Normally I don't give out a disclaimer because its fairly obvious I don't own the story...if I did...why would I be writing fanfiction? Great question...and moving on. I do want to say that the Ether characters that are original, Sicerio, Lily, Cindy, and Red are mine. You can't have them. Not for a bajillion dollars.

Sicerio: Age 26

Lily: Age 25

Red: Age 26

Cindy: Age 25

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Red awoke to the same sound he'd been hearing for the last at what he'd counted, as 409 days beep beep beep. He was tired, he was cranky, and above all...he was still...a virgin. He was 25 years old...and he'd been a eunuch all his life because of some crazy contest he'd had when he was sixteen. The doctors had said it would reduce the bull-headedness. It did...to an extent.

Sicerio had been running the four of them ragged with this 'Ether' idea for over a year. Sure...Red could see these strings, he could flex as them at will, he could even sharpen them for a while and cut his steak, but for the life of him...he couldn't do anything else that Sicerio had talked about. Cindy and Lily had gotten along just fine, something about them just gave them a weakness in the area...less energy channeled or some sort...Sicerio had explained it one night when he was super drunk, but that didn't mean post-Super Drunk Red remembered it.

He got out of his bed, and by his I mean his alone. Cindy had been distant lately. Lily and he weren't always that close anyway, and Sicerio was either stuck in new ways to exploit ether...or he was courting Lily. To put it bluntly...Red felt alone, and for all intents and purposes, he was alone. His hand where it once would've drifted lazily towards his glasses, now instead a green hued string found its way to his glasses, and delicately placed them on his face, another idea of Sicerio's. To next to subconsciously use the strings like muscle memory.

Pulling on some indoor wear, which means he put on a pair of pants and only a pair of pants for those crazed fangirls out there, and made his way slowly from the guest bedroom where he had been kicked out to, towards the bathroom. Much to his discomfort and growing irritation, the bathroom was occupied...and he found it occupied for the next quarter of an hour as he tapped his foot in impatience.

When it was none other than Cindy to come out with a gleaming body and a red tint to her cheeks, he knew what she'd been doing...and that only fueled his anger. Grumbling he stormed inside the bathroom to take care of his morning needs, least he urinate all over the carpet like some untrained dog like he was treated around here. A nice shave to get rid of the five o'clock shadow, a decent shower to get the blood flowing, and a firm scrubbing of the teeth and he was on his way out in a better mood than before.

Course, Red was much like a pmsing woman, which fit because he had no male genitalia. He was happy now that he looked and felt better...but a single glance at the three people who had been irking him for the last few months and he was practically seething in anger once again. There sitting around the kitchen table were three people who he'd once found himself calling his best friends. Now...he called them irritating shits.

He sat down in, to his fortunate credit, his favorite chair. Just simple work...with lots of cushion for the toushee...except he was a skinny man...and didn't really have a toushee. But who are we to complain about someone's favorite chair?

With Red's presence the conversation slowed down a fair ways, but it didn't end entirely. Just quiet, peaceful conversation floating between three people, as the fourth certainly wasn't going to talk.

After a hearty breakfast, bought on a Physicist, Nurse, Pastor, and Veteran's salary, the four went down into the basement to practice. It had been established that, if they were to help Sicerio in his quest to bring an end to the error he had caused, all four would be needed to stop fourteen men. That is to say, that each of the seven found an apprentice to begin training their own army/society.

Red found himself jealous at the things Sicerio could do. While Red, Lily, and Cindy had been working at it for over a year and three months, and thus far had been able to grasp things and see the strings, Sicerio made it all look like child's play by coiling the strings and even splitting them. He'd seen Sicerio write paper after paper upon feasible possibilities and then work hours and hours over the idea. He'd seen Sicerio sharpen his strings and then scratch a diamond. He'd even seen Sicerio take his strings and bring a dog back from the brink of death.

Sicerio was becoming stronger, healthier, and what appeared, even younger. Alas, the last one fluxed between looking seventeen again, and then the next day looking forty. It was his newest idea...to attach split strings to cells and rejuvenate them with bursts of energy. The exact pattern of bursts was all that seemed to elude Sicerio as he expanded onward and outward.

Within an hour's time...Red was deep in his foul mood, and it didn't help that he was confused. He was confused because Sicerio's strings were changing color. They'd flicker back and forth between Green and Yellow. It was difficult to make out, but the change was there if you paid close attention, and Red was paying very close attention.

What furthered his anger, was that Lily and Cindy were they themselves getting the hang of sharpening their strings. This, would not do. Red was not a man to be surpassed, even if he cared little for the subject. He was going to prove he could be better and do more.

With nary a conscious thought, Red opened taps in his body and began to soak in energy from the Underverse, as Sicerio had dubbed it. At first, the others paid little mind because Red was prone to solving his difficulties with more energy. However, when they felt a small payload of a nuclear bomb swirling inside of Red's body they became nervous of what he planned to do.

Lily watched with uncertain eyes. She'd only seen Sicerio push this point in energy once...and he'd been testing the waters at that to how much his body could withstand. Her blue eyes filled with that uncertainty and fear. Her red hair waving in the breeze being created from the swirling vortex of energy.

Cindy watched with more angry like eyes. Red had been...annoying her lately. She couldn't explain it...and perhaps she was just being a bitch...but she wanted more from a man. Hypocrisy at its best, or worst. You decide! Her brown eyes more centered on that anger, with just the sparks of fear and worry for her husband. Her brown hair flying more and more as visible lines of the energy began to swirl.

Sicerio, the last of the four friends, watched with more interested eyes. His life was very much like that swirling vortex at the moment. As long as there was something to keep the energy gravitating to the center, something to focus on, he wouldn't up and dissipate into the wind. His brown eyes were filled with worry as well, and dark brown hair barely moved, but that was because it was short.

Red kept tapping and tapping and tapping. He kept waiting for the moment he'd have enough energy to do whatever it took to prove he was better, and he could feel it coming on. In his giddiness he could not feel his body begin to tear at the seams in the fabrics of reality, but his friends could see the tears begin in him.

All Red could feel was this peak coming, closer and closer. He could just feel it in his bones. He began to tremble with anticipation, but all his friends saw was trembling because of the muscles ripping. Red began to buckle as the end throbbed closer and closer, but all his friends saw was a man whose legs were about to snap in half.

And the calm before the storm began. The light stopped, the wind stopped, but the energy kept coming. Suddenly, Red opened his eyes and stared at his friends with a deep seated hatred, "Checkmate." And his body disappeared...mostly. In his place stood this nothingness. It was contained, and thus not entirely a black hole...but nothing seemed to come out of it. You couldn't see through it...and you couldn't see it. It was just...dark.

The three friends in their stupor, and who can blame them when Red's feet were still on the ground...mangled and much like his name red, walked closer. The floor all around the black nothingness was also stained red. Nothing spattered, it all just looked like it had suddenly dropped. In their minds a golden set of eyes kept suddenly opening up to them and then disappearing. Red's changed eyes...golden eyes filled with hatred, compared to his once gentle and teasing brown eyes.

Sicerio, Cindy, and Lily kept coming closer, and kept coming closer. Despite having watched several scary movies before, they didn't have the mind to think 'err...this is wrong. Step away from the ligh-...I mean darkness! Step away from the darkness!' Instead, the continued to walk, until each of them at the same time...toed the nothingness, and they all felt singularity. Their masses squeezed down into an infinitely small point and then hurtled at unreal velocities through time and space.

It seemed like no time at all...when really it took 25,000 years for them to come back. Each landed with a thump on a wooden floor. Lily and Cindy were up quickly with red tints to their faces...seeing as they had landed in compromising positions atop of Sicerio. Already they were feeling...the anime effect.

They looked around and noted much to the oddity of where they just were, there was this young blond lady with a diamond in her forehead, yelling at some naive fifteen year old blond with a god-awful orange jacket. There was a pink haired teen as well, though she was giving the blond next to her hidden glances.

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Tsunade had been yelling at Naruto for being a brat after his three year training trip, and Sakura her prized student had been glancing at her Naruto-kun, when all three heard three loud thumps in the room. Turning just 90 degrees to the right, left for Tsunade, they saw by the windows a peculiar thing. Three outlandish people were laying atop each other rather provocatively. Just as quickly as they had landed they were up and dusting each other off and staring right back at them.

It was a stare off...first a-hole to stop staring lost a million zenie! No? How about a million gold coins! Ok...a million yen! Works for me too...you crazy currency freaks. The one to break the stare off was Sicerio as he turned and looked out the window, "Uhh...girls...I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

The girls turned around and to their amazement...stood a Village. To be exact, it was the Village hidden in the Leaves. Lily just looked over at Sicerio like he had committed a felony. Course...it helps when you absolutely loathe the Wizard of Oz like she did. So she smacked Sicerio over the head. "You mean we're not in Brooklyn anymore dumb ass."