Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, though if I did Sanosuke and Megumi would have some god damned romantic closure. Coughs Sorry about that.

Episode 1: The Brainstorm

A faint buzzing sound filled the apartment full of sleeping people. Aoshi, the only one awake at the time and previously deep in meditation, opened one eye in irritation. The other contestants slept on in peace. He could hear their faint snores coming from the various bedrooms.

He closed his eyes again, sinking back into calm and letting the buzzing become part of his meditation. Everything was silent for a few more seconds.

"You've got to get up, you've got to get up, you've got to get up in the morning." A loud voice sang out of the void. Aoshi almost fell over, than turned to glare at the direction of the noise. Now he saw that there was a small black box of an intercom on the wall. "Wake up contestants!" Aoshi sighed and got up.

Sanosuke rolled over in bed and began to swear quietly. Yahiko and Kaoru didn't move a muscle, and seem to have gone back to sleep instantaneously. Even Kenshin looks a little reluctant to get out of bed.

"What is it with these people and waking up at five in the morning?" Kenshin wonders, running his hand through his hair. Sano grunted something unintelligible but Kenshin could catch the words "evil" and "satan" in the mix. Sanosuke was not a morning person.

The members of the house didn't move or get out of bed, with the exception of Aoshi who had resumed meditation and Kenshin who had brushed his hair and teeth and was cleaning up after the other cast members.

"They're dead." Ria said, turning to Monigue. Monigue sighed.

"I didn't want to do this but…" she started, then grinned. "Hell, who are we kidding? I've wanted to do this since we started to plan the show. Turn on the fog horn!"

"All right then…" Ria smiled slightly. She pressed a red button on her control board.

Several extremely loud blasts sounded through the apartment. Aoshi, despite his normal composure, shook slightly. Sanosuke rolled out of bed, swearing even louder and slamming his fist against the ground. Kenshin winced and almost cut off his finger with the knife he was chopping onions with.

Sanosuke was the first to stumble out the rooms, in a pair of wrinkled dark jeans and a white tee-shirt. His hair stuck straight up in the air, blatantly defying gravity. Kenshin knew it was perpetually that way, and it was something that continued to perplex him. Kenshin theorized that Sanosuke really slept upside down, or the headband that he wore had some black magic in it.

"Good morning Sanosuke!" Kenshin chirped, handing him a plate of food. Sanosuke responded with something that sounding like "Morning" and "thank you." But then again, it could have been almost anything.

Megumi strolled in casually, having miraculously put on a full face of make up and gotten dressed in under ten minutes. Kaoru and Misao appeared next, each looking like they had just rolled out of bed.

"Good Morning Miss Kaoru! Miss Megumi, Miss Misao." Kenshin smiled. "I made breakfast, if you would like some."

"Thanks!" Misao responded, taking a plate of breakfast and sitting down next to Sanosuke. Kaoru just stood for a moment, staring at the food into her hands and then looking back up at Kenshin.

"You… you… you… cook?" Kaoru squeaked in amazement.

"It's good too!" Misao added with her mouth full.

"Sweet Jesus." Kaoru whispered, staring down at the plate of alluring food. Sanosuke looked up and put down his fork.

"I… understand now." Sanosuke said, face full of wonder.

"Understand what, Sanosuke?" Kenshin asked.

"Why you get all of the girls. And a lot of guys too, now that I think about it." Sanosuke responded. "You must put some sort of aphrodisiac in your food."

"Sanosuke…" Kenshin squeaked, wide eyed at the accusation that he drugged his food.

"That may be true." Megumi cut in. "But you, as his room mate, eat his food all the time. Wouldn't that mean that you would be into Kenshin too?"

Sanosuke and Kenshin both stared at Megumi, turning very pale.

"Are you trying to say I'm gay?" Kenshin and Sanosuke demanded at the same time. Misao almost spit out her food at the table. Aoshi had been listening to the conversation from the other room and despite his icy front looked like he was going to laugh. Sprite, watching from the video conference room with Monigue, began to hyperventilate.

"Orphen…Orphen… Orphen…" Sprite rocked back and forth on her chair, eyes wide and mind filled with perverted thoughts.

"That would explain why they were living together…" Misao pondered, still working away at the breakfast that Kenshin had cooked.

"What would explain the fact Kenshin and Sanosuke are living together?" Yahiko asked, strolling into the room.

"They're gay."

"We're not gay." Sanosuke twitched violently.

"Whatever you say. We accept you no matter what you are." Megumi smiled foxily and patted him on the shoulder. Sanosuke was about to answer angrily when the television turned one.

"Well good morning contestants!" Monigue smiled widely on the screen. Ria and Sprite could be seen in the background. Ria was desperately trying to calm a drooling Sprite. "Since you campers are up already, we can start up on the next challenge, huh?" Tsubame and Tae wandered into the room, attracted by the sound of Monigue's voice. Saitoh followed, already having light up a cigarette.

"I'm amazed that all of you could get yourself in such an awkward situation so early in the morning." Monigue smirked.

"Since we've decided that Orphe-Sanosuke" Sprite quickly changed his name "is gay, can he please kiss Aoshi now?"

"I'm not gay!" Sanosuke shouted, face very red.

"Sure you aren't. Sure." Sprite smiled. Monigue coughed loudly.

"Moving on." Monigue interrupted. "Your challenge for this week will be working with the huge toy company "Natel" to create your own line of action figures. I suggest that you meet as a team and start brain storming idea fast, because your deadline for your final design will be midnight tonight. And neither Kenshin nor Sanosuke are gay."

"And how do you know that?" Megumi questioned.

"Oh trust me. I have my ways." Monigue grinned, pushing two huge piles of Kenshin and Sanosuke's personal information out of the way of the camera. Most of the information had been gained from the close relatives and friends of the two, some given for free and some gained from small bribes. A small portion of especially juicy information had been gained from blackmail and other illegal means. Nobody but Monigue needed to know that.

"Thank you, Monigue." Sanosuke sighed.

"Why? Why would you take this away from me? Why!" Sprite wailed, weeping profusely and falling to the ground.

"As you can see, we have business to take care of over here." Monigue concluded, looking quickly at Sprite who was weeping about how life was cruel on the ground. "Your car will be there in about an hour, hopefully. This is Monigue, over and out." The T.V. went dead. The cast sat silently for a moment.

"Hah!" Sanosuke laughed in Megumi's face. "Not gay!"

"You're reacting awfully violently to a claim that doesn't even seem to phase Kenshin." Yahiko wondered out loud.

"He's a petit redheaded man that could pass for either gender and enjoys cooking and cleaning. He's not exactly unfamiliar with the gay question." Sanosuke grunted. Kenshin blushed slightly but continued cleaning up.

"Its true, that it is." Kenshin muttered. "Many women tell me that I must be gay because I am too good to be true."

"But you're not!" Megumi exclaimed, throwing her arms around a flustered Kenshin. "And that is the glorious thing."

"Oro?" Kenshin groaned, eyes swirled over.

"Can we please stop flirting and get working?" Sanosuke interrupted, rolling his eyes. Megumi scowled at him but stepped away from Kenshin.

"I guess I am team leader, so it is my job to get the team together." Megumi sighed softly, still glaring at Sanosuke. Sanosuke met her stare with an unspoken challenge.

"Because sexual tensions between Sanosuke and Megumi are running so high they could explode at any moment, our team will move into the other room." Yahiko motioned to his team members.

"Sexual what!" Megumi and Sanosuke shouted.

"Hehe. Never mind!" Yahiko responded devilishly, rubbing the back of his head. He lead his team into another room, leaving Sanosuke and Megumi fuming and Kenshin and Aoshi more than slightly amused.

"So does anyone have any ideas?" Megumi asked, slumping down in her seat.

Aoshi closed his eyes and immediately saw bunnies.

But why were there bunnies? Aoshi didn't know. They just where. There were pink ones, and blue ones, and yellow ones…

"What do kids these days like, anyways?" Saitoh questioned, puffing on his cigarette. Everyone in the room turned to Sanosuke.

"What?" Sanosuke asked, blinking back at them. The rest of the team members continued to look expectantly at the least mature member of the team.

"Hey, I'm not kid." Sanosuke grumbled, pouting like a teenager with his arms crossed over his chest.

"You are the youngest one on the team." Megumi speculated. " Or at least you act like it."

"Watch it, fox. You're twenty four, right? That's only two years older than me." Sanosuke thought, remembering the information that they had shared on the cramped cab ride to the apartment. (AN: Ages are a little altered)

"That's true. But aren't you and I just proof of what wonders two years can work?" Megumi giggled. Sanosuke continued to scowl.

Aoshi, meanwhile, was trying to make the bunnies go away. Now there were rainbow colored ones, and stared ones… since when had bunnies been so burned into his psyche? Aoshi had no clue.

"Well, I do have an idea." Sanosuke muttered, leaning back. "What if we did action figures that were samurai?"

The whole group excluding Aoshi meditated on the thought of the samurai action figures for a moment. Aoshi's mind continued to be filled with bunnies.

Now they were dancing. But why did that bunnies have to dance?

"We could give each one a separate ability or weapon." Kenshin speculated.

"And maybe we could create a way so they could fight each other, and you could tell who won." Megumi added, doodling on a pad of paper she had out.

"Can we make them bleed?" Saitoh asked, smiling slightly. Megumi shot him a slightly worried look.

"I don't think it would go over too well if we had life like bleeding action." Megumi speculated. The four continued to contribute, throwing around ideas until an hour later they had a fairly good idea of what they wanted.

Megumi turned to her left, realizing that Aoshi had been silent the whole time. He currently had his head on the table and was banging it softly.

"Aoshi, are you all right?" Megumi asked, putting her hand on his back.

"What about samurai bunnies?" Aoshi muttered, and immediately wished he hadn't. The bunnies were laughing at him. Laughing.

The room was silent, staring at the apparently crazy man in the middle of the room. Aoshi cleared his throat.

"Aoshi, did you sleep last night?" Megumi asked. Aoshi nodded. "Then when was the last time that you ate?"

"I think… I had a cup of tea yesterday morning." Aoshi muttered.

"I think this might be a good time for food, then." Megumi said, a little bit frightened of the crazy man besides her.

"I nominate Kenshin to cook." Sanosuke pointed towards his roommate.

"Of course." Kenshin smiled slightly, and headed to the counter. The rest of the group remained slouched in their position, all of them still racked with fatigue from being woken up so early in the morning. Kenshin was learning how to navigate the kitchen, learning that it had a satisfyingly large selection of ingredients. At his apartment the food never was so well stocked, partially because Sanosuke had an unsatiable appetite. Kenshin always made sure to be a safe distance away from Sanosuke when he ate for fear of losing a limb in his flurry of eating.

As the first team ate their meal, the second team was still trying to figure out their idea. The room was resoundingly silent as all of the members of the team were void of any inspired ideas.

"How about a lobster?" Yahiko suggested, more for the sake of breaking the awkward quiet that was growing tense in the room. Kaoru turned towards him, her eyes narrow with disbelief.

"A lobster?" She asked him incredulously.

"Look, do you have any god damned better ideas?" Yahiko demanded, running his hands through his spiky hair.

"Well…" Kaoru trailed off. She didn't actually have any better ideas. For the moment, lobster was the only thing on the table.

"A lobster action figure?" Tsubame suggested quietly.

"What if we did not lobsters, but a bunch of different types of animals?" Misao suggested, her normally bubbly voice pensive.

"And we could make their parts interchangeable." Yahiko added.

"Their parts?" Kaoru asked, her voice low with horror.

"The Trainee: solving the mechanical problems with beastiality." Misao giggled.

" Their arms and legs, you perverts." Yahiko groaned. Tsubame, who was naturally shy and reserved, was bright red from the provocative suggestions made by her team mates.

"Oh." Kaoru laughed nervously. "Of course."

"What a sick bunch of mothers." Monigue muttered, watching from the other side of the screen with horror.

"They think just like me!" Sprite beamed.

"We're not going to show this, right?" Ria asked.

"Are you kidding me? Of course we're going to show it!" Monigue exclaimed.

"I should have known." Ria groaned.

As the day progressed, both teams made their ideas solid and communicated them to the toy company. Both teams went to bed without being able to see their finished design.

"I think we did well today." Kenshin remarked to Sanosuke, who had been placed in the same room as Kenshin had. The other men's room contained three beds. Sanosuke could only assume that the women were arranged in mostly the same way. Then there were the ominously empty rooms with queen sized beds. Sanosuke could only wonder about those.

"Yeah, I think we did pretty good." Sanosuke decided. "Megumi may be a fox, but she is a pretty good leader." Though Sanosuke didn't like to admit it, Megumi had pulled the team together very gracefully. He could only wonder how things had faired with the other team.

"She is a good leader, that it is." Kenshin agreed absent mindedly. "Do you think that we'll win?"

"I think we'll have to wait until tomorrow to tell." Sanosuke sighed, sinking into his bed.

AN: Kay, I'm going to throw this up just for the sake of updating. Its not so good, but at least it is sort of longish. No, this fiction isn't dead! BUHAHAHA! Anywho, reviews are always good for motivation…