime girl who was acting cute and irresistible to get out of trouble. "I happen to have found another bottle of Insanity lying around, so I gave it to him."
Amber faceplamed. "You do realize we bottle that stuff to keep people like Neko and Kunex from becoming Over-Powered, right?"
"I don't know and I don't care." Lettuce replied in a sing-song voice, a satisfied smirk tracing her usually shy facial features. She then walked in after Kish.
"We should at least try to stop them from getting killed." Gemini said, sighing in exasperation. They all turned and ran after the two crazy teens.
*Back in the room*
Blowing up the plot bunnies hadn't really been attempted before this, and it was very effective, since those little guys would POUR out at you and keep coming until you locked them all up somewhere, or, as the Gatekeepers just learned, blew them to pieces.
Needless to say, Shinryu was quite angry with us for blowing up his minions, because when the heroes got back in the room they were greeted by waves of flame.
"Pleased to meet you too," Pai muttered in his typical sour manner. Lettuce raised her guns and blasted the wave apart.
Shinryu had clearly gotten sick of making other people fight for him, because he dashed forward, claws unsheathed. Ichigo was thrown against the wall in a split second, and landed in a heap, dazed.
Mint hovered over the great Soulless, seemingly forgetting that he had snake heads on his tail. All nine of them shot upwards, snapping at the started bird mew. One of them managed to snag her wing, and tossed her against the wall. She landed next to Ichigo, temporarily disabled.
Pudding and Tart spent most of their time running around, looking for a good opening. Neko and Kunex weren't doing spectacular either; the red-head had multiple scars on her arms and the silver-haired boy fighting with his left hand, since his right was bleeding badly. Even the gatekeepers weren't doing so well; Angelcake had to step back and heal Mika and Mew, who had fallen of Shinryu's giant wings and onto the floor, hard.
Ichigo blinked twice to see Angelcake leaning over her, hands hovering over her injuries. A few seconds later, her head cleared and she could stand again. "Thanks Angelcake," she said, before darting back into the fray.
Kish and Lettuce weren't having as much trouble, probably because they were high on the bottled Insanity. Briefly, Ichigo remembered Amber saying that Gatekeepers bottled Insanity to keep Neko, Kunex and other of their kind to keep them from becoming Over-Powered, whatever that meant. They were both being reckless, diving inward, slashing, then jumping back before the snake heads could bite them.
"We need to do something about those snakes!" Moon shouted, pulling behind some debris and taking aim with the Plot Device. "They're getting in the way!"
"I'm on it!" Kish shouted back, and he did just that. Flying down directly at Shinryu, he twisted to avoid the snake's fangs and brought his sword down across their eyes. Yowling in rage, Shinryu swung his head around to snap at the Cyniclon warrior. Kish wasn't fazed. With a bravery that put most dare devils to shame, he ducked the burst of fire aimed at him and blinded the rest of the snake heads.
This, however, only served to make Shinryu even angrier.
The soulless went on overdrive. His body turned silver, and his eyes the darkest shade of red. Opening his wings, he growled something that Ichigo couldn't understand. The next second everyone was thrown to the floor as a tornado filled the room.
Zakuro growled in wolfish anger, grabbing hold of a nearby rock to keep herself from being flung into the twister and torn apart. "Now what?" She yelled.
"I think we'll need to maim his wings next!" Ryou yelled over the noise. "That's what he's using to churn the winds!"
"Yeah? And how do you suggest we do that?" Destiny yelled.
"Mint!" The blonde yelled, gazing at the bird mew. "Remember the mew aqua incident with the migrating birds!"
Mint's eyes widened, and flashed with memory. "Kish, grab on." She ordered. "We're going to do that a bit differently."
Kish nodded, and grabbed hold of her wrist. Mint took to the air, wings flapping furiously against the suction of the twister. She fixed her eyes on Shinryu's wings. They were much bigger than the mew aqua she had retrieved the other time, which made her current plan possible.
"We've only got one shot," she told the cyniclon, "so make sure you don't get ripped apart."
"Thank you for the vote of confidence." Kish scowled. "Let's get this over with already!"
Mint smirked a bit, and started spinning around and around like a top, until the entire world was burry. Then, out of the blue, she flung Kish into the tornado. He was spinning like a bullet, and broke through the winds with ease, catapulting onto Shinryu's back.
The Soulless yowled in shock. Kish quickly drew his swords, and sliced at his wings. Weakened, they fell to Shinryu's sides. The winds died down.
Not hesitating a second longer, Kish ran up the back of Shinryu's neck, and pulled on his horns. The Soulless flung his head back, trying to dislodge his attacker. "NOW MOON, NOW!" Kish shouted.
Moon fired the Plot Device. A ray of blue light struck Shinryu in the chest. The beast abruptly stopped struggling. The light spread in a diamond-like pattern over his entire body, glowing brightly, before dying away.. The gang stood up and gazed in amazement at the creature that lay in Shinryu's place.
It was a dragon, medium-sized and sleeping. He had lost the blood and other animal features, and had reverted to being a miniature black scaled European-Style dragon, with an elegant head and bladed tail.
"He looks so..." Ichigo rooted around for a good word. "Docile."
"This is his original form?" Neko whispered, kneeling down next to him. Shiru turned his head up and looked innocently at her. His eyes had become a bright gold.
"He's so cute na no da." Pudding exclaimed, plunking down next to him and stroking his head. Destiny and Gemini tensed a little, but Shiru just purred and leaned into Pudding's touch. The monkey girl giggled. "Hey look! He likes me na no da!"
"I see that." Moon gave her a little secret smile. "I found a place for him in Dragon Drive. That's why he transformed back."
Suddenly, the castle began to tremble. Amber's eyes widened. "Guys, we need to get out of here and into some kind of rift."
"What? Why?" Musica asked, staring at her friend.
"No time to explain!" Amber shouted. "We're all in danger!"
Shiru tugged at Pudding's sleeve, and then darted down a nearby tunnel. Pudding ran after him.
"Pudding!" Ichigo cried, but it was too late. They all ran after her.
Shiru had lead Pudding to a Dimensional Passageway. His head bobbled urgently, as if he was trying to say; This way is safe. We need to go this way.
"I thought we had been trying to avoid this!" Gemini shouted.
"We don't have a choice now," Kish informed them calmly. "The exit was just blocked." Everyone spun around. Sure enough, the ceiling was starting to collapse, and the doorway had been clogged by all the debris.
Moon bit her lip. "Everyone into the Passageway. Hurry!"
End Chapter
Cliffhanger! It's my favorite kind of ending! So how'd everyone like the chapter? If you're worried about Lettuce and Kish becoming Invincible, don't. Their potion will wear off in the next few chapters and they'll go back to normal. And yeah, Kish got an epicness moment! He disabled one of the most powerful Soulless known to the net! But what's happening now? Where will the dimensional passageways lead our heroes?
Please please review! It lets me know what I can do better!