Channel 6- The Duel

"I can't believe I'm going to this thing!" Siwon whined as he and Jaejoong made their way through the castle to the large ball room along with many other suitors.

"Well, all you have to do is avoid the princess all night and you'll be fine!" Jaejoong said.

"Why aren't Kangin and Kyuhyun coming?" Siwon asked, looking around.

"They're going off to find out if anyone plans on kidnapping the princess." Jaejoong answered.

"Oh come on!" said Siwon. "Like anyone is just going to tell them!"

"It's not like they were invited so they can't come anyway!" said Jaejoong as he waved hello to a life long friend he had made earlier in the day.

As it turned out, this particular life long friend he had made happened to be the servant/companion of that prince that they had all eavesdropped on earlier. So when the prince noticed his servant waving vigorously to Jaejoong, he also happened to notice Siwon.

He took it upon himself to impose his presence on them.

"Ah," he said arrogantly. "Sir Siwon, I presume?"

Siwon laughed nervously. "Uh…sure!"

"Surely your squire delivered your message to you." The prince went on.

Siwon paused a moment, then he looked at Jaejoong crossly. Jaejoong shrugged, then apologized profusely, then reached into his pocket and handed Siwon a scroll. Siwon opened up the scroll and read it all over very quickly.

Then he looked up. "Um…what?" he tried, not fully understanding the flowery language that was being presented to him.

"To put it into easy terms for you knights," said the prince. "I challenge you to a duel."

Siwon nodded. "Ah, that's right!" he looked back at the scroll. "Hmm…yes, I see it now! Right here, how could I have missed it?"

"I wish for it to be tomorrow at noon." Said the prince.

"Tomorrow at noon?" said Siwon. "That's no good for me. How about some time next year?"

"Tomorrow at noon." The prince repeated.

"You got it." Said Siwon, pouting.

"We shall duel for the princess's love." Said the prince.

"With all due respect, do you really think that she'll really love the person who wins when we fight each other?" Siwon said.

The prince was just about to respond when a maid suddenly sprinted out to where all the lords and princes and knights were gathered.

"The princess has been kidnapped!" she wailed.

The entire crowd gasped.

As it happens, the king was sitting right there, and he stood up dramatically. "The man who brings my daughter back to me shall have her as his bride!" he announced.

Everyone paused for a few seconds and then a mad rush for the door.

Siwon was trampled, but he wasn't trying all that hard to get out the door and soon he was the only one left in the entire room, aside from Jaejoong.

"Come on, Siwon!" said Jaejoong, trying to pull him along.

"Why?" said Siwon. "I don't want to marry the princess!"

"But if one of these other guys rescues her then we won't get a chance to save her and then we'll never leave this Universe!" Jaejoong reminded him.

"Point taken!" Siwon got to his feet and the two of them ran out of the castle. They were just in time to see all the other suitors taking off on their horses in different directions.

"There's so much competition!" complained Jaejoong. "We have to get to her first!"

"I knew I should have brought my horse!" said Siwon. "Now we have to go all the way back to the house to get it!"

"Sor-ry!" said Jaejoong. "We're not that far away so I didn't think you'd need it! Besides, you have to go back to get your sword and stuff anyway!"

"Let's hurry!" said Siwon as the two of them started running back to the house, but were suddenly grabbed by mysterious people in the shadows and pulled behind a bush.

"Don't worry, it's just us!" said Kangin reassuringly.

"What is it?" said Siwon. "We're in a hurry!"

"Kyuhyun and I were hiding in the bushes and creepin hard on the princess,” said Kangin.

Siwon and Jaejoong raised their eyebrows. Kyuhyun slapped Kangin.

“What Kangin meant to say was that he and I were hiding in the bushes and creepin hard on the princess, so we would see any potential danger that she needs to be rescued from." Explained Kyuhyun as if what he was saying was something entirely different. "So we know precisely where the kidnappers are headed."

"We brought some horses,” Kangin said grumpily, rubbing his cheek that got -slapped.

"You did bring MY horse, didn't you?" said Siwon with that face that was all like, "I have an emotional attachment to MY horse and I refuse to ride any other one."

"Well duh." Said Kangin with that face that was all like, "I know you have an emotional attachment to your horse. Riding a different horse would be pretty impossible. Except for Heechul, but he's an exception because he's creepy."

And a shiver ran down everyone's spin in remembrance of Heechul's creepiness.

"Well, let's go!" said Siwon as he got up on his horse. His horse was, of course, the most beautiful of all the others since it was armored and decorated and totally white. The other two were brown and only had saddles.

"Two?" Jaejoong repeated. "What about me?"

"Ride with Siwon or something." Said Kyuhyun as he grabbed one of the horses and attempted to mount it but failed miserably.

"You make it look so easy, Siwon!" said Kangin as he failed as well.

"I guess as pirates you guys don't have the skill of mounting horses!" said Jaejoong as he grabbed one of the horses and jumped up on it with ease.

Kangin and Kyuhyun frowned, and eventually Kangin climbed on the back of Jaejoong's and Kyuhyun climbed on the back of Siwon's.

"Okay, so which way are we going?" Siwon asked.

"Head that way." Kyuhyun said, pointing.

Siwon started riding in the direction that was required with such expertise. Jaejoong followed after him with less expertise, but ENOUGH to keep up. They just left the other one there to fend for itself in the cold cruel world.

"There's a short cut through these woods to the path that we saw the kidnappers take off down!" said Kangin.

"Many thanks for the tip!"

The quartet craned their necks to look behind them and saw that ever so familiar prince gaining on them while also mounted on a horse.

"Hey!" said Siwon as he tried to urge his horse to go faster but there was too much weight. Soon, the prince caught up to them and passed right by, disappearing off in the distance.

"That's no good!" said Jaejoong.

"At this rate, he's going to rescue the princess before us!" said Kangin. "And we'll never get out of here!"

"We need to lose some weight!" Siwon said, looking back at Kyuhyun.

"Why does it have to be me?" said Kyuhyun.

"Kyuhyun, I know you're smarter than that." Said Siwon with a frown.

"Oh very well." Said Kyuhyun.

Siwon quickly came to a stop and practically shoved Kyuhyun off the horse. Then he tore off deeper into the forest, leaving the others in his dust. Just when he thought all was lost, he saw the path up ahead of him, and even better, he saw the prince rounding out onto the path.

"Sir Siwon!" said the prince, sounding surprised. "How did you catch up?"

"I lost some weight!" said Siwon.

"Then I suppose it is a race between the two of—" the prince began but he was unable to finish because both he and Siwon had been looking at each other, therefore had not been looking FORWARD, so they had both crashed into a low branch. They were clothes lined off their horses and landed on their backs on the path as their horses took off.

They lied there for a few seconds.

"Oww…" they both whined.

This clued them into the fact that they were still in the presence of their rival, so they jumped to their feet and faced each other.

The prince was the first one to draw his sword.

"Come!" he said. "We shall have our duel right now to decide who is truly worthy of the princess's love!"

Siwon froze.

"Draw your sword!" The prince ordered.

Slowly, Siwon reached for his sword and pulled it out of the sheath. Unluckily for the prince, that sword happened to be doused with holy water, so Siwon suddenly had a mysterious light shine behind him and what sounded in the distance like a gospel choir sing OHHHHHHH! The prince blinked.

“I am Shisus,” Siwon—or if you prefer to call him Shisus, that’s okay, too—said sternly. He narrowed his eyes at the prince. “How dare you tempt me to use violence. Violence is NEVER the answer!”

The prince took a cautious step backwards from the crazy-looking man. Siwon/Shisus immediately went on the offensive and started swinging his sword back and forth wildly, apparently choosing to entirely ignore his previous statement, but the prince skillfully (and luckily) parried or blocked each of the attacks.

"Shisus will smite you!" Siwon screamed as his sword like LITERALLY erupted into a glowing beam of utter holiness and he mightily swung it with one hand. The prince raised his sword to block it, and as the two of them clashed, the prince's shattered into a million trillion pieces.

The prince fell to the ground because of the force of the attack, now unarmed, as Siwon stood with his sword pointed under the prince's chin.

Both remained like that for quite the while, until they heard the sound of a horse trotting up.

"Siwon, what are you doing?" Kangin said, looking surprised. The three of them were on one very pooped looking horse.

Kyuhyun jumped off the horse and calmly confiscated the sword from Siwon.

Siwon looked at the prince and then at Kyuhyun, Jaejoong and Kangin.

"I'm sorry…" said Siwon, looking back at the prince.

But the prince just backed away from Siwon as fast as he could and ran in the opposite direction faster than the speed of light.

"Wow." Said Jaejoong, leaning on the poor horse's head after observing the prince's reaction and the broken sword on the ground. "Really, what did you do?"

"We uh…had our duel…" Siwon answered as he heard another horse coming, and luckily enough, it was just his sword returning after it had noticed that Siwon was not aboard.

"I thought you said you couldn't duel." Kyuhyun said, putting the sword in Siwon's sheath for safekeeping.

"I didn't THINK I could…" Siwon admitted as he grabbed the reins of his horse and pulled himself up. He then helped Kyuhyun up as well, and once again, they started to ride.

"How far ahead were they?" Jaejoong asked, sounding bored that they had to ride for so long.

"You two didn't exit much later after they did." Kyuhyun said. "But we have dawdled a lot."

"I think I see something up ahead." Siwon reported, squinting.

They all looked ahead to see a few horses going at a slower pace. Kyuhyun instructed them to stray from the path and ride parallel to the other riders.

Kangin patted his pockets and then pulled out a telescope. He peered through it for a bit and then reported, "They've got the princess!"

"Why are you carrying that telescope around?" Jaejoong asked.

"Because I'm a pirate." Kangin answered.

"Can I see it?" said Jaejoong.

"No!" said Kangin. "You have to steer the horse!"

"That's not fair…" whined Jaejoong as he faced forward.

"Here's the plan." Said Kyuhyun. "We ride over there. Get the princess. Then we leave."

"Well, I don't know how we can fail with THAT plan!" said Kangin sarcastically.

"It's easy enough." Said Siwon.

Siwon and Jaejoong reared their horses and rode directly towards the kidnappers, ambushing them. The kidnappers were all quite frightened and startled as they tried to collect themselves, but most of them had fallen off their horses, including the one that had been carrying the princess.

"Hand the princess over and no one will get hurt!" said Kangin as he jumped off the horse and drew his pirate sword.

Everyone else did the same, except for Jaejoong who suddenly found that he didn't have a sword and instantly felt less cool than the rest.

"Sir Siwon, my HERO!" exclaimed the princess as she fainted.

"What about the rest of us?" said Kyuhyun.

"Just be thankful she didn't recognize you from when you guys kidnapped her." Jaejoong said.

The kidnappers looked around frantically and realized they were totally out of their league, since all the mounted kidnappers had taken off. So they dropped the princess and ran off as fast as they could while waving their arms in the air like fool children.

The pirates and knights looked at each other, shrugged, and put away their weapons.

Slowly, they approached the unconscious princess.

"You saved the princess." Jaejoong commented to Siwon. "That means you have to marry her."

"No I don't!" said Siwon.

"That's what the king said." Jaejoong reminded him.

"You guys helped!" Siwon said.

"But you did most of it!" Jaejoong argued as if it made a huge difference.

"Why aren't we changing Universes?" Kangin said to Kyuhyun, totally unconcerned with Siwon and Jaejoong's disagreement.

"Maybe we have to take her back to the castle." Said Kyuhyun, looking at the remote that still said 'rescue the princess'.

Siwon leaned over and made an action like he was ABOUT to pick her up, but almost as soon as he touched her, they were all enveloped in white light.

"What's going on?" Jaejoong said.

"This is it." Said Kangin. "This is happened when we got transported last time!"

"What luck." Said Kyuhyun as he whipped out the controller and pressed the changing channel button.

When the white light cleared, everyone was once again disappointed to find that they weren't home.

"That's a disappointment!" said Siwon, standing up. Then he caught sight of his white horse. "Hey guys…my horse followed us."

Everyone looked at the horse, and then looked enviously at Siwon. He and Jaejoong were still dressed as their appointed positions from Knight Universe, while Kyuhyun and Kangin were, yes, STILL pirates.

They certainly looked out of place in this new Universe. It was very dark. That might have been because it was it was nighttime, but they got the vibe that this place was probably darker than normal places even in the daytime. The shadows were hard, and the outlines were equally defined. There was a distinct fog set on the little town they were in the middle of, but they got the general feeling that no one was around.

After taking a closer look at one of the shop windows, Jaejoong gasped.

"It's black and white!" said Jaejoong.

"We're in Black and White Universe?" Kangin said as a question mark formed above his head.

"It is awfully suspicious for strange people to be wandering around at this time of night."

They turned around and saw a set of feet in the shadows. They peered at the intrusive figure, but it was impossible to get any more information from the murky shadows that concealed his face.

Slowly, the figure took a few steps forward, his body becoming illuminated more and more as he stepped out into view. He was wearing a long gray trench coat and an old fashion hat, having it dipped over one eye. He was also holding a cigarette lazily in one hand, and his other hand was in his pocket.

"…Key?"