DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN RANDY CUNNINGHAM 9TH GRADE NINJA NOR LIFE AND TIMES OF JUNIPER LEE

"Are you sure this is where I will find him?" Ghoulian asked suspiciously staring at this large and rather elaborate looking building.

"Yes master," his monster turned human slaves promised.

"You better be correct or else," Ghoulian threatened as he entered the 6-star hotel for monsters. Which is the last place he'd expect to find some evil monster mastermind.

Over at the pool of the hotel, Jean-Claude was lounging about while his two demoness entourage were swimming in the pool. "So Mr. Jean-Claude, are you ready to destroy the Te Xuan Ze?" one of the demoness asked.

"Patients my dears, this is an intricate game we play. All the pieces must be in place for it to be perfect. If I act to hastily everything I've been working for could crumble around me." Jean-Claude said in his usual suave voice.

"Excuse me, but are you the famous Jean-Claude?" Ghoulian asked in an innocent tone, pretending to be a naive boy.

"The one and only," Jean-Claude said confidently. "So who are you and why should I care?"

"Oh my apologize great one," Ghoulian said graciously with a bow. "My name is Ju...Ghoulian, and I was hoping you might have the means to reactivate this charm of mine?" Ghoulian asked showing him the monkey's paw.

Jean-Claude took the amulet and examined the monkey's paw carefully before handing it back to Ghoulian. "My apologies, but I'm afraid that I cannot reactivate this trinket, nor can anyone else." Jean-Claude said confidently.

"I see," Ghoulian said in disappointment. "Then I guess you are useless to me!" Ghoulian yelled as he shot white stank at Jean-Claude. The two demoness screamed in terror, but Jean-Claude chuckled in amusement as he blew away the stank with but a wave of his hand.

"Not bad kid," Jean-Claude praised. "You are pretty powerful, but you are untrained and undiscipline. I might be tempted into taking you under my wing but somehow I doubt you're up to my standards." Ghoulian growled in frustration, with his eyes glowing bright green. Taking offense to his insult. "Now if you would have let me finish, the reason no one can reactivate it is because this charm is already active." Jean-Claude explained calmly, not at all feeling threatened or intimidated by Ghoulian's show of power.

"But, I made a wish and it didn't come true!" Ghoulian insisted.

"Silly boy, don't you know anything about the monkey's paw. It is not a genie, it's a fate amulet. It grants wishes by altering probability making it seem that you got your wish by coincidence or pure luck. Often it takes three to ten days for wishes to happen." Jean-Claude explained.

"So that mutt was lying to me! I will destroy him! I will destroy them all!" Ghoulian hissed.

"Mutt? Oh I see, mean the Te Xuan Ze little mascot." Jean-Claude grinned mischievously. "I may have a little something for you." Jean-Claude disappeared in a puff of smoke only to reappear a second later. He then handed Ghoulian a black piece of cloth.

"A black belt? What am I suppose to do with this?" Ghoulian asked.

"Wear it for one," Jean-Claude chuckled in amusement. "That belt was an old training tool for the Te Xuan Ze. It contains the fighting skills of everyone who's ever worn it. It's meant to help new Te Xuan Ze until they gain enough of their own skills to fight without it. I'm certain that you will find it most useful against your foes." Jean-Claude said.

"What's the catch?" Ghoulian asked suspiciously.

"No catch. You can take it or leave it, your choice, but a word of warning. Be careful of how you make your wishes, for the monkey's paw amulet tend to have nasty side effects." Jean-Claude warned.

"Thank you for the advice," Ghoulian said politely with a bow. Taking the black belt with him. As much as he would love to stank the guy, Ghoulian could see that Jean-Claude is more powerful than him. So right now retreat is the better part of valor.

"Jean-Claude, why did you let that little imp go? And why did you help him like that?" the two demoness demanded.

"Ladies please, what have I said about playing an intricate game?" Jean-Claude mused. "There is a wise old saying: 'Why do the dirty work yourself when there are other who be willing to do it for you'. That fool wishes to battle the Te Xuan Ze, I'd say let him. Besides I highly doubt he'd succeed even with my help."

"But what if he does defeat her? That means you can never beat her." the demoness pointed out.

"Ah my poor naive dears. I don't care about defeating the Te Xuan Ze. I just need her out of my way to attain my one true goal. And if that Ghoulian can do it, the better for me. And if he can't, well I'm sure it will be an entertaining show at least. Always keep your eye on the prize. It doesn't matter how you get it, so long as you get it in the end." Jean-Claude quoted as he went back to relaxing by the pool.

Somewhere in Orchid Bay. "Thanks, let me know if you hear anything," June said as departed a group of monsters that she asked about Ghoulian, and by ask she meant beat the stuffing out of them. "Ugh, we're getting nowhere fast. If only my bracelet wasn't on the fritz we would have found him by now." June complained, tapping on her bracelet.

"Aye lass, but it's not working." Monroe reminded her. "So right now all we can do is hope for some kind of lead."

"What are the chances of one just popping just like that?" June sighed.

"June! June! We've gots trouble!" These two monsters called out, one blue and the other green panted as he ran up to her as fast as he could.

"Geffery, George, what's wrong?" June asked but was careful to make sure that no one was around to see her talking to 'nothing'. She already has a reputation for being weird and didn't want to add more fuel to that fire.

"There's this guy, well he's not really a guy, but some kind of strange monster disguised as a human..." the blue monster named George ranted.

"He's going around asking other monsters for something, and..." the green monster Geffery jumped in. The two then started stuttering, too afraid to talk.

"Just get to the point," June snapped.

"He's turning all the monsters into humans!" the two of them screamed at the same time, hugging each other for support.

"Oh no, that will disrupt the magical balance! We have to stop him!" Monroe gasped.

"I sure hope it's that Ghoulian guy, I don't think I can handle more that one catastrophe at a time." June groaned. "So do you know where he went?" June asked.

"I heard he's looking for Jean-Claude," Geffery reported.

"This is bad, if he get's Jean-Claude as an ally, it could spell doom for us all." Monroe stressed.

"Geffery, I need you to find my brothers and tell them about all this." June ordered.

"Your brothers right!" Geffery and George saluted before comedically crashing into each other. After recovering from that incident, they hurried off.

"Okay Monroe, we've got to find Jean-Claude and...and... Is that Randy over at the game center?" June asked turning her head away and covering her eyes, hoping to be wrong.

"Afraid so," Monroe confirmed sadly. "Let's see what the fools got himself into." The two entered the game center and found Randy and Howard, but no sign of her brother Ray-Ray, joyfully counting all the tickets they have won.

"This is so Bruce, all we need is 100,000 more tickets and the prize will be mine!" Howard gloated, until he noticed Randy giving him the stink eye. "Ours, I meant to say ours," Howard corrected himself.

"What are you guys going here!" June demanded as she stomped over to them.

"Uh, we're looking for Ghoulian of course! Yeah we heard he was here trying to win the Ultra-mega prize." Howard lied.

"Uh yeah so we've been staking out the place, waiting for when he's come by." Randy jumped in hoping to cover Howard's lie.

"Hey guys, I found a couple of suckers to challenge to Laser Tag, that will get us all the tickets we need!" Ray-Ray said excitedly until he noticed his sister standing there with an annoyed expression on her face. "Uh-oh," Ray-Ray gulped.

"Uh-huh," June eyeing them all suspiciously. "And I suppose winning tickets is part of your strategy?"

"Well yeah, we can't just hang around here doing nothing. That's just stupid." Howard defended. Causing June to facepalm herself.

"Please tell me you guys were stupid enough to use the powder to win at games." June pleaded.

"Well maybe a pinch," Randy said pulling out the back of powder. Looking in the bag they could all see that it was 4/5 empty. "Oh boy," Randy cringed seeing how much of the powder they had wasted.

"Come on!" June snapped, pinching Randy ear, dragging him out of the game center.

"Hey June, are you here to play Laser Tag?" a familiar's boy's voice asked.

"Marcus! What c'ha up to?" June getting completely flustered seeing her crush here.

"Well your brother challenged me and my friends to a game of Laser Tag, and I was wondering if you'd join us?" Marcus asked hopefully.

June hesitated, as much as she wanted to spend time with Marcus, she had other things to attend to. "Sorry Marcus, but I need to do this thing with this guy here." June said with a rather annoyed tone as the pinched Randy's ear even hard and pulling him out of the building.

"Ow, ow, ow, I'm coming already." Randy cried wishing June would let go of his ear.

"Oh okay then," Marcus said feeling depressed and a bit jealous that June was leaving with another boy.

"So shall we play for oh I don't know 100,000 tickets?" Howard challenged.

"Whatever man," Marcus responded automatically in a rather somber tone as he stared in the direction June left with Randy. Right behind him, Howard silently cheered believing that he's got his challenge in the bag.

Outside, June was dragging Randy around by the ear. "Hey you can let go now!" Randy said finally getting June to let go of his ear.

"What's the matter with you? We've got an important mission and you're wasting time playing games!" June snapped.

"Hey I know we've got an important job to do, but that doesn't mean we can't take some time off for some fun?" Randy defended.

"Look don't you think I want to have time to hang out with my friends? That I don't have to keep coming up with excuses to run out whenever they having something fun planned? Of course I do, but we have a responsibility to the world and the job always comes first!" June lectured.

"Friendship is a weight the ninja cannot carry," Randy whispered.

"What was that?" June asked.

"Friendship is a weight the ninja cannot carry," Randy repeated. "It was a lesson the nomicon told me a long time ago. But I choose to ignore it for the sake of my friend." Randy said sternly.

June sighed as she looked deep into Randy's eyes and could see that he was being serious. "I understand all that. Look I'm not saying you can't have friends. You can make time for your friends and duty, but when you got a job to do, that has to take priority. You can't simply drop what your doing just because Howard wants you to do something else."

"I don't just drop what I'm doing," Randy argued. That's when the nomicon in his jacket started glowing. Sensing that this was regarding their conversation, Randy didn't even bother to pull the book out. "Um only some of the time," Randy said nervously. The nomicon began glowing brighter. "Alright most of the time," Randy admitted. "But I still manage to get the job done."

"You can not always rely on luck, especially now that you're cursed!" Monroe reminded him.

"I envy you," June whispered.

"Huh?" Randy not understanding what she's talking about.

"If you ever get tired of being the ninja or do a bad job, you can just quit or get fired. Then the mask will go to another. Me I'm stuck as the Te Xuan Ze until it passes down to my next kin. I will never know what it is like to have a normal life. This is why I want my friends to live as normally as possible. That is why I fight so hard. So that no one else have to suffer." June preached.

Randy lowered his head in shame; recalling all the times his blundering has gotten his friends stanked, put them in mortal danger, or just made situations worst when they could have been easily avoided. Sometimes he's even amazed that the nomicon allowed him to remain the Ninja. "You right, maybe I should start taking things more seriously." Randy said with determination. From the game center behind him, they could hear Howard screaming in sorrow. Apparently Marcus had somehow beaten him in laser tag, so now he's begging for Randy to come back and use their secret weapon. Randy kept shifting his attention to the game center and Howard's voice and June's gaze. Feeling very conflicted of where his priorities lay. Randy was about to take one step towards the game center when a battle axe flew out of nowhere and nearly split his head! "WHAT THE JUICE!" Randy yelped, seeing that if he had taken that step towards the game center he would have been dead. Grabbing another pinch of powder, which just cut his remaining supply in half, Randy spread it over his head. "Sorry Howard," Randy whispered as he turned his back to the game center and now is facing June. As much as he wanted to help his best friend, he understood that June needed his help even more. Of course him nearly getting killed had nothing to do with his decision! "So where are we headed?" Randy asked June.

"I have an idea how we might find them," Monroe said staring at a group of humans wearing demonic armor, one of which was being scolded for losing his battle axe, heading for the field where they held the LARPing event.

Over at the LARPing field, it's the only place Ghoulian can put his army without drawing suspicion, he examined the black belt. Naturally he is suspicious that the belt might be a booby trap, but considering Jean-Claude's power, it seems strange that he would bother with such an obvious trap. That could mean that this isn't a trap and that the belt could help him. Deciding to risk it, Ghoulian put the belt on. That's when he felt a surge of power coursing through him. Without even thinking, Ghoulian started doing a series of katas. Moves that he didn't even know existed. To test his new abilities, he challenged some of his best slaves to a sparring match. Which Ghoulian won due to his own strengths and not at all because his slaves were letting him win. "This is the cheese!" Ghoulian cheered admiring his new fighting skills. With these new skills plus his monster powers and his slave army, he may just be invincible. "Man I wish the Ninja is here so that I can defeat him with my bare hands!" Ghoulian laughed. Failing to noticing the faint flash of light in his pocket, indicating that the monkey's paw has just granted another wish.