Randy was having a pretty tough day. It was The Battle of The Bands and things were not going so smoothly. He had learned Howard had made a term called NNS, which meant Ninja No Show, and also UNNS, which was Unnecessary Ninja No Show. He had promised not to NNS since they had to practice, but...he kinda...did. Howard was mad and said Randy had broken up their band and left him alone in the janitor's closest.
He explained his problem of balancing Ninjaing and Friendship to The Nomicon. He was brought inside the Nomicon and greeted with:
Friendship is a weight The Ninja cannot carry
It even showed Randy two pictures. The first one didn't stand out to him much.
"Forget it, Nomicon. That's all kinds of wrong!"
Then it showed him another picture: It was of him and The Sorcerer.
Randy stared wide eyed at it, then grew angry. "Nomicon,no!"
Some weights can drag one down to their demise
It then drew The Sorcerer killing The Ninja and escaping his lair.
"Nomicon! That's never going to happen!" Randy yelled. "He's my friend, and he actually listens to me! Unlike you!"
The Nomicon kicked him out.
When Randy had become fully conscious he realized something...he was crying. Randy sniffled as he tried to get the tears out of his eyes.
He needed someone to calm him down. Howard was still mad, and The Nomicon wouldn't care, so his best chance was to talk to The Sorcerer. He put on his mask and hurried to get downstairs.
Unfortunately he bumped into Howard.
"I was coming back to apologize to you, but it looks like you're going to NNS yet, again!"
Randy tried to make it sound like he wasn't crying. "I-I'm not NNSing."
"Then why are you in the Ninja suit?" Howard asked angrily.
"I-I'm going to t-talk to The S-sorcerer."
"Okay, that's not NNSing.."
"Thanks, Howard. I-"
"That's SNSing!" Howard yelled at him. "Sorcerer no showing! Which you do every day after school, just to hang out with The stupid Sorcerer!"
Randy felt something in him snap. "He's a better friend then you'll ever be! He doesn't even care that for 800 years we've been mortal enemies, he forgave me! But, you...you, can't forgive me for trying to keep everyone safe! You'd rather everyone die than me leave you! You are a terrible, terrible, friend!"
He felt more tears starting to come. He threw a smokebomb so he could get away before Howard noticed he was crying.
Howard stood there in shock. Had he been right? No! He'd broken his promise not to NNS, he was the bad friend there! He didn't care if they weren't friends anymore...Randy would much rather hang out with The Sorcerer than him anyways...
…...
Randy not wanting to cry in front of Howard would be magnified tenfold in front of The Sorcerer.
So he sat by the wall and decided to cry until he felt like he could stop. Unfortunately he was creating stank in the air from his sadness.
The Sorcerer noticed and freaked out a bit. He felt it over power him.
"Hmmm... the sadness and despair of a broken friendship." The Sorcerer commented to his rat companion. "This will make for something interesting..."
He stanked Randy.
Randy stood on his mind legs and roared loudly. He still appeared the way he had when he was stanked for fun, but this time he had little control over his actions and behavior.
"Wait a minute..that roar...I stanked The Ninja.."
He gathered stank around Randy and pulled the monster into his lair.
Randy who was growling fiercely, calmed down a bit when he saw The Sorcerer.
The Sorcerer petted him gently. "Calm down Ninja...shh...it's okay..."
He gripped the collar around his neck and snapped it off like last time, but he was not destanked.
Randy looked at it curiously.
"How am I supposed to Destank him?" The Sorcerer asked himself. He turned to Randy "What caused you pain?"
"Howard...bad friend. Say I NNS...Ninja...No...Show...Try be good friend...ninja...Nomicon said...friendship weight ninja cannot carry...I come talk you...Howard call you..stupid..me upset..." Randy explained in broken English.
"Then I need something that means something to you about your friendship with him." The Sorcerer said.
Randy Stank looked uncomfortable. He reached into the pocket in his jacket and pulled out a wrinkled photo.
The Sorcerer grabbed the picture. It was a a picture of Randy and Howard as very young children, playing Ninja. Howard was pretending to be The Ninja and Randy, a Stank. However, it was smudged and partially torn where Randy was in the picture, so it was hard to make out what he looked like.
The Sorcerer was about to rip the picture, but then he got a glimpse of Randy. He looked devastated that The Sorcerer was going to wreck his favorite picture. The picture that he carried everywhere with him.
The Sorcerer sighed. There has to be another way to destank him.
He handed the picture back to Randy. He purred when he had the picture back and even purred a bit. Suddenly there was stank around him again and he turned human again.
"What the juice? How'd I get destanked?" Randy asked.
The Sorcerer thought for a moment. "Perhaps giving you're picture back was enough to get rid of the stank..."
"Maybe..." Randy looked at the picture again. He started thinking of the Bruce Old Days and his friendship with Howard. Would he really want to end his years long friendship with him because of something so dumb?
Maybe if he hurried he could get to the Battle of The Bands in time.
"Thanks, Sorcerer." Randy said before hurrying off to find Howard.