So... I rewatched the third Keroro Gunsou movie about a week ago and remembered this idea I got a while ago, decided to add a humorous spin to it instead of the dreary one I had to begin with. I guess you didn't have to wait long for another chapter after all, huh?

Summary: When Dark Keroro receives a message from the Keron Army, he thinks he may be forced to become an invader once again. Calling on the help of the Keroro Platoon to help mask his path into exile, will it all end in vain?

Dark Keroro, Dark Tamama, Shivava, and Doruru watched the Hinaras from the screen in the command room of their secret base – which looked eerily similar to the one the Keroro Platoon constructed beneath the Hinata household. Standing at the front and center battle station, Dark Keroro turned to the station at his righthand side, arms crossed authoritatively. "Daku Tamama, status report."

"Natsuki-dono is in the kitchen doing the dishes," the soldier readily replied.

Dark Keroro called behind him. "Shivava?"

"Fuyutsuki is on the couch reading manga," the blue-eyed Keronian informed.

"Doruru?" Dark Keroro proceeded.

"No visitors approaching or on premise," growled the ex-military commander.

This time set anew with focus, Dark Keroro set his gaze back upon the screen that showed Natsuki scrubbing in the sink while muttering to herself. "All right..." he said slowly. Then, throwing one hand out from being tucked under his red scarf, he shouted, "Commence Operation: Soap Bubble Monster –!" An alarm cut him off.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Dark Tamama yelled over the alarm.

"I SAID COMMENCE OPERATION –!" Dark Keroro tried to scream back, until the alarms randomly shut off, baffling them both.

"Boss, there's a message from some unknown number over here," said Shivava, spinning around in his chair so Dark Keroro could see his screen.

"What number is that...?" Dark Keroro asked, squinting with a hand over his head.

"I'll put it up on the big screen." Shivava clicked a few times until he gave a triumphant dash across the enter key. When what appeared was the Keron Army insignia shining brightly, Dark Keroro jumped back, cringing on his seat.

"I-it can't be...!"

Dark Keroro Platoon Presents: Now drafting you – de arimasu

"And so there it is!" Dark Keroro declared, not bothering to hide his distress as he pounded his hands on the wooden table in Keroro's basement room. Keroro and Tamama watched him and Dark Tamama on opposite sides, not entirely sure what to say.

"S-so, you want our help to mask your presence from the Keron Army?" Keroro asked, rubbing a hand to his chin.

Dark Keroro nodded ardently. "That's right. I don't know how they found me, but it's obvious if they're sending me a signal saying they want me to go to the headquarters stationed on Grand Star at the edge of this star cluster, it can't be good."

Keroro nodded in agreement. "You have a point there." He pulled a walkie-talkie out of nowhere – surprising even Tamama beside him (Where was he keeping that...?) – and yelled into it, "Kururu Souchou! Get up here immediately!"

"Roger that, kuku~" said the voice from the walkie-talkie. Dark Keroro and Dark Tamama exchanged glances of hesitation with each other until a panel from the floor slid back and the Keroro Platoon's yellow technician rose from the chair that rose from the created hole, as confidant as ever with his arms folded over his chest, sitting comfortably. "Kukukuuu~ You said you needed something?"

"The dark twins of Tamama and I need your help hiding themselves from the Keron Army," Keroro explained in Dark Keroro's and Dark Tamama's stead.

"Oh ho?" Kururu huffed amusedly, fixing his glasses and hopping off the chair for it to lower back into the hole that sealed itself in the ground. He walked toward them.

"That's right," Keroro said. "The Keron Army sent them a message saying –"

"I already know what it says," Kururu interrupted, stopping in front of Keroro with a look that was lined with annoyance from Keroro wasting his time.

For a moment, Keroro didn't register. "What? You did? How?!"

Kururu snorted. "While you were all at your mock excursion last week, I was decoding a message from the Keron Army that said they were going to send reinforcements to Pokepon to recover 'precious equipment' of theirs. Kukuku."

"Why didn't you tell us?!" Dark Keroro burst, standing from the wooden table. The ferocity in his tone startled both of the Tamamas – and Keroro.

"You never asked," Kururu dead panned, not even flinching.

Dark Keroro pounded one fist on the table, causing the cans of cola and grape soda resting on the surface to fizz a little. "THAT'S NO EXCUSE!"

"Now, now, Nii-san," Keroro coddled, rubbing his hands together and smiling pleasantly, "there's no need to be angry with –"

"Yeah right!" Dark Keroro yelled, slicing a hand through the air. Everyone – save Kururu – jumped. "We don't have time to be dealing with tricksters like him! We have to get out of here before the Keron Army realizes that we're gone! We have to –!"

"Done," said Kururu, everyone turning to him.

Caught in the heat of his ramble, Dark Keroro muttered, deflated, "What?"

Kururu held up the tech notepad he had been writing on. "All the necessary preparations have been made. When you and your platoon mates leave the system, your spacecraft should be untraceable, as will any files or records regarding your existence. Kukukuuu~" he snickered.

"You did that in only the amount of time I was talking?" Dark Keroro asked disbelievingly.

"That's right, but you'd better hurry up before the Keron Army realizes all their data on you is gone. They're sure to have backups that I can't access them until they've been uploaded, since they're isolated on another hard drive for the time being."

Dark Keroro nodded in comprehension. "Right. Thanks for your help. Let's go, Daku Tamama."

"Yes, sir!" Dark Tamama chirped as he stood. Before he exited, he turned and gave Tamama one last salute. "I hope to see you again sometime in the next life, other me!"

"Same here!" Tamama answered, standing with a salute of his own.

Feeling dejected that Dark Keroro hadn't even bothered to say good-bye to him, Keroro commented quietly, "I didn't think you and Dark Tamama got along."

Tamama was caught off guard by the question and stuttered a little when he asked, "E-eh?! Wh-what on Pekopon made you think that?!"

Keroro's face drew up with thought as he rubbed the side of his head, memories of the times he had seen Tamama and Dark Tamama talking as if hatching some kind of love plot. "Now that I think about it, I'm not sure..."

Dark Keroro stared at the Hinara house as the others in his platoon loaded their bags into the same spacecraft Dark Keroro had used to get to Pokepon in the first place, – the same spacecraft Dark Keroro had ridden in after he'd been reborn as a friend of Fuyuki and the Keroro Platoon, – and that Dark Tamama had ridden in for the first time after he'd been created...

Natsuki-dono... Fuyutsuki-dono... The wind stirred the white flaps of his hat around his face, protected by anti-barrier along with his ship and his crew. I'm sorry for leaving without saying good-bye. He couldn't bear the thought of explaining his situation to Fuyutsuki, whom he had grown so close to over the last year and a half. Behind him, Shivava called, "We're all ready over here, boss!" tearing him away from the only place he'd ever had to call home. As Dark Keroro climbed the stairs into the cockpit and buckled himself down for their who-knew-how-long journey into deep space, as far away from the Keron Army's reaches as possible, he couldn't help but feel the nostalgic sense of freedom and loss similar to what he had felt when he had first embarked from Pekopon. I guess clones and rogue soldiers like us don't have the right to call one place "home" for long...

Something in his reluctance to start the engine must have struck the others, who were sitting in the seats around him. Dark Keroro looked over when Dark Tamama shifted in the seat beside him, then to the faces of the platoon mates behind him. It was as if they all knew what he'd been thinking...

"Dai Gunsou-sama –"

Dark Keroro started the engine, easing the spacecraft up and out of Pokepon's atmosphere.

Once they had reached a distance passed the planet's moon, it was Doruru – of all the unlikely instances – that spoke, puffing out of the side of his mouth, "I guess we're back to square one then, huh?"

"DAI GUNSOU-SAN, WAKE UP! WAKE UP, RIGHT NOW!"

Dark Keroro rubbed his eyes, groaning at Dark Tamama's clingy hands that were shaking him. (Fifteen days on the same spacecraft with the same three people and little time to land to stretch their legs made them all grumpy.) "Whaaat? Don't tell me you found another pink planet that you wanted to point out –" Something rocked the spacecraft all over, waking him up more and rousing Shivava and Doruru sleeping behind him. Dark Keroro's eyes shot to the large window in the front of the craft to see huge rocks twirling against a background of stars – meteoroids. "What the hell?! How did we get into an asteroid field?!" he outburst. When Dark Tamama only twiddled his index fingers together in front of him and Dark Keroro saw the dry trail of drool on one of his cheeks, he knew Dark Tamama must have fallen asleep during his watch and accidentally tilted the steering wheel. The ship rattled again upon impact with another meteoroid. "Never mind that now," he growled, jumping up to take command in the front cockpit seat. "Everyone, to your stations!"

"Boss...? What's going on?" Shivava yawned.

"Get up," Doruru ordered, already on his feet.

"Five more minutes," Shivava requested, pulling the covers back over him and lying down, burying his face in his sleeping bag. "Or... hours..."

A third meteoroid rocked the ship, this time with such force that it threw everyone against the sides of the ship – including the unsuspecting, groggy Shivava. "WHAT THE –?! WHAT WAS THAT?!" he burst wildly.

"We've drifted into an asteroid field," Dark Keroro gritted out while trying to steer around the space rocks spinning their way. "Get to your station!" he barked.

Shivava didn't need any more convincing. "A-aye-aye, sir!"

Shivava and Doruru blasted the meteoroids that came their way while Dark Tamama kept an eye on the different magnetic fields so they wouldn't get sucked into one of the larger asteroids around them and sustain severe damage. It took a solid half hour, having near misses with just about every asteroid that crossed their path, until they emerged, in even worse moods than before.

"Jeez! Which idiot here decided it would be good to fly directly into a field of asteroids?!" Shivava questioned, pointing his finger around at everyone accusingly. When it was Dark Tamama that looked away, that screamed "guilty" in Shivava's mind. He stood and tromped over to Dark Tamama with his fists raised. "Hey! I know you're not exactly that old, but you could at least watch where we're going! I was having a good dream too!"

Dark Keroro stuck out his arms to stop Shivava before he reached Dark Tamama. "It was a simple mistake. Any one of us here could have made it under these circumstances."

"BUT HE –!"

"That's enough," Dark Keroro cut Shivava off, giving him a sharp glare. "We can blame each other later. Right now we have other things to be worried around."

"Oh yeah? Like what?" Shivava snapped.

Dark Keroro turned to the large window that showed blackness studded with only a sparse design of white stars. "Our location..."

Doruru suggested, "There's a planet with sustainable life on it not to far from this system. Let's land there for now."

It was an orange, rust-colored planet with little on the terrain except rolling mounds of orange dirt. "This place sure is barren..." Shivava muttered.

"Daku Tamama, you guard the ship," said Dark Keroro. The rest of us will go search for something to patch the ship up with and hopefully get an idea of our position..."

"Yes, sir!" Dark Tamama saluted, watching them walk, disappearing over the hazy horizon.

They walked for hours. "Is there really nothing out here...?" Shivava voiced, all three of them dried from the sun beating down on the surface of the planet. No sooner had the words come out of his mouth when he saw a structure in the hazy distance that looked quite like a tall building. "Wait there's something over there!"

"Wait, Shivava!" Dark Keroro said, reaching after him. "That's just –!"

"Water, sweet water!"

Dark Keroro and Doruru watched as Shivava ran to the mound of dirt – no more than ten feet high and twenty feet away – and hugged it. Then, realizing its size and composition had been an illusion to him, he kicked the mound in fury, only to stub his toe and fall on the ground. When Dark Keroro and Doruru reached him, cringing on the ground, he whined, "This isn't fair...!"

The ground beneath them rumbled, not from impact, but from the entering of something in the atmosphere.

"Wh-what was that?!" Dark Keroro asked, looking up in the sky. He saw a second sun, in the shape of a flying saucer, appear above the yellow, gaseous clouds. Grand Star gleamed in the sky, blotting out the sun.

"ATTENTION, ALL ALIEN INHABITANTS. THIS IS THE COMMANDER OF GRAND STAR, GENERAL IN THE KERON ARMY SPEAKING. WE WILL BE COLLECTING YOU WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR. PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE AND WITHOUT RESISTANCE UNTIL THE TIME COMES. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION."

"Where did they even come from?!" Shivava exclaimed.

"How did they find us?!" Dark Keroro burst. Then he gasped. "No... Daku Tamama!" He broke out at a run toward the spacecraft below the drones being sent out of Grand Star, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"We have to stay calm," said Doruru.

"But Daku Tamama!"

"It's already too late..." said Shivava.

"I can't just leave him behind!"

"I'm not saying you leave him behind."

"...Then what are you saying?"

"Boss, we need a plan," said Doruru. "You don't want them to catch all of us, do you?"

Dark Keroro was still caught in the nerve of his thinking he may have to go back and work as a clone for the Keron Army. I can't go back to my days of invading... There's no way... But I can't let them harm Dark Tamama because of me! He shook himself, hardening his expression and his stance. "You're right. It sounds like their commander is going to be meeting us on the surface. Or someone of high authority. At that time, we should take them hostage and demand that they return Daku Tamama and our spacecraft to us."

A progression of soldiers, all bearing the Keron Army insignia on their helmets, lined up on either side of the opening landing pad to receive the four of them. As an official marched down the line of soldiers to board the ship himself, the cockpit whipped open, four figures darting out and tackling the captain in the front. "No one move or else!" Dark Keroro threatened, a knife to the captain's throat. Instead of drawing their weapons, the other soldiers gave him blank, nervous stares, confusing Dark Keroro.

More surprisingly enough, the captain Dark Keroro had taken hostage was the one to speak up. "C-calm down, we're not here to –"

"Shut your mouth," Dark Keroro snapped, pressing the knife further into his throat. "Take me to whoever is in charge around here." When no one moved, Dark Keroro shouted, "Right now!"

A loud voice laughed over the rest. "Don't worry, we're not here to talk you back. Daku Keroro, is it?"

Dark Keroro cocked an eyebrow at the unfamiliar voice using his name so lightly. "Then what do you want?"

"You'd better give Daku Tamama back to us, or else I'll –"

"Daku Tamama? Don't worry about that," the voice over the loudspeaker said. From their spacecraft emerged Dark Tamama with a grin plastered on his face, looking cleaner and better kept than any of the three dried up Keronian jerky twitching on the ground, barely able to stand. "We're here to provide assistance on your newest journey."

"Oh..." Dark Keroro repeated the syllable in his head until it registered. Oh...

"...And that's what happened," said Dark Keroro, in him and Dark Tamama in Keroro's basement sitting across from Keroro and Tamama yet again.

Keroro blew a raspberry, sitting back with a sigh of relief. "Huh, that sounds like something that happened to us not too long ago..."

"Really?" Dark Tamama asked.

"Yeah, I received a message sent through the Keron Army's emergency number saying that I needed to return to Keron immediately, but it was actually sent by my parents..." Keroro scratched the back of his head with embarrassment. "So what did the Keron Army want?"

Dark Keroro and Dark Tamama looked at each other uncertainly. "Well..."

Keroro and Tamama blinked. "Eh?"

"They heard that I had created another clone copy and asked if they could see how both of us have progressed mentally and emotionally on our own."

"Really?" Tamama asked. "That doesn't sound like something the Keron Army would do to me..."

"That's what they said," Dark Keroro confirmed, shrugging a little.

"What did you tell them, then?" Keroro asked.

Even Dark Tamama hadn't heard what Dark Keroro had said to the general of Grand Star, having been permitted to rejoining his platoon mates and was curious to know. "I said... that both of us were doing great as comrades in arms."

"That's good!" Keroro smiled.

For some reason Dark Keroro's answer disappointed Dark Tamama just a little bit, even if he didn't entirely understand why.

When the visit was over and the door to Keroro's basement room had shut behind them, Dark Keroro stopped before the ladder back to the upstairs, seeing the dejected look on Dark Tamama's face. "Daku Tamama...?"

"Dai Gunsou-sama, is that..." He bit his lip. He wasn't sure if he should even say what he was about to. "Is that really all you see me as?"

Dark Keroro blinked. "Like what?"

"Only a 'comrade-in-arms'...?"

Dark Keroro recalled the feeling of warmth he had felt when Dark Tamama had cried in his arms. He didn't know what to make of that feeling, but he knew it was something else... something different than the friendship he felt for Fuyuki and Fuyutsuki – who he was still making up to for leaving so unexpectedly and without explanation. So, what was it he felt for Dark Tamama? "If I'm entirely honest with myself, no, that's not how I feel at all," Dark Keroro murmured, so low that Dark Tamama barely even heard him.

That wasn't the answer Dark Tamama had been expecting to hear, even if it was what he hoped. His crystalline red eyes riveted upon Dark Keroro. "Then...?"

"You're something more," Dark Keroro said. "Even if I don't understand it, I know for a fact that you're something more..."

"Don't understand it...?" Dark Tamama asked, cocking his head to one side.

"Please understand, Daku Tamama. I wasn't programmed to ever have a will of my own. I was only meant to invade this planet and serve as its king. Thinking about something like that was... impossible for me."

Dark Tamama drooped a little at the word "impossible," until Dark Keroro continued.

"But now, I think I can say for a fact that this isn't something that I was programmed to think, feel, or do." Dark Keroro placed one hand on his chest, over the Keron Star on his belly, feeling his own skin and pulse beating underneath. "I'm... my own person. I'm the one who ordered for you to be created, not because I thought it was necessary for an invasion, but because I wanted someone just like you..." Dark Keroro looked at him. "You're more than I could have ever asked for, yet I'm still, honestly, afraid of this feeling... so please understand... that I just want to take things slow and not rush until I know for sure... Okay?"

Dark Keroro jolted when he saw that Dark Tamama's hands had drawn up to his cheeks, a deep shade of scarlet overcoming his cheeks.

"Wh-what's with that look?!" Dark Keroro stammered, unnerved a little.

"Dai Gunsou-sama!" He pounced on Dark Keroro without a second thought, wrapping his arms around Dark Keroro's shoulders and nuzzling him affectionately.

"H-hey –!"

"I-I'm sorry," Dark Tamama apologized, sitting back from Dark Keroro. "I didn't mean to –"

Dark Keroro sat up and hugged Dark Tamama properly this time.

Dark Tamama just about exploded from how fast his heart was pounding in his chest, and continued to squeal in delight, having Dark Keroro's arms around him.

On the other side of the door, Keroro and Tamama couldn't help but turn their heads from the TV where they battled on Super Captain Geroro Legacy to the delighted noises on the other side of the door. "What's going on out there...?" Keroro asked, though he made no move to go check.

With a heavy, yet light feeling in his heart, Tamama turned back to the screen.

He knew, and if Dark Keroro and Dark Tamama could, maybe him and Keroro, one day, could too...

Remember how I used to say that my one shots never turn out the way I expect? Well that's true for all of my writing these days, hahaha~ I didn't mean for this one shot to end like this, but here I am and there it is.

Once again, thanks for your support, and I hope you'll tell me what you thought of this one shot and my other stories in the future! (salutes) Well then, I'm off! ^^