The Adventures of Skirt Boy and Stabby Girl

Chapter 3

A/N- Alright! Thanks to everyone who reviewed! We all appreciate it mucho grande (In case you can't tell, CAT has never taken Spanish.). –crickets chirp- Err… yeah. I'm having a case of introduction block, so we go straight to the disclaimer! –runs off to watch more Ghost in the Shell:SAC-

Disclaimer: None of us own Star Ocean, though the firabbits are copyright me. Patent pending!

PART EIGHT: Raven the Dark Angel

While Nel slept Albel stared at the box. It sat unusually still as compared to the rattling before but that wasn't about to fool him. He eyed the thing from across the campfire. No... it was plotting something. He could feel it... or was that the spandex crushing his blood flow to his brain? No matter.

Albel leaned forward and unsheathed his sword and gave the box a tap.

Nothing.

He tapped again.

Nothing.

Hmm... He sat there and gave an experimental step forward and knelt down in front of the thing. Trying to play dead was it? Oh that box wasn't about ready to outsmart him!

He gave the thing a good shove toppling it over on its side. And that's where his problem began. The box vibrated across the ground and ran away! His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he lost sight of it. Crap! What to do... what to do.. He didn't want to wake up Nel or else she'd know his folly at being able to watch the box. He couldn't tell her because he simply didn't need her help and he'd get it back because well... he was Skirt Boy! er.. Albel the Wicked damn it! Grr! Stupid mission names...

And so he went. Albel stalked through the mountain path and darted his eyes across the scene. There it is! He dove to the ground. "oof" but the blasted thing scooted away again. This was getting ridiculous. What the heck was in that thing anyway and since when did boxes walk away?

Finally after searching under rock after rock and some pebbles (because you never know with this thing) he saw it again and immediately unsheathed his sword.

"Ha!" he cried and swung the point at its lock. "I've got you cornered."

The box began to whimper.

Albel's eye twitched. What the hell? He snarled. Was this thing alive or what? "Maggot..." Wait could he even call it that... It was an inanimate object after all right and why was he talking to a box anyways? "I demand you come with me or else would you like to lose a few things?"

Albel scrapped the sword across some of it's chains. How did you go about torturing a box into submission anyway? "Cooperate or the lock gets it!" he warned.

The box began to bounce wildly.

"You've got ten seconds to stop it or else it goes, you hear, fool!"

The box jumped up and down more.

That was it! Albel slashed the lock off and the box suddenly burst open.

Skirt Boy's eyes widened.

"Nox! What are you doing!" Nel shouted, rubbing her eyes. "The queen told us NOT to open it!"

Albel could only stay silent. How was that even humanly possible!

Nel leaned over to see what Albel was staring at and she raised an eyebrow. "Farleen!"

"HIIII!" she sang and Albel cringed. "It was so cramped in there."

"That thing is only twelve by twelve inches in size!" The man protested.

"Whaaaaat?" Farleen drawled in dazed confusion.

"It doesn't matter!" Nel screamed and fell to her knees. "Nox! How could you! You made me disobey an order directly from the queen. Noooo-ooo! My life is ruined." And she collapsed to the floor.

Albel blinked.

"Saaay..." Farleen piped "I was supposed to help deliver this." And she held out a small object in her hand.

………POPCORN………

PART NINE: Psychodog

Farleen put on a smile as she handed the object in her hand to Nel. "Lady Nel, do take care of this, and make sure you don't make the same mistake twice." In her hand was a SMALLER box covered in MINI locks, chains and caution signs.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?" Albel roared. "YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THIS WAS A DUNCE BOX?"
"The queen knew you would do something silly, Mr. Cueball." Farleen smiled. "By the way--! Whatever you do! Don't put it anywhere near water, ice cream, salted peppers, and menodix's, definitely not menodixes, and under direct sunlight."
"And what if we do?" Albel asked.
"Well then..." Farleen put on an eerie grin, "You won't be able to see the next sunrise."

The two Warriors just blankly stared as Farleen waved and ran away. "Errrrrr... Okay..."
"Well at least it's travel size..." She stared at the small box in her hand.
Carefully, she began to examine it. Sure enough, it was snapping and growling like the previous box. Albel, with his forefinger and thumb picked it up. "Stupid little contraption." He muttered. He shook it violently. "First I have to be teamed up with the queen of all maggots, next I have to wear this ridiculous suit, and NOW I HAVE TO BABY SIT A CARNIVOROUS LIITLE MAGGOT BOX!"
Insulted, the box snapped it's (mysterious) jaws down on Albel's arm.
"AGHHHH! GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF! IT'S CHEWING ME!"
As Nel laughed at the foolishness of Albel, from a bush not far off two children were spying the two warriors from in a bush.
"Alpha team in position." A pair of fuzzy ears and a tail appeared. "Come on Peppita, the ambush! We have to make a quick AMBUSH. We're ALPHA team."
A second head appeared from behind the bush. "OPERATION POP GOES THE WEASEL IS IN POSITION!"
"Can your voice be ANY louder?" Roger yelped. "We might as well put a sign on our shirt reading "LOOK WE'VE COME TO AMBUSH YOU! In big red letters."

The two kids began to cackle maniacally. "If we succeed! Mirage promised me a date with Maria!"
"OPERATION SWEET CARAMEL CHICKEN, HO!" Peppita yelled happily.
"I thought you said it was operation pop goes the weasel?"
"OPERATION MOON-MOON ROOSTER!"
"Peppita, make up your mind already!"
"OPERATION SWING SWING BOOM!"
"No wait- Peppita!"
"OPERATION POOP ON A STICK!"
"Peppita!"
"I KNOW! OPERATION-" An evil look appeared on Peppita's face. "DESTROY SKIRT BOY AND STABBY GIRL."

……….POPCORN……….

PART TEN: Blue Persuasion

"ALRIGHT! You finally got it right!" Roger jumped up and down for joy, oblivious to the fact that Nel and Albel were watching the whole thing with intense interest.
"YES!" Peppita hissed. "Alphia team HO!"
"Alphia? NO no no… that's ALPHA!"
Peppita blinked at him. "Then what's an Alphia."
Roger whispered in her ear. Her eyes grew big. "Oh, that might not be so bad after all."
"That's enough you two," Mirage said lifting them both up by the backs of their collars. "It's over, I just caught Maria making out with Sophia."
"What?" both children yelled together. "But they hate each other."
"Yeah, seems they prefer each other over Fayt." With that she carried the two children away.
Albel turned to Nel. "What is Alphia?"
Nel whispered the answer into his ear.
"Oh, that might not be so bad after all."
Nel took the box and smacked Albel over the head with it. As she swung the box grabbed a hold of his ear lobe and hung like an earring. She stomped off.
"Hey, what was that for you freaky red head?"
She turned back and glared at him. "You're really slipping on insults."

Meanwhile, back at Castle Aquaria…
"Whoa, Adray… What can I say, I'm so touched." The queen wiped the tears of joy from her eyes.
"I knew you would like it if I turned the audience chamber into a disco dance club.
"It's the best!" She hugged his neck.
Lasselle passed by. "Oh, look at the pretty lights."
"Yes," the king replied, following Lasselle. "Wanna dance?"
"Sure."

Meanwhile back to our dynamic dual…
"Holy barbeque and milkshakes Batman!"

WRONG DYNAMIC DUAL, Now for the correct one…
"Ahh, the blasted thing won't let go!" Albel was trying to pull the box off his ear.

………POPCORN……….

PART ELEVEN: The Crazy Authoress CAT

"AiiiiiIIIII!" Albel shrieked in a tone similar to a twelve-year-old girl's, "Getitoffme! GETITOFFMENOW! OWIES!"

Nel cracked her knuckles and grinned deviously.

"Don't worry, Noxie. This won't hurt a bit." She paused to think for a moment, and an Albel-ish grin grew, "Bah, who am I kidding? It's gonna hurt like hell and I'm gonna enjoy it."

"Sadist!" Albel whimpered.

Before either knew what was happening, Hyperactive Peppita (who had just slipped away from Mirage by getting Roger to try to cop a feel on the blonde, which led to several broken bones in the menodix in question, but distracted her nonetheless.) appeared and began bouncing around the two.

"I like it, Label!" Peppita crowed, "It makes you look like a pirate."

"Really?" Albel squealed happily, since he'd always wanted to be a pirate deep down inside.

"I've always wanted to be a pirate deep down inside." Nel exclaimed enviously. "And not the crappy Johnny Depp kind of pirate with eyeliner and stuff. I wanna be the kind to pirate that stabs people and runs away with their wallets and assorted treasure."

"Uhh… then in that sense, aren't you already a pirate? Just, you know, without a ship?" Fayt (who had also just appeared, though with no scientific explainable mode of transportation besides the Plot Hole, his new starship) said, smiling vacantly, as usual.

"If she is, then I am too!" Albel pouted, ignoring Nel and her new-found knowledge of twentieth century Earth movies.

Nel's eyes lit up and she stabbed Fayt, stole his wallet and commandeered his starship.
"I AM a pirate, aren't I?" Nel grinned proudly, stepping on Fayt's body.
Of course, being Fayt, he wasn't really dead because SOMEONE had gone and reset the game, bringing him back to life.

You know who you are.

However… Nel soon found out that she wasn't the sort for the space cowboy (koff bebop koff) life, mainly because Fayt had hired Maria and Sophia as his crew and they were too busy making out to do any real work. Thus, Nel and Albel used their new power as space pirates to throw the two confused girls overboard without oxygen or space suits, but Lieber managed to pick them up just in time to keep their lungs from exploding at a probability of 1 to the power of 123456789ths. Which by a strange coincidence, is exactly the probability that anyone will get that allusion.
Without a crew, the Plot Hole promptly plummeted down to Elicoor II and Nel and Albel ended up in the same spot they had been before they took their pointless sidequest.

"Well, that was random." Nel said musingly.

"Yes." Albel snarled. "Let us never speak of it again."

There was an awkward silence, and the four stared at each other in the traditional Mexican standoff style, each pointing a weapon of some sort at the other. Albel threatened Nel, Peppita threatened Albel, and Nel threatened Fayt, who stood there blankly, not knowing what he was supposed to do.
Just as everyone else was about to turn on Fayt, a small raccoon-boy-pervert thing came whooshing through the air at abnormal speeds, almost as though he'd been punted by an angry female Klausian.

"Heeeey, lovely ladies!" Roger leered through two bloody purple eyes and several missing teeth. "How you doin'?"

The four people gathered ignored him, but the box did not. It sprang into action, its mouth frothing rabidly.

"Not… a Menodix! But Farnave (since even Nel didn't know which was which) said to never let the box near one!" Nel gasped sharply, stating the obvious.

However, no one could see any of the ensuing events because a convenient case of moon-glare on Albel's cue ball head blinded everyone in the vicinity.

"Dammit, Nox, can you move your big shiny head? It burnses us, precious…"

Nel doubled over, then collapsed to the ground, rubbing her eyes in pain. Albel merely stood and gloated over her, a wry grin plastered across his face. The mini box growled ferociously.

"That, my dear sidekick, is what we call a defense mechanism. But if it makes you feel better, I can't see either." Albel smirked.

"I'm not your sidekick! And that's because you never made holes in your mask, idiot. No wonder you were out here groping at rocks while you were supposed to be trying to find the box."

"Hmph." Albel pouted, crossing his arms.

"You know…" Nel grinned, "When you do that, you look like Mr. Clean. Do it again! Did they give you a lifetime supply of head wax to be his double or something?"

Intent on making eyeholes with his katana, Albel completely ignored her and her new-found knowledge of twentieth century Earth advertising.

Once the glare had subsided and Albel had finished his eye holes, the dust began to clear, and they could see two figures in the rubble. One, about two inches high, was the exact likeness of Clair.

"You have committed a great folly." The chibi-Clair growled menacingly. "The first guardian of the box's super-uber-mysterious contents has been awakened. It is a thing so vicious, so feared, that any man who has seen it has gone mad with terror."

"Ah, quit the dramatic monologue and get on with it already, maggot." Albel barked.

Clair dramatically stepped aside and looking up at them in her stead was one of the most horribly disturbing sights any had ever seen. Kind of. It had red eyes that glowed with the intensity of a thousand furnaces, its teeth were sharp and pointed like tiny spikes. It growled through its fangs at the ones staring at it and hopped up and down menacingly. Even its fur was a menacing color of pink... like evil cotton candy. Behind it, an even tinier chained box appeared.

"Is that a freakin' bunny?" Albel growled back at it, his own red eyes gleaming. "THAT'S the thing so vicious, so feared—?"

Nel eyed the rabbit dubiously, then shrugged.

"I could see how the cuteness could fool people… and it does explain all those growling noises inside the box…"

"Oh, but it's not just any bunny—" Clair began.

Albel ignored Clair's warning completely and bent down to examine the rabbit. It immediately snarled and made a hiccupping noise, spitting a tiny fireball at Albel.

"What the hell?" Albel screamed, "My face! My beautiful, bishy face!"

"It's called… a firabbit." Clair said softly, an echo of a nightmare present in her voice.

Only then did Nel realize that Clair's clothes were covered with burn and teeth marks. Albel, who had been writhing in a corner, finally regained enough courage to sidle in closer, hand on katana.

"Back, demon! Back to the pit of hell from whence you came!" Albel cried maniacally, pulling out a bomb from his pack.

Post-story AN- You know you want to know what happens next. So review or else I shall hold the Periwinkle Box hostage! Besides that, I will rain my vengeance upon anyone who reads this and doesn't review by flooding their web-browser with annoying pop-ups for "Spank-the-Monkey" Games and "Hot and Single" personal ads! Bwahaha! Don't think I won't; my fiendishness knows no end! –insert evil laughter-