"Pika pi!" announced the pikachu as it appeared.
"Good idea, Naruto," said Sakura. "With all this water around, electrical attacks should be more effective."
"Eh? Oh yeah. Right. That was my plan."
Sasuke snorted.
"Pika?" asked the pikachu.
"A yellow pudgy rabbit thing?" asked Zabuza.
"PIKACHUUUUU!" CRACKLE ZAP!
Zabuza blocked with his sword. Zabuza got poofy hair and slightly charcoaled as a result.
"Uhm, no, Naruto," said Kakashi. "Really. Guard the client. Not engage the missing-nin in a pokebattle."
"A wha? It doesn't matter, Sharingan Kakashi. It's a pity that your little genin will die here, unless of course you're willing to just walk away from that bridge builder?" Zabuza decided to ignore the way his hair was still poofing out. Better that way.
"Zabuza Momochi, please don't take this the wrong way, but you're the most normal thing to happen so far on this mission," said Kakashi. "It's actually a relief to face someone like you in a life-or-death battle over the survival of a drunk client. This is something NORMAL."
"Uhm, right, confident aren't you?" asked Zabuza.
Music began to play.
"Naruto. Turn off 'random encounters' would you?" asked Kakashi. "I would have thought it would do that automatically."
"It says that we were queued for a random dungeon and it's available, and do you want to specify 'Zabuza Momochi' as random guest character?" Naruto asked, fairly confused.
"Some of this not-normal stuff you were referring to?" asked Zabuza. Beneath the mask he grinned. "Go ahead. Let's see what you've got-"
KA POOF!
It was a cavern, lit by pools of leaping lava off to the side. It smelled of fire and brimstone and other less identifiable things.
"Okay," said Zabuza. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this is some of what you've been going through. Is this hell then?"
"Only relatively," said Kakashi.
"Sorry, I musta hit 'accept' somewhere," said Naruto as Sakura crowded close.
"Put my icon in the back," said Sakura. "Same with Rin. Right. Okay, select 'Fuu' as party member."
"It says 'Fuu is currently unavailable'," pointed out Naruto as he tried that.
"Would it be terribly difficult for someone to explain what exactly is going on here?" asked Zabuza. After all, if he killed everyone here - that was no guarantee that he'd go back to where he'd been a moment ago. He'd already tried dispelling a genjutsu and gotten nowhere.
"We're working on that, do we have a truce for now?" asked Kakashi.
"For now, in accordance with Article 26 of the Sarutobi Accord," agreed Zabuza, putting his sword across his back. He knew these Konoha ninja were sticklers for rules like that.
"Help menu," instructed Sakura. "Hit the section there. Okay. You can have one pet active at any given point, but you can swap them out at any given point."
Zabuza glanced at the yellow rabbit thing, figuring that was a pet - and the bull had disappeared as the rabbit appeared so he could swap one for the other. Some sort of summoning contract? But then what was the device?
"So we have a party ready," said Sakura. "Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei, and Zabuza-san in front. Naruto, Rin, and myself in rear. Rin's specified as Healer."
"Well, at least that part makes sense," admitted Rin.
"Am I on that thing?" asked Tazuna, deciding to sit down on a large rock.
"No, oh wait - here you are," said Sakura. "Under mission NPCs, and inactive."
"That explains why I tried to sit down and fell through the rock," noted Tazuna.
"I missed that?" asked Naruto, sounding disappointed.
"So how do we exit?" asked Sasuke.
"Hit that switch. No, go back. THAT switch. Here it is. Either we finish the dungeon, or we die, we quit, or we queue for another dungeon and abandon this one." Sakura glanced up. "'Die'?"
"Hold, adventurers," said a ghostly figure that formed near an archway cut into the rock. "Know you that past here is where a terrible darkness has gathered to threaten the world above!"
"Ah, this would be the quest," said Sakura brightly. "This part is kind of like Monster Ranch Deuteronomy."
"What kind of 'terrible darkness'?" asked Zabuza.
"I wonder if you are up to it," said the ghostly figure.
"It's a predetermined script," guessed Sakura. "Probably can't respond to questions."
"Hey! Maybe I can swap out..." said Naruto, checking a couple of things.
[Hiruzen Sarutobi is not currently available.]
"Oh, darn. Jiji woulda loved getting away from that paperwork stuff," said Naruto.
Kakashi twitched at the thought of what could have happened if Naruto HAD managed to pull the Hokage into this.
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(Posted Sun, 19 May 2013 23:11)
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