In a small village near Konoha, two weeks later, a monster was wreaking havoc.
It looked somewhat like a large compost pile, with long, spiked vines that were oozing with an unknown slime. A pair of faint red dots, glowing, could be seen under an oversized leaf that looked slightly like a mask as the creature roared dramatically.
Four sudden explosions of colored smoke appeared near it, each with a spandex wearing figure in front of it. One set red, the next blue, the third yellow, and the final green.
The figures' costumes all followed the same design- spandex covering the entire body, except for the head, which a shiny helmet covered.
The spandex was in white and another color, which varied with the person- white gloves that reached halfway to the elbows, boots of the same color that stretched halfway to the knees, and silver belts bearing the symbol of the leaf were on all members of the team, as was the 'Konoha jonin vest' symbol on the center of each person's chest, between the forks of a 'V' of white spandex.
The helmets varied with the person, but all had a black visor area and faint outlines of lips that seemed to be movable.
The yellow one's helm was perfectly smooth and streamlined, as though the wearer was the most aerodynamic of the four. In addition, the yellow one was obviously female, with a short skirt added to the costume.
The blue one's mask, similarly, was mostly smooth, with several large ridges on the sides, and seemed as though it cast a much larger shadow than would be expected.
Red's helm looked almost like a wolf's head had been turned into a helmet, fangs sticking out over the mouth area.
And Green's... looked like someone had taken a bowl and grafted it to the generic helmet, forming a psudo-bowl haircut, and then added fire around the edges, while adding legwarmers and wrist weights to the costume.
We now resume the battle.
"Gyahahaha!" The monster cackled, causing some property damage, upon seeing the spandex wearing figures.
"The Leaf Wardens? Spores! Get out here!" It continued, two dozen humanoid, white shapes appearing, jumping around menacingly.
"Oh, great. These guys again." The yellow wearing Warden said, shrugging in disgust.
"This is too troublesome. Living Shadow Shaping!" The blue one agreed, hands suddenly together as his shadow suddenly became three dimensional.
"Gyahaha! Spores! Get them!" The monster cackled , pointing one of the tentacles at the spandex wearing side.
As the unremarkable white mooks charged towards the good guys, both Green and Red dashed forwards, nunchucks appearing in Green's grasp and Red's gloves sharpening into claws.
"No way!" Red yelled, jumping over one of the 'Spores' and ripping a piece off of it with the claws. "You aren't going to get through us!"
"Indeed!" The green clad one agreed, his spinning nunchuck bashing through another of the mooks. "It would be most unYouthful for us to fail!"
"Leave it to those two to make things worse..." The blue one said, his shadow growing much, much bigger than might be expected and crushing two Spores with its hands.
"Oh?" The yellow one replied, jumping and axe kicking another of the enemies into the ground. "Because they're taking them out quickly and we can move onto the boss one."
The monster (of the week) was standing further back, behind a trio of the white creatures, laughing evilly. Cliche, I know. But hey, they usually do that.
"Gyahahaha! You thought that I was the only one sent out today?!" It cackled, the ground beside it shifting as another plant monster appeared next to it. "What a bunch of schmucks!"
"Hehehehe. You said it!" The second monster replied, jumping around like a hyperactive loon.
Three minutes later, all of the white creatures were defeated, and the four Wardens were fighting the first monster.
"Gyahahaha!" It cackled (again), lashing out with its spiked tentacle at the nearest of its foes.
It struck, causing an extremely fake looking burst of sparks from the chest of Konoha Red, who flew backwards into Yellow.
"Two fer!" The second monster laughed, suddenly extending one of its tentacles and hitting Konoha Green, causing more sparks and for him to fall over.
'The only option left... Is retreat.' Konoha blue thought, moving towards Red and Yellow with much speed.
"Shodarm! We need to get out of here!" He said, just before all four suddenly swirled and vanished.
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Reappearing in the underground lair that the Shodarm had dubbed the command center, each of the Konoha Wardens glowed briefly and reverted to their normal clothing.
Naturally, there wasn't much difference in Lee.
"So, Madara sent two monsters this week. How unsportsman like! How unYouthful! How... much of a jerk is that guy, anyway?" The Shodarm asked, looking at the panting teenagers in front of it.
"I don't know, but it seems like he's making bolder moves lately. Almost like he's working on his end game." Shikamaru (wearing a little more blue than he usually had worn, by the way) replied, looking at the tree-thing (now down to nine open eyes). "And we still don't have enough man power to deal with these things quick enough.
"Yeah! I mean, couldn't you make another one of our generation a Warden or something?" Ino (interestingly, having changed her usual outfit for one similar to it, but with more yellow on it) asked suddenly, causing all in the room to look at her.
"What? You were all thinking it." She continued defensively.
"Yeah, we were." Kiba (who, by the way, had added some red to his outfit) responded after a half minute. "But we don't know who to pick. Our best candidate is in what the Shodarm here calls an angst coma, and we were picked because we 'were the best available'."
"Yes, yes, I know that you're resentful for being the second on my list for potential leaders, but can you blame me, Mr. 'charge off and do something reckless'?"
"The tree has a point."
"Indeed, Kiba, that is what you typically do in combat situations. A most Youthful strategy when running off doing reckless things is needed, but unYouthful otherwise."
"Hey, it works for Naruto."
"Worked. He's still hasn't recovered from that..."
"Yeah..."
An aura of depression fell across the room, as the four (five, actually. Yamato was busy meddling with a lot of designs for new weaponry that the Shodarm wanted made for some reason) humans thought back to how, a month ago, Sakura betrayed the village for Sasuke.
"Ah, hell. Listen, take until about five off, I'll get you some help, and then you can go back to killing monsters like that."
"But those two are still out loose..."
"That's what the help will take care of first. Goodbye"
The four young ninja all braced themselves as they vanished.
"I hope you aren't planning what I think you're planning..."
"Oh, please. She'll make a fine Warden. Besides, getting her will help with the next part of my plan."
"Wait, 'she'll'? You're not going to warp Naruto here and give him an anti-angst talking to?"
"Waste of time. There's only one thing I've ever known of that's capable of freeing a teenager from such a state, and I can't help with it."
"Fin-" Yamato was cut off, vanishing in the usual swirl.
"Now then... I'll recruit her first, and then..."
/
The Konoha Wardens were once again fighting the two monsters (dubbed Plant Boy and Plant Dude), when additional smoke bombs went off.
Two which, unfortunately, ran together instead of being their own colors, forming a cloud of brown smoke over the two silhouetted figures.
One, extremely obviously female, was wearing what appeared to be a sailor fuku, with minor changes to the design to have a matching mask made of the same kind of cloth.
The other was wearing what appeared to mostly be the costume of the Wardens, but with armor on the torso area that looked similar to the old shinobi armor (read: like what the First wore), despite the poor view.
"Back in action, ready to defend the world!" The figure in armor yelled, suddenly posing dramatically, palm outstretched from his extended right arm, his left held behind him, as he dropped towards the ground, landing in a crouch.
"Given the power to fight for right!" The female said, sounding a bit reluctant, as she posed behind the armored one, one arm up and her left knee raised.
"Konoha Orange Oath Warden!" The first yelled again, lights somehow focusing on him, to reveal a person with orange and black spandex in the same style as the rest of the Wardens and black armor, with a mask that looked extremely kabuki theatre inspired (fangs, wide nostrils, lots of paint) covering his head.
"Konoha Lavender Belief Warden!" The other followed, light revealing someone whose purple costume would not look out of place in a magical girl show, with her black-blue hair flowing behind her.
"..." Shikamaru paused, looking at the newcomers in shock, as did the rest of the team. "She knocked the depression out of him? That's unbelievable."
"Seconded." Ino replied, seeing the new duo. "And why didn't I get one of those instead of this lame spandex...?"
Both monsters gulped, sensing their sudden demises.
\
Ten minutes later, the group was back in the command center, demorphed, and mostly gawking at the people who had showed up to save their hides.
One was Hinata, looking more than slightly nervous.
The other was Naruto, with a purplish discoloration around his right eye, looking significantly less depressed than the last time the others had seen him.
"Ha!" Kiba laughed, pointing at Naruto's eye. "You got punched by the meekest girl I've ever met!"
"Yeah, yeah, dog breath. Rub in the fact that I spent a couple of weeks completely out of it because one of my teammates betrayed the village for the other one, and that one of my friends had to punch the sense back into me. Go on. Annoy the guy who just got given the job of bossing you around."
"...You aren't serious."
"Oh, yes he is. See, he can get people's trust very easily, and he's got a lot of charisma, so that makes him a natural leader. Not a natural strategist, but really, he seems to make do. And he's mastered the Art of Friendship Through Violence." The Shodarm (now with six open eyes left) responded, looking at Kiba slightly evilly. "Also, I've made the finishing touches to your anti-giant monster weapons. Now they'll work much better than before."
"Uh, Shodarm?" Ino asked, ignoring the conversation going on behind her. "Why did Hinata get that outfit while I got what's basically a modified version of what the boys are wearing? And why did Naruto get armor?"
"She got her outfit because of having an agent with her upon arriving. She had to be giving her sister a pat on the back after training, didn't she... As for whiskers' armor... It's traditional for the leader to get armor added to the standard costume. And Yamato found it while cleaning out the basement and I didn't want it to go to waste."
"...You mean that Hanabi negotiated her sister that instead of spandex? She must care for her more than I thought..."
"And she chanted 'punch, punch, punch' while her sister was having trouble trying to work up the courage to punch the angst out of your new leader. Just for that, she's in as part of my backup plan."
"...'Backup plan'?"
"No comment."
Meanwhile, Shikamaru was ignoring the rapidly brewing argument between the Orange and the Red Leaf Wardens, while Lee was running laps around the chamber because, a week and a half ago, he promised himself that if he could not help Naruto recover from his angst coma, he would run several thousand laps around the command center.
"HEY! Take that back!"
"No! You're the one wimpy enough that you had to have a girl punch the emo out of you!"
"Yeah? Well, you- you smell like a dog!"
"Thanks. That awfully nice to say after I've been insulting you."
"It wasn't meant to be a compliment, you flea brained nitwit!"
"What did you call me?!"
And so the team dynamic was established.
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Author's Notes: Hello again. This was all going to be the extra for chapter 15 of my biggest story, but... Yeah, it dragged on too long.
Now, to answer reviews:
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Q: Where did you get the idea for this?
A: TvTropes is weird, and if you leave an idea there, people will capitalize on it and expand it.
And I was watching old Power Rangers videos before reading the chapter with the after effects of Danzo's techniques being ignored.
So, after someone theorized that the Shodar/Sharingarm (read: The Shodarm) would become the new big bad of the series. Then I said, no, no, it looks more like a mentor.
And so this was stuck in my head until I wrote it.
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Also, as an afterthought, next chapter 'll be a bit darker than this one, as, you guessed it, the 'anti-giant monster weapons' will be destroyed and the Evil 'wardens' will appear.