- the next day-

Giroro opened his eyes, not to his usual red tent's interior, but to a cleanly painted room. He was in the Hinata's household, but wasn't in the underground lab.

"Where..." he wasn't sure if he was still dreaming or not. He was laying on soft plushness, which he didn't normally have the luxury to do either. He blinked a few times to regain visual focus, and wondered for a moment why he had a dull headache. "Oh yeah, I was struck in the head by..." He shifted his body in the bed and his hand brushed against the soft hand of the girl laying next to him. "...Natsumi!"

With the flurry of events the night before (plus the head trauma) he had nearly forgotten all that had happened. He lifted the covers and looked down at his own body to see his usual red frog-like skin instead of the human type he had last night. "Shit. What the hell am I going to tell the others?" He looked upon Natsumi's still sleeping face. Her forehead was slightly tense as though she was having a concerning dream. "No. I don't have to tell them anything. Natsumi certainly wouldn't say anything about it, so I can do the same, right?" He hopped out of bed when he suddenly remembered. "WHAT TIME IS IT? We're supposed to have a meeting today. Shitshitshit!" He practically flew out the balcony door he had came through the night before and starting running to the underground lab as fast as he could. After screwing around with 'the enemy', the least he could do was try to be on time for the meeting.

-the underground base-

The large white doors to the meeting room slid open as Giroro ran through and hopped to his assigned seat panting and sweating. Unfortunately, the others were already there, including Keroro who was at his usual podium of all-mightiness. To say he looked ticked off would be an understatement.

"GIRORO GOCHOU! Do you know what time the meeting today was supposed to start?" the green frog huffed.

"0800 hours, sir." He answered stubbornly, not feeling in the mood to be chewed out by the Sergeant at the moment.

"And do you know what time it is NOW?" He thrust a hand out towards his assistant, Moa, who was blissfully smiling and holding an unusually large clock for Giroro to see. The time clearly read 8:35.

"Sir, I realize I'm 35 minutes late. If you could go on with the meeting I'm certain I can catch up..." he tried to restrain himself from snapping at the platoon leader.

"CATCH UP? You think you can pick up on the subtleties of plan 'Space Coyote in Everyone's Ice Cream' just by hearing the last few minutes of my run-down?"

The young Tamama interrupted, "Gunsousan! maybe this plan isn't so great anyway. I know you worked all week on it, but if it involves messing up Pekoponian ice cream, well..." he almost got teary eyed thinking about how much he would hate to have all the ice cream filled with nasty space coyote.

Moa raised a finger and chimed in,"You could say, a sweet surprise?" Tamama only shot her a blood-shot look of utter rage.

Keroro looked frustrated at the sudden opposition to his newly developed plan. "What about you, Kururu?"

The yellow inventor was staring at something idly on his laptop's screen. "Something about ice cream was all I heard. Should be fine...kuuuku~" He snickered.

Keroro forgot to ask Dororo, but it didn't matter since only a thin cardboard cut-out version of him rest on the seat where he was supposed to be sitting.

"FINE! It's obvious you guys don't understand the potential behind this complex plan." Keroro crossed his arms defensively and stormed out of the meeting area closely followed by Moa. "DISMISSED!" he yelled as the door slid closed behind him.

"Yaaay! I can finish my snacks at Momochi's house now!" Tamama beamed and skipped out the door Keroro had just gone through.

Giroro put his head down on the desk feeling overwhelmed. He managed to betray his platoon, end up late for a meeting (he was always the first to arrive even before Keroro), and have his leader throw out –albeit odd sounding- an actual plan for invasion, all in one day. He could only hope nothing else would go wrong today.

"So what made you so late today, Gochou?" Kururu's glasses flashed as he turned his head towards Giroro.

"Kururu, go to hell. I'm not in the mood to play your games right now." Giroro kept his head down on his desk as he spoke.

"You didn't seem to mind having Natsumi play with you. Kukuku!~" he was quite entertained by the whole notion and continued to cackle.

"...What was that, Kururu?" The red soldier raised his head slowly, not believing what he had just heard come from Kururu's mouth.

"Let's just say, I have very powerful evidence that suggests you may have spent a night with the enemy." He ran a finger along the edge of his laptop.

"We all share close quarters with the pekoponians, Kururu." He tried to choose his words carefully while hiding his now red face.

"None of the others are quite as close as you and Natsumi were last night though, kukuku..." Kururu was enjoying toying with Giroro more than he probably should have. It was like a drug for him to constantly interfere with the Gochou's life.

"KURURU YOU HAD YOUR CAM-" he caught himself yelling and brought his voice down to a whisper as he grabbed Kururu's throat forcefully "I thought I told you to take the security cameras out of Natsumi's room!"

"About that..." Kururu's voice was strained, but his smile refused to leave his face. "I was going to, but then I realized I didn't really feel like it. Kuku! And I'm glad I didn't listen to you!"

Giroro let go of the strangle hold he had on Kururu in disbelief. "So...you saw everything then?"

"Indeed. I probably won't tell anyone either. Ku!" he crossed his legs casually and leaned back in his chair, one hand idly brushing the top of his keyboard.

"PROBABLY?" he let out a tired sigh. "Kururu...you wanted all this to happen, didn't you? That's why you left the gun outside my tent for me to find."

Kururu blushed as he brought a hand to his mouth. "Oh Giroro you know me too well."

Giroro gave him a look of confusion and anger. "...why do you have to be such a sick bastard?"

"Girorokun, please! You flatter me so~ kuKU!" the sarcasm dripped from every word he said, yet it was said in such a way Giroro had to wonder if Kururu actually enjoyed being insulted somewhat. Seriously, what was wrong with this guy?

"UGH! I need to get out of here." He stormed towards the sliding doors that lead outside of the meeting room but paused just as they had opened. Without looking back he darkly warned, "tell anyone and you're dead, Kururu."

After Giroro had left, Kururu shut his laptop and started carrying it back to his lab.

"I do love challenges." His laughter echoed through the vast empty room.

What will kururu dooo? D:

Also, writing dialogue takes a long time for me _! Anyone else get that? I try to resist the urge to use 'said' all over the place too.

Hope you liked.