On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Edward Becerra wrote:
At 09:46 AM 9/30/98 PDT, Matthew Harrison wrote:
This is a really bad idea that anyone can take up on if they want to.
I can't- I'm laughing too much.
Sick, sick, sick. I LOVE IT! Bwahahahahahahahahahahah!
Some MUST continue this!
Ed Becerra
"Dreamers may die, but the Dream is eternal.."
I'm not sure about continuing it, exactly, but the derivative...ooh, I
gotta try something...
Note: The following is a first draft, seen as soon as I press send on the
e-mail. Hence, be glad that I can spell, as everything else may or may
not make sense - but, of course, that's where you guys come in; if it
doesn't, write and explain so I fix it rather than watch it look stupid.
If you like it, write just so I know you did and get free publicity.
(Yes, I am shameless. ^_^) Sailor Moon is a work of Naoko Takeuchi, the
other characters and the title are a work of Scott Adams, and the idea
comes from Matthew Harrison. I just put 'em together. I'm scary that
way.
How Many Pens are Needed for Your Job?
by Nicholas Eckert
Another day, another clueless management decision. Dilbert was by
now used to this, as was the rest of the staff - it was their belief that
the boss' pointy hair was actually his brains leaving his skull for fear
of association. Strangely enough, the latest event had been brought on by
a shred of competence - he'd managed to figure out what the power switch
was, turned on the computer, and found that a monitor, Pentium II,
printer, desk lamp, coffeemaker, toaster, microwave oven,
refridgerator and television do not work well when going to the same
socket and running at the same time. Of course, the janitor and
electrician had chosen that Friday to leave for their annual vacation to
the Florida Keys and test their flyfishing skills. This left the
engineers in the dark, and the boss couldn't do without his expresso,
so....
"Here I am, in the basement, trying to mess with a fusebox that
apparently was opened last during the Spanish Inquistion," said one
beleagured engineer named Dilbert. (Who did you expect - it's always the
main character that ends up getting stuff to do.) Upon managing to open
the fusebox and fall over in the process, he looked inside and saw,
besides various Native American artifacts, a smoldering hole. Inside the
smoldering hole, there was a black fuse. Closer inspection led to the
possibility that this fuse was not black to begin with and hot to touch.
Dilbert noted the fuse's replacement number and screamed in agony while
blowing on his right hand, then went upstairs to the storeroom to check on
spare fuses. "Engineering is a dangerous field, especially with the
management involved," he mused.
Between the storeroom and the basement was the lobby, as well as a
number of teenagers. For some odd reason, Junior Achievement had decided
that it'd be a good idea to show some youngsters some local businesses,
and this one might prove to be good experience for the next generation of
workers. Not considering that it might lead to a larger workforce in the
fast food industry, it set up a field trip with the local schools, and one
of these schools was currently hosting exchange students. Five rather
interesting and well-known students, to be exact.
"I still don't know why you all wanted to go with me to the United
States, too," said the blonde with pigtails so long you worried about
stepping on them and tripping more than you did your own shoelaces.
"Usagi, if we didn't come along, you'd not only be late for class,
but unable to find the school," said the brunette next to her, receiving a
tongue in response.
"Cut it out, you two," said a blue-haired girl behind them. "Rei,
can't you wait until after we get home to pick on Usagi?"
"Shh!" went the tall blonde with long hair and even taller brunette
with much shorter hair in the back. "They're going to start the
presentation!"
As the greetings came through the makeshift sound system in a tone
only Ben Stein could beat for sheer lack of enthusiasm, the five girls
from Juuban, Japan listened intently...well, four of them did while one
needed a good dose of prodding from the nearby teacher to stay awake. As
the speaker went on about job opportunities, college, and a product line
that was rated by J.D. Power and Associates (never mind that it was rated
last in its class), casual glances lead towards the window.
Through that window, a theorem was being proved. Specifically, the
one involving anime magical girls, youma, and the near-magnetic attraction
between the two.
"Uh, girls, I think we have a job to do," said blue-haired Ami.
"Huh?" said a suddenly alert Usagi.
"Youma," noted Rei with appropriate scorn.
"How do we get out of here?" asked the other blonde, named Minako.
"Stupid idiot!" yelled a lady named Alice from somewhere else in the
building as another fuse blew, taking out all the lights in the reception
hall.
After the blank stares for two seconds, followed by the sounds of a
head being roughly knocked into the same area of the body as the heart,
the five Sailor Senshi ran for the nearest windowless area and lit up the
place with a transformation sequence that earned them five marriage
proposals - each.
The youma, smart boy that he was, chose that moment to enter the
building, his nearly bald head glistening from one horn of hair to the
other. Also entering at that point was a engineer with indistinct eyes
and mouth, holding a small penlight/blue marker in order to see from a
collection large enough to pass out to a classroom for test-taking
purposes.
As the engineer walked by, the trail of light showed glimpses of
ladies in skirts only found in Nair commercials coming in his direction.
He reviewed his options, dodging left first. So did they. He then tried
moving to the right, and they followed, yelling "GET OUTTA THE WAY!" With
few options left, he ducked down and prepared for the worst, which, being
humorous, happened.
Usagi didn't need to charge in for the first attack - her specialty
was finishing off an enemy, so she slowed down enough to avoid Dilbert.
Rei, alert as ever, dodged en route to delivering a good dose of light to
the area as well as about a dozen fire trucks and a bit of water as the
sprinker system caught up. Ami did a field calculation and bounced off
Dilbert's head like a soccer ball into the perfect position for a bubble
launch. Makoto, the tall brunette, just vaulted over him - long legs have
their benefits. (No, that was not hentai.)
Minako, alas, glanced at one of the more fervent marriage prospects
with the slightly muscular build in the third row, and forgot about the
slightly plump engineer right in front of her -
*WHAM*
- feet.
Sailor Venus flew forward about five yards. Dilbert rolled about
three feet. More importantly, the transformation wand that Sailor Venus
had forgotten to put away between all the rushing around and the cute boy
managed to flip two-and-a-half with a twist before diving smoothly into
Dilbert's nearly-stuffed pocket protector, in the exact place where the
penlight he was using would normally be put. (How one organizes a mess of
pens in a pocket protector is not ours to know, but such is a small
example of the powers of an engineer.) Dilbert's pen, in a cruel twist of
fate, flew forward near Sailor Venus, who immediately grabbed it in the
dim light and tucked it into her front dimensional space pocket and
charged forward.
The rest was your standard youma-thrashing - youma takes a few
pot-shots with all the aim of a drunk stormtrooper with the Coke lenses
fogged up, causing random destruction to various parts of the building
(though nothing serious); mysterious man in tuxedo shows up and spares
senshi from a killing blow (even though Mamoru was supposed to still be in
Tokyo, keeping an eye on a Chibi-Usa who was in the process of raiding a
cookie jar); one senshi gets a clue and tries an attack in a specific
manner that disables the youma; and Usagi takes the ample amount of time
offered to warm up a Wand...Finishing...Attack! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Add appropriate light, explosions, and unique ending - this time, a
reversion of the youma into a rather beaten male, age 20, brown hair,
brown eyes, 5'11".
While all the teenagers cheered the scantily clothed females who had
just saved their lives and earned them the rest of the day off (what more
could a high school male ask for?), Dilbert got to his feet and went off
to see what the storeroom had to offer in terms of fuses. The
aforementioned females, however, went in the opposite direction in order
to find someplace to change back.
As the five Sailor Senshi raised their pens high in victory, their
clothes reverted to normal in a burst of light. It was then that Hinako
noticed it.
"Wait a minute...is this my pen?"
She decided to try immediately transforming back, just to make sure.
The problem was, no weird transformation phrases were forming in her mind.
She tried the one that always came out, anyway: "Venus Star Power,
Make-up!" No luck. Ami took out her handy-dandy portable Mercury
computer, complete with mini-scanner, digital camera, and Linux system
software (proving that these five ladies truly were the hope of our world
for the future), and ran an analysis of the pen. Sure enough - it wasn't
some weird upgrade or anything, just a blue marker with a built-in, watch
battery-operated light bulb on the end. Appropriating the pen for the
time being to her own pocket protector amidst the protests of Minako, the
five quietly returned to the scene of the disturbance, scanning the area
from behind the yellow tape surrounding what remained of the lobby and
adjoining reception hall. After using slightly underhanded means of
getting one of the officers' attention, Minako smoothed out her skirt and
addressed the detective on duty.
"Have you seen, by any chance, a pen with a weird, Roman sigil on the
end?"
"No pens around, ma'am, except for the one your friend's playing with
that's got the light on the end. We'll keep an eye out, though - what's
your name?" said the gentleman, blinking.
After about ten seconds more of blinking in disbelief, he went back
to work, convinced it must've just been a mirage.
Dilbert, however, was not so lucky or quick in his discovery. First,
he made it to the storeroom after about fifteen minutes of stumbling in
the dark - from there, it was another hour before the shelves could be
searched through to find the right size and power allotment to cover the
situation. Another thirty minutes to make it back to the fuse box, ten
minutes to get the stupid fuse put in, and then three more trips back and
forth due to the PHB deciding to drag his stuff to other departments and
plug it in there in a similar fashion - why unplug everything from the
multi-outlet when you can just remove that from the socket and take
everything at once? By the time that was done, so was another productive
day at work, and so it was that Dilbert used the power granted by the
replacement fuses to operate the desk lamp in his cubicle that let him
fill out his time sheet that finished his day at work. In another spot on
the ball we call Earth, Jack was in his house, but that's irrelevant to
this story, so we'll continue.
As Dilbert arrived home from work, he was greeted by his loving,
egotistical, look-alike version of man's best friend, heretoafter known as
Dogbert. "Hello. You're out of food, Bob's off earning college tuition
for Rex via his 24-hour wedgie service, Ratbert's in a trance watching a
hypnotist on television, your water bill is due, and what's that thingy
on the back of that pen?"
"Food's in the backseat of the car, I'll drop off the water bill on
my way to work tomorrow morning, and what thingy on what...huh?" It was
then that Dilbert noticed, between his green ball-tip and blue
highlighter, that one of the few pens he had no replacement for was
currently being replaced by something with a rather odd symbol on the top.
"Hmm," he thought aloud, "I remember having it just this morning, when the
lights went out at the office...."
"They finally went bankrupt?" quipped the dog.
Dilbert glared, then returned to thinking. "I was walking to the
storeroom, then, all of a sudden, these girls came charging at me...I
tried to dodge, but one of them slammed into me - that's where I lost it!
Come to think of it, I think she was holding this one...whatever it is."
Dogbert, symphathetic voice that he was, spoke. "Congratulations,
you got a girl to fall for you."
Dilbert glared back, then continued. "Well, probably no chance of
finding her to give this back, and she has mine...fair trade, I guess.
Still, I wonder...how do you write with this thing?" He pulled
frantically at the Venus symbol in an effort to remove the cap -
obviously, to no avail.
Dogbert looked at the curiosity a bit closer. "I swear I've seen
that thing before...oh, later, Sailor Moon's on. Excuse me." He then
trotted to the little stool in front of the televison, took the remote
sitting there, and sat down to watch a bit of dramatic irony. Dilbert
chose that moment to grab what was left of the chips in the cupboard and
snack in front of his computer while checking his e-mail.
Ratbert, who had been watching television, remained in his trance for
the first part of the show despite the channel being changed. Dogbert
paid no attention, ignoring the various mumblings of the blindly faithful
companion. However, life decided that it was time to get seriously weird.
And, when the episode arrived at the point where the schoolgirls hold
their wands high and become five magical fighting powerhouses in high
heels, something snapped.
"Must...kill...Sailor...Senshi...." chanted the little rat.
"They're the good guys, and it's Sailor Scouts," said the poor dog,
unknowing of the trouble brewing or any Sailor Moon besides dubs.
"Must...Kill...Sailor...Senshi...!" chanted the little rat again,
with a touch of emphasis.
"You've been watching that hypnotist too long again, Ratbert," said
Dogbert, as Minako Aino held aloft a pen that looked quite similar to the
one Dilbert was still trying to get the top off of, Dilbert being the
engineer that he was and needing to figure out how things worked and all.
"MuSt...KiLl...SaIlOr SeNsHi!" said the now large-as-a-house rat, in
a voice normally reserved for agents of Cthulu.
As his hair decided to go plush for a second, Dogbert wondered if the
lab Ratbert had come from had been messing with growth formulas again.
Also noted was the addition of two large, conical spikes of hair on either
side of Ratbert's head. The latter, to Dogbert, seemed more alarming.
Dogbert casually walked into Dilbert's study area. Noting that
Dilbert had finished with his e-mail and had continued on to web surfing,
he gave a small tug. "I think I know what that thing is," Dogbert said,
pointing to the object Dilbert was in the process of trying to break
open. "Go to http://www.yahoo.com...now type in Sailor Moon...that's
it...now, click on that link called, 'Sailor Venus'...that's it."
"So, this isn't a pen at all, but a cheesy replica of a magical wand
that turns a person into a magical fighter of evil?"
Dogbert then pointed to the door, where a pointy-haired rat youma
was eating a television. "I'm not sure about the replica part, but, yes."
Folks, what would be the worst thing, in your opinion, that could
happen at this moment to Dilbert? Mental scarring that would
require multiple visits a month for a couple of years? Feinting onto
his keyboard, suffering a mild to severe concussion? Multiple lacerations
resulting from jumping out of a closed window? Rending of the body by an
oversized rat? Being chewed and digested by same?
How about these words forming in his mind....
"Jupiter Star Power, Make up?"
Suddenly, Dilbert was flying in the air, twirling around in a slow
circle, as his normal clothes disappered like it was casual day at the
office. New, rather tight-fitting clothes took their place; along with
them came two lumps on his chest that should not have been there. Were
his eyes visible behind his glasses, a look of abject horror would be
found...and, yet, being the lonely bachelor that he was after Liz dumped
him...well, that's not appropriate for this fanfiction, at least without
the words "lime" or "yaoi" somewere therein. Finally, the swirling
stopped, and Sailor Venus' replacement struck a pose - to finish the
horrible thought, all I have to say on that is that it indicated Dilbert's
firm intentions regarding Stayin' Alive.
The youma, as was his right, attacked Dilbert with all the finesse of
a chain gun. The cabinet was smashed, the chair shredded, the lamp
shattered. Dilbert hung in there, despite not having the slightest clue
what to do next - instinct was still in "run if you want to live" mode.
Then, as Dilbert ducked, the Ratbert youma put his claws through the
Pentium II 350 Mhz tower config with 32x DVD/CD writable and Jaz internal
drives.
That got Dilbert steamed.
"Wrecking a priceless computer and attacking innocents that feed you
is evil! I am Sailor Venus," he said, checking mentally to make sure
everything was working upstairs...or was it a she now...anyway, "champion
of Justice, and, in the name of the Moon, I will punish you!" Pointing at
the youma, eyebrows and mouth showing her great displeasure, the new
Sailor Venus screamed her attack: "Venus Love-Me Chain!"
"Hmm...that must lose something in translation," noted Dogbert, still
in the room despite common sense.
The youma reacted predictably to being hit with a nasty attack,
having nowhere to go, and no Usagi around to finish the job. After a long
scream, the demon rat disappeared, Ratbert left in his place, twitching
nervously. "Hmm...show's over. Boy, this room's a mess. I wonder what
happened," said the unsuspecting vermin.
Dilbert almost zapped him again without magical girl instinct. It
took Dogbert to make him forget that line of thought, saying, "You know,
you don't look all that bad in a skirt."
All the engineer could do was blush and try to change back. Problem
was, he didn't yet know how.
In a home on the other side of town, five girls were meeting like
they had every Friday after school. Never mind that this wasn't Juuban,
it still was necessary for the girls to practice their fighting skills.
One, in particular, needed to practice now more than ever, perhaps.
[But, what am I going to do without my henshin wand?] said Minako,
now in Japanese since they were away from teachers and understood that
language better.
[I don't know,] said Ami, showing sympathy to the penless senshi.
[I haven't been able to get ahold of Luna or Artemis yet - they might know
what to do. In the meantime, I'll use my computer to scan the area while
you work out. Just because you're without powers doesn't mean you're
worthless.]
[But I am!] said Minako, bawling in a manner reminiscent of Usagi at
times. [Without that wand, youma can hurt me just as easily as anyone
else, and I can't hurt them! What am I gonna do?]
[It'll be all right,] said Makoto, smiling. [We'll get it back, I
promise.]
[Cool!] said Usagi. [The Wallflowers are performing here next week!]
Usagi was immediately whapped on the head and given a not-so-subtle
reminder that they were there to prepare for nasty, overpowered youma and
not to read magazine info on upcoming rock tours.
Somewhere in between these ends of town, the evil plot-shaping was
taking place.
"Master, the hypno-transformation is a success! We can now create
youma by simply taking normal human beings and hypnotizing them, to change
into hideous youma under your control when the time is right or when
triggered by the presence of sailor senshi!"
"It is a pity, however, that it requires English phrasing to be
successful. We shall be forced to act quickly - while Japanese have a
fair grasp of the English language, it is clear that our best opportunity
to destroy them and ensure the success of the Negaverse is now, while they
are here amongst ample resources for your clever youma creation
technique...and far away from any reinforcements. And, even so, it
appears that we have one that perhaps is there with them that we were
unaware of...."
"He is of no concern, Master. We shall prepare a trap for him with
our next victim...and, once he is out of the way, we will release the
Prime Hypnoyouma."
"I await this."
After the neighbors complained about the maniacal laughter making too
much racket for them to watch television, they left the studio to prepare
for their next broadcast.
Nothing much else happened until the next morning, when Dilbert
awoke.
"Man, I had a dream last night. I had to switch fuses all day at
work, then came home and changed into a girl and blasted a rat creature."
Dilbert stretched and went to the mirror.
Dogbert was waiting with a video camera when Dilbert saw what he most
feared. While the audio went above the built-in microphone's ability to
record due to pitch and volume, the facial expression alone would be worth
the price of admission...or, at least, the people seeing this later on
would think it worth $3.50 a pop.
"Dogbert, what am I going to do?" asked Dilbert, frantically. "I've
got to go in to work! I'll be the laughingstock of the office! Worse,
the boss will mistake me for the secretary!"
"Don't worry, I've got it covered. Wear this bulky trenchcoat. You
only have to be there for eight hours anyway, right?"
"Yeah...I still hate working Saturdays. You sure this'll work?"
"Trust me." Dogbert wagged his tail, knowing that, one, Dilbert
couldn't see it wagging while facing him, and, two, that directions for
de-transformation were right on the Internet and he'd checked them last
night.
"Okay..." said Dilbert, sighing before his fate. "Try not to get
into any trouble."
"I won't," lied Dogbert, as Dilbert left for work in a heave
trenchcoat and sailor fuku.
On the other side of town, four senshi got up early to see if
anything had been found by the police and, after that, to check the scene
of yesterday's disturbance again just in case it was still there. The
other one was dragged out of bed shortly after by her odangoes.
At the office, a certain boss was sitting in front of his television
watching Saturday morning cartoons. The host for this week happened to be
a hypnotherapist he'd met a couple of months back, who'd been helping him
with his memory. He glanced at his list of things to do...check on
departmental resources, two appointments, install new outlets, meet with
team leader to discuss project. Simple enough. He decided most of it
could wait until after lunch - he liked watching this guy in action.
Dilbert sat in his chair, powered up the computer, and looked over
the cubicle wall while Windows '98 tried booting up on a 486 SX. Alas,
when he tried speaking to the Computer Supplies Department, he was told
that all the money in the budget was gone due to their purchase of the new
operating system, and hence they couldn't afford a computer that could run
it smoothly for lower employees. Seeing a small, stout engineer with
square-rimmed glasses sitting there, as expected, he greeted the
gentleman.
"Hello, Wally."
"Here's the fifteen dollars," said the engineer grumpily. "Five for
each fuse after the first one because he hauled his stuff to other
outlets."
"You have too much faith in him, Wally."
"Actually, I was betting that he'd think it was still on, just in
standby mode, and needed to type some sort of password to get out."
"Unfortunately, he didn't even notice his computer. He was making
expresso at the time."
"Oh, that explains it." Wally sighed. "So, what's the trenchcoat
for? Borrowing office supplies?"
Instead of the random, small sweatdrops usually found, Dilbert noted
that his face seemed more crudely made up than usual with one large
sweatdrop on the side of the face. Luckily, Wally was too busy playing
Duke Nuk- er, working to notice. "No," he replied, "just heard it was
gonna rain outside later today, and I wanted to make sure I brought it
along...just in case."
"Yeah, right." Wally reminded himself to get one himself. "So, are
you all set to meet with the clueless one regarding the COWEYE project?"
While the back of his mind asked which cute project he was referring
to, he responded, "Yep, all set - portfolio made, report typed, betas
ready to install on his computer."
"Will it work?"
"On the budget he gave us, we're lucky we have something that
resembles the product marketing asked for."
"Figures," said Wally. "Will he notice it doesn't do anything?"
Dilbert thought that question over for a short second. "He'll end up
using the disk as a paperweight instead and the project will be forgotten
about until marketing asks for something else. I'd be surprised if he
tries installing it."
"Good point. Have a good time," said Wally, firing a rocket at a
rather ugly pig to create a rather large mess.
"I will," said Dilbert, sitting back down and waiting for Windows '98
to finish loading.
In his office, the pointy-haired wonder (and we call him a wonder
because living without a functioning brain is just that) was starting to
twitch. His normal brain functions were doing what they normally do - zip
- but something in the back of his mind was...nervous. Something was in
the building. A threat. Where? Best to wait until it comes, and then
kill it.
Down in the lobby, the five senshi were searching every nook and
cranny, to no avail. Minako was visibly upset, Usagi was trying to stay
awake, and the others were running out of ideas.
"Perhaps one of the employees found it," suggested Rei, trying to
cheer up her friend. "Maybe they turned it in."
Minako slowed her sniffling for a bit, and went to ask the
receptionist, a lady with a beehive hairdo and the nameplate, "Carol", on
her desk.
"What are you kids doing here?" asked the woman, smiling not.
"We were wondering...er...if someone had turned in a weird-looking
pen yesterday."
"A pen? Not that I know of. Might want to check the thirteenth
floor out - Engineering. Most likely, one of them found it and it's in
their pocket protector or something. Hold on, I'll show you around - I
have to check on my boss anyway."
"Don't most bosses check on their secretaries?" asked Ami, a
quizzical look on her face.
"If they're competent, yes." The secretary finished her coffee, put
something resembling a crossbow into her desk drawer, locked it, and took
them to the elevators.
As Dilbert looked over his notes one last time, he took a long
breath. Hopefully, his boss wouldn't mind him in a trenchcoat, despite it
not being casual day. Otherwise, everything was in order. He stepped in,
sat down, and handed him a report.
The boss looked at it, comprehending nothing therein, and sat it
down. "So, what's this thing do, anyway?"
He'd forgotten already. "Um, as it says in the report, this allows a
user to download data to his laptop from another computer he owns,
regardless of where he is. Just plug into a phone jack, dial up the
computer's IP address, and the data is sent securely through its own
encoding mechanism.
"Oh," the PHB said, still not understanding one iota.
A knock interrupted them. "Excuse me for a second," he said, opening
the door to reveal the hypnotherapist. Immediately, though Dilbert had no
idea why, alarms went off in the back of his head. They'd been going off
slightly for his boss, but that was dismissed easily as anxiety and a
natural hatred for his dumb boss. This was, however, someone he'd never
seen before - he had generally left the room when Ratbert was watching
that stuff.
"Oh, Dilbert, this is my hypnotherapist, Dr. E. Ville. Dr. Ville,
this is one of my valued employees, Dilbert."
Ignoring the ominous name and the fact that the only reason he was
valued was because they'd fired just about everyone else that could do his
job, he shook the gentleman's hand. "Pleased to meet you, Dr. Ville."
"Here, Dr., have a seat," said the pointy-haired one. "Dilbert, take
off your coat and stay a while. It's actually warm in here."
"Uh, sir," said Dilbert, going into that weird sweatdrop face again,
"I'd prefer to keep it on."
"It's against regulation," said the boss. "Take it off."
Bracing for the storm he expected to come, and not the worse one that
was actually on its way, he took off the coat. The result was a scream
that could be heard through the door and outside into the hall, all the
way to the elevators where five young girls and a well-armed secretary
were just getting out. "One of them!" said the Dr., suddenly scared
witless.
"A girl?" said the brain-defunct boss, his instincts not able to
inspire his thoughts.
The evil hypnotist then snapped his fingers three times, saying,
"Kill her."
At that point, the boss' hair grew pointier, along with his nails,
teeth, and several vertebrae to the point of tearing through his back. As
he lunged for the fuku-clad Dilbert, she suddenly gained her own
instincts, and battle ensued, involving several flashes of light, even
more explosions, and a mess of property damage that would probably finish
this already beleagured company. Unfortunately, Dilbert's instinct wasn't
keeping up with his knowledge, and the PHB beast was getting the better of
the fight by far.
Then, in bust six other ladies, four of which took the opportunity
to change into forms more apropos for dealing minor discomfort and a good
lot of aches and pains in evil creatures.
"Mercury Star Power, Make-up!"
"Mars Star Power, Make-up!"
"Jupiter Star Power, Make-up!"
"Moon Crystal Power, Make-up!"
"Is that the boss? I knew he was evil, but...."
The evil master didn't flinch. "Destroy them all, Prime Hypnoyouma!"
By now, most of the office started crawling out of their cages, er,
cubicles to see what was going on. They got a good show, involving the
remodeling and resizing of most of the office area, along with the
creation of some new doorways. All sorts of attacks rained down from all
directions, and various bystanders got the look of their lives, either
because it was a flip out of the way by one of the ladies or because it
was the last look of their lives, period. The PHB youma seemed to almost
smile when the latter occured, often muttering something about "reduction
of headcount".
Meanwhile, Alice had been disturbed by all the racket. She'd been
working on a project model, using toothpicks. As she looked up, the PHB
slashed through her cubicle, breaking the model into so many splinters.
Every office worker heard her mumble softly:
"Must...control...fist...of...death...."
They decided now wasn't the best time to watch, and maybe, due to all
the damage and stuff, they might be able to go home for the day.
Hinako watched as a lady with red, triangle-shaped hair walked out of
her office towards the fight, holding her arm for some reason. The lady
walked almost calmly up to the youma and tapped it on the shoulder. The
creature growled something that resembled, "What?"
The senshi, who were getting beat up as a group surprisingly, winced
as Alice let the Fist of Death fly. The first shot landed square in his
gut, sending him on a rugburn ride halfway to the wall. The second fist
found his face, taking him airborn this time and embedding him slightly in
said wall. The third wound up and landed on the bottom side of the jaw.
The sailors watched the moon take its personal revenge on the
Negaverse, then turned to the other problem, a.k.a. the hypnotist
responsible, who was backing away as fast as his legs could carry him.
Unfortunately, he backed into a crossbow, and couldn't change directions
fast enough. Two shots pinned him in place. Then....
"Moon...Princess...Halation!"
Hypnotoast.
Everybody breathed a sigh of relief for a second. Then, Usagi spoke
up.
"Um, ma'am, can we have that pen back? It's a friend's."
"Actually, it's a he, and be my guest," said the beleagured engineer,
handing the wand to Sailor Moon, who passed it to Hinako after showing him
how to use it to change back.
"A she that turns into a he? Nani yo?" Sailor Jupiter was puzzled.
"Nani what?" asked Dilbert, lacking a firm grasp of common Japanese
phrases.
"Um, nothing," said a super-deformed and flop-sweating Sailor Moon.
"We'll be running along now."
"Wait," asked Dilbert, "have any of you guys seen a thin blue marker
with a pen light on the end?"
"This?" said Ami, pulling her pocket protector out of a pocket that
really didn't need one.
"Thanks," said Dilbert, noting the mark of geekdom. "Hm, stop back
sometime. We could always use another intern."
"Thanks, but no," said Sailor Mercury, waving. "Bye, and thanks
again for the wand!"
"Too bad," said Alice. "Asok's getting too big to throw over the
cubicle walls - we need a new one."
As the sailor senshi walked away, they discussed the lessons from
their battle.
<So, Hinako, are you sure being normal is all that much of a
problem?> said Usagi.
<I guess it is possible to whip a youma without super powers. You
just have to be brave, strong, and determined.>
<Or on a rampage,> noted Makoto. <Did you see the look in that
lady's eyes? She almost looked posessed herself!>
<You're one to talk,> noted Rei.
<Hey!>
<A man changing into a woman....> said Usagi.
She hadn't seen nothing yet.
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Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a good way to waste the better part of
an evening. Hope you liked it!
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent