Okay, once upon a time, some time ago, there was a poor couple, recently married, and they were expecting a kid. All was going well, but the thing was, the wife, because of all those hormonal things and stuff, kept craving the weirdest things during the pregnancy. Although she was a vicious meat-eater (and her husband was testament to this little innuendo), all she wanted, all she begged for, was salad, but not just any greeny meal, but one that boasted a rare green called "rapunzel."

I know, I know, you're never heard of this green before, have you? Neither did the husband, but the wife knew exactly what it was and knew also where to get the plant. It just so happens that right next door lived a witch (she was called that because she acted so witchy towards everyone) who grew all sorts of herbs and stuff on her property.

So, to make sure his preggy wife's tastes were satisfied, he snuck into the witch's garden every night, plucked a few springs of the green, and dashed back to his wife for her evening salad.

Unfortunately, the woman started begging for the 'rapunzel' more often, and nagged her husband enough times to make him go collect more of the stuff before his wife threw a big hissy fit and lost their kid.

One night, while trying his best to get a bough's worth of 'rapunzel', the witch caught him and, after witch-slapping him with a broom, dragged him to the house and confronted the thief's wife.

"Listen, woman," the witch said, adjusting her glasses, "I don't know why your sniveling husband didn't ask me for the stuff earlier, but frankly, stealing is unacceptable."

"We're sorry, Lady," the wife said politely, "but we don't have the money the afford the 'rapunzel' in the first place. Please forgive us."

"I can't do that. You're made me upset and must pay somehow." The witch thought for a moment. "I know. I'll let you have as much rapunzel as you want, but I only want one thing in exchange."

"What?"

"Your child. I have a sixth sense about these things; I know that your child will be a girl. I do have a need for a lovely daughter."

"You want our child?"

"Isn't that what I just say? I'm going to get paid for my plants, and that's all you own, so, as soon as she's born, I'll be coming 'round to pick her up." She turned around and walked out the couple's little hut. "Enjoy your salad."

Anyway, the kid was born soon enough, and the witch was right on time to pick up her payment.

But, man, was she surprised! Instead of a lovely girl, she got a lovely boy!

"What is the meaning of this!" the witch cried out, infuriated.

"We don't know," the wife said. "It's not like we can control stuff like that."

"It doesn't matter," the witch said, clutching the kid close to her chest. "It's still my payment. Have a good life." With that, she dashed off to her magical home.

Anyway, the kid grew up, like all kids tend to do, and as time passed, the boy turned out to a pretty cute looking guy. Smooth, girlish face, long golden-brown hair, and the prettiest pair of eyes you have ever seen.

He became too beautiful, actually. Whenever the witch took him with her to town, all the girls swoon and all the boys started taunting, or even flirting with, her boy. Seeing this attention as a bad, bad thing, the witch decided the only option she had was to get this boy isolated. So, what does she do? She locks him up in a freakin' tower!

It wasn't like the boy didn't protest! He kicked and punched and bit the witch as she dragged him up that tower, but did she care? No! That witch can take more damage than that little brat can dish.

So, he ends up being locked up in that tower, with nothing else to do other than wash and brush his hair, bounce on the bed she left there, and send little notes in the shape of paper airplanes out of the tower's only window in hopes that someone will find one, come to the tower, and screw him stupid, er, 'rescue' him.

And that was when the witch wasn't around. She showed up every day with food and a new little toy for the hyperactive boy in the tower, because, frankly, he broke most of the toys she gave him anyway. Now, how does she get up there?, you ask because you are an idiot. Well, since there's no door, and no stairs, you would think it was by flying, right? But no! That witch doesn't know how to fly. She has to depend on little mundane means of travel, like climbing up using the poor boy's massive hair braid. As if his life wasn't bad enough, but now, everyday, he has some meanie with buns in her hair yanking on his braid just so that she climb up.

Anyway, somewhere really far away, some prince fellow caught one of our poor boy's paper airplanes. After commenting on the skill that created an airplane that could travel such long distances, the hero read the note and realized it was his duty to find this poor longhaired creature and screw him stupid, er, 'rescue' him.

He got on his horse and galloped off, or something.

It was almost midnight when the hero showed up at the tower and started calling up. "Hey! I got your note!"

Out of the tower's only window popped out the head of the structure's sole occupant. "You got lube?" he cried back.

The hero rummaged through his saddlebag. "No."

"Then go bugger off!"

"Now. See here..."

"No lube, no... huh, 'rescue' Now scram!" With that, our captured boy went back to bed.

Now this really made our hero fellow upset. He came all this way for a screw, er, 'rescue' and the longhaired fool up there won't even let him come up to perform his, uh, 'duty'. But our hero fellow wasn't going to give up, now was he? He decided to stick around for a bit to figure out how to get up there to, uh, well, you know...

Well, lucky for our dark-haired, blue-eyed, oh-so-perfect hero, early that morning, the captive boy's foster-witch came by to drop off breakfast, lunch and dinner for a few days. She was going on a 'Little Trip' with a sorcerer she met the other day, and she wanted to make sure her favorite son is prepared for days of lonely confinement, like this hasn't happen before. She's always finding some new guy, whether it was that blond fellow from Oz, or that other blond fellow from Oz. She goes too fast, they get scared, and then she's back to her witchy self, pouting and moaning and threatening to destroy whole villages. It wasn't her fault that those handsome, elegant blonds from Oz only like handsome, elegant blonds also from Oz...

Anyway, enough about that witch's social life. She showed up by the tower, a huge picnic basket with her, never noticing that our hero fellow was watching from behind some nearby bushes. Raising her head towards the window, she cried out, "Hey boy, let down your hair, so that I can climb up!"

Without a word of protest, the boy's thick, silken hair braid came down and formed a lovely rope for her to climb up with. She, of course, did climb up, and our hero fellow heard very easily that the boy up there was yelping because of the pulling involved in a person climbing his hair.

After leaving the basket and only saying a few words, the witch climbed back down the hair braid and scampered off to her house so that she could get ready for her 'Departures'.

Anyway, like I was saying, our hero fellow heard the phrase and, as soon as he came back from town with a lovely tube o' lube, he stood below the window and called out to the boy inside. "Hey boy," he started, trying to keep his voice somewhat witchy, "Let down your hair, so that I can climb up!"

Just like when the witch said that, the long hair came down to lead him up and our hero fellow took the ride.

When he got up there, the boy with the long hair attached to his head gave a yelp, and it wasn't because hero boy was yanking it. He was expecting the witch, not some blue-eyed hero fellow with a tube o' lube in his hand and a satisfied smirk on his face.

"Don't be frightened. I brought the lube."

"Yeah, I can see that, you didn't need to scare me like that, soundly like that witch Lady." The longhaired boy gave him an amused smirk. "So, you're here to, uh, 'rescue' me?" He sat down on his soft bed, patting the mattress beside him, inviting the dark-haired hero fellow to join him.

"Of course." With that, the hero fellow lunged at the longhaired boy and captured his mouth hungrily. His hands began to 'rescue' the boy's chest when something hit him upside his head.

"What the..." The hero fellow decided to ignore whatever it was that hit his head, but that was until something else hit him.

Growling softly, he got up from the bed, leaving one sad little soon-to-be 'rescued' boy on the bed, and went to the window to see just who was throwing those rocks.

On the ground was a young lady with short dark hair. "Hey, I'm here to, uh, 'rescue' you!" she called out.

"Sorry, lady, but I got here first!" our hero fellow called back.

"Well, excuse me, but I fully intent on going up there and fight you for the lovely young man, so get ready!" She pulled out her beret and daintily placed in on her head before grabbing a launcher that was lying by her side and aiming it at the window.

"Now see here," our wonderful hero fellow began, again...

"Heeeeeerrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooo!"

(Think of an overly excited soccer commentator when he says 'goal' and I think you'll get the picture as to how she sounded...)

Our hero fellow cringed for a second. The girl on the ground passed out from the sheer force of shrill voice. (Boy, that sounded strange.) The soon-to-be 'rescued' boy on the bed tried to cover his ears with his thick hair in a desperate attempt to block out the horrible sound.

"Heeroooo, where are you????!!!!????"

Our brave hero fellow ducked inside once more, but not before the speaker spotted him as she rode up on her horse.

"Heeroooo, I know you're up there!"

"Who's that?" the soon-to-be 'rescued' boy said as our hero fellow joined him in the bed.

"Just Sleeping Beauty. She's stretching out her long-unused vocal chords." Thus said, he wrapping his arms around the longhaired boy and 'rescued' the boy's mouth with his, finally getting to the oh-so-important task of 'rescuing' the longhaired boy.

Neither of them heard the launcher and never saw Sleeping Beauty climb up with a rope. Our hero fellow was too busy biting and kissing his way down the longhaired boy's chest to the obstacle that was his black pants.

She took a deep gulp of air before letting another one rip. (No, you naughty, disgusting person...)

"Heeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooo!"

The lovers cringed and scrambled underneath the sheets in a desperate attempt to escape that voice, but it was really, really dumb of both of them to try. Seeing that she was being ignored, Sleeping Beauty grabbed the blankets off of them, only to see that not only were they ignoring her, they were still trying their hand at the whole 'rescue' thing.

She grabbed our hero fellow's tunic, which was, surprisingly, still on. "You're my Prince Charming, not this longhaired freak's!"

The 'rescued' boy glared at her, holding on tight to our hero fellow's waist, making sure that his 'rescuer' didn't go too far (and to hide his 'rescued' and rather naked body). "Who you callin' a freak!"

"You! You... you..."

She was never able to finish her statement. The second 'rescuer', who quickly recovered from the cry earlier, had climbed up and whacked 'Screaming' Beauty upside her head. The blonde dutifully collapsed on the floor.

"Now," the dark-haired heroine said, cracking her knuckles, "kindly move away from him so that I can properly 'rescue' him."

Our hero fellow took this as a challenge and pulled out his shiny black gun.

The lady-hero pulled out a wooden mallet.

As the two stood face-to-face, sizing each other up, our dear 'supposed-to-have-been-rescued-by-now' boy sighed and got dressed again. "Screw this," he muttered to himself as he shimmied down the rope to the ground outside the tower. At this rate, he'll never get 'rescued'. He had a better chance of bumping into one of those fellows from OZ than of getting 'rescued' anytime soon.

Surprisingly, on the ground was a blond with a bouquet of roses in his arms. Seems that the witch's wonderful date got the wrong clue and came to meet her at the wrong place. Instead of going to the Evil Moat around Oz Castle, he came to the Desolate Tower of the Longhaired Gender-Bender. Such a pity.

"Excuse me," the blond man from Oz interrupted politely, stopping our dear 'who-knew-being-rescued-would-be-such-a-hassle' boy in his tracks. "Um, do you know if this is the Desolate Tower of the Gender-Bender, by any chance?"

"Yeah, it is. Don't tell me you're here to 'rescue' me too. Well, no thanks. I left three idiots up there because of the same thing, and I really just want to get a cheeseburger or something. Wow, haven't had one of those in -ages-... Hey, you wanna come along? And maybe pay for the burger too? Really appreciate it, you know..."

The blond man from OZ blinked. "Are -you- the gender-bender from inside the Desolate Tower?"

"Yeah, and what kind of name is 'gender-bender', anyway? My name -is- Rapunzel, thank you very much."

"Well, I am sorry. I did not know your real name, my lovely young... uh..."

"Man."

"Man," the blond man from OZ corrected himself. He extended his open palm in greeting. "My name is-"

From within the tower popped out the (bandaged) head of our hero fellow. "Now, see here!" he interrupted, again, before being shoved aside from the conscious Sleeping Beauty.

"Biiiiiggggg Brrooo-"

Her mouth was muffled by the lady-hero's hand as the two 'supposed-to-be-good-at-such-things-such-as-rescuing' heroes dragged the blonde back inside. Hopefully, for the sake of all eardrums involved, they'll tie her down and gag her.

Our lovely gender-bender frowned.

"Your friends, I take it?" asked the elegant blond from OZ, pointing at the tower's sole window with his thumb.

The boy shrugged. "Just people that showed up." He paused for a moment. "Say, I never caught your name."

The blond half-smiled. "I never threw it."

The brunet smirked. "Well, what is it?"

"It's-"

"There you are!"

The blond man from OZ and the brunet that came from within the Desolate Tower of the Gender-Bender (god, can't these people get decent names... like, I don't know, Zechs and Duo? Those could work, right?) turned around and saw our dear four-eyed witch (but she isn't that dear to us, is she?)

She rushed right over to our lovely blond fellow's side. "What are you doing over here? Didn't I say to meet at the Evil Moat around Oz Castle?"

"Yes, well..."

"And you!" she cried out, grabbing our longhaired gender-bender's ear and yanking hard. "What are you doing outside? You know you're grounded!"

"But Lady..."

"Don't you 'but Lady' me! That didn't work before when you stink-bombed my makeup drawer, OR when you dyed my hair green, OR when you served me that Tabasco tea, now did it?" She pulled him (via the ear) back towards the tower. "No, you're going back up there and WILL NOT come out until I tell you, or I will chop your hair OFF!"

"My dear Lady," the blond man from OZ said, running a hand through his own long locks, "don't you think that a bit drastic?"

"My dear Ozzie," she cooed, yanking harder on the boy's ear, "you never had to deal with a foster child such as he. Please let me deal with him accordingly."

"As you wish, but please hurry. We do have a date to get to."

"Of course. This will only take a minute." With those words, she slung the petit gender-bender over her shoulder and climbed up the rope that Beauty first blasted towards the window.

When the infuriated witch finally got her common-law ward (hey, if people can have common-law marriages, well...) inside the tower, she realized that, yes, she can get even more upset with our dear gender-bender. Inside were two armor-clad brunets, one male and one female, playing a round of 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' while a gagged, tied-down blonde watched in protest.

"Yes!" cried out the female as her 'Rock' conquered our hero fellow's 'Scissors'. "Now, scram, and take your little blonde Beauty with you, LOSER!"

"Now, see here," he began, and, thankfully, followed through with, "I got here first. And people will always remember the first person anywhere."

"First, shmirst. I don't care. Now scram."

"Who the hell are you people!" the witch screamed, instantly grabbing their attention.

"Um," our lady-hero started, "we can explain..."

"Hello up there!"

Aggravated, the witch turned to the window to see who else was stupid enough to show up at the Desolate Tower of the Gender-Bender. "Who are you?"

Down on the ground, some distance away from the handsome blond man from OZ was another blond young man on a horse (oh, shocker of shockers, right?). He waved a note in his hands. "I'm here to rescue someone!" he called back.

She glared at her young ward for a few moments. "Young man, you are in big trouble," she whispered before turning her focus on the three intruders, who were trying to make their way to the window without drawing suspicion.

"OUT!" she screamed.

"Ninmu ryokai!" our hero fellow confirmed as he draped Beauty over his shoulder. Our lady-hero quickly shimmied down the rope, with our hero fellow and his ranting charge following right after.

"Call me," our lovely longhaired, and punished, boy whispered as our hero fellow stalked past him.

"And YOU," the witch continued, glaring at her prank-loving ward (these people really need decent names). "You're staying here until I come back so that I can give you a decent punishment."

With that, the witch climbed down the tower, with major help from our lady-hero's rope, to join her date on the ground. Without another word, the witch and the blond man from OZ went off, but not before she took down the rope and burned it. (Hey, she had to make sure that kid doesn't come out that way, right? But she forgot one thing. Her young ward's 'rescuers' were still nearby. Silly witch...)

As the couple went off, our hero fellow and the lady-hero were still having their argument over who had the right to 'rescue' the young boy still inside the tower, while the gagged Beauty and the new arrival looked on.

"Now, let me get this straight," the lady-hero began. "I don't win because he saw you first?"

"That's right," the hero fellow confirmed.

"Even though you're a guy."

"Guys are supposed to rescue damsels-in-distress, not short little tomgirls."

"HE is NOT a damsel, you gay blade."

"Excuse me, but my name is NOT Zorro."

"Yes!" cried out Beauty, who was finally able to get the gag out of her mouth. "His name is Charming and he's my pr-" Our hero fellow gagged her again before she could finish her sentence.

"Oh," our lady-hero said. "So you're Prince Charming."

"That man that has a princess in every kingdom?" the young blond said, shock written on his pale features. "I thought you were taller."

Our hero fellow scowled. "Height has nothing to do with anything."

"Gosh," the blond continued. "I think that even I'm taller than you."

"And you're a little blond shrimp," the lady-hero smirked.

"Enough," our hero fellow interrupted, not wanting to hear anything more about his height or other faults. Pointing a finger at the mounted blond, he questioned, "Why are you here?"

"Ah," the blond said, searching for the note he found, "I got a little airplane note saying that someone needed to be rescued, so I came here to help the boy inside get out of the tower."

"You're not here to screw him stupid?" our lady hero asked, shocked.

"No. Why?"

Our hero fellow and lady-hero sighed at the blond's ignorance, or innocence if you wanna be nice.

"So," the lady-hero said, "what are we gonna do now?"

" 'We' are doin' nuthin'. I'm blowin' this cabbage stand."

The foursome turned around, surprised to see the topic of their conversation walking towards them.

"How did you get out?" the blond squeaked.

The longhaired gender-bender stared at the blond. "You've got to be kidding, right? Any tower that you can climb up using a three-foot braid is not even worthy to be called a tower. Nevermind the whole 'entrapment' thing."

He shrugged and turned to face the direction of the town. "Anyway," he said, walking into the sunset of this particular story, "I'll see you goons later. Hopefully I'll find someone GOOD at that whole 'rescuing' thing."

~~~End

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Just in case you're 'confused':
Rapunzel: Duo
The Witch: Lady Une
Prince Charming: Heero
The Lady Hero: Hilde
Sleeping Beauty: Relena
Man from OZ: Zechs
Blond Hero: Quatre