(Note: This is chapter 1 of an improvisational fanfic.
I'm not the author of this chapter; I'm just reposting it with
his permission. Kindly send private comments to him; his email
address is at the end of his author notes.
This fanfic is housed on the Indie Madnesse site
(http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net/) and is open for signups.
--Scott)
SENSHI MUYO
#############################
Episode 1
Call Me Queen!
by Mervyn the Wonder Slug
#############################
Uzume was by all accounts a beautiful woman, with deep violet eyes and long
blue hair that reached almost to her ankles; none of this was immediately
apparent, though, as just at the moment she was lying prostrate in the mud
and was a uniform shade of rather lumpy brown. She lay that way for about
half an hour, thinking. At first she thought of penguins, and then after a
while about how strange "penguin" starts to sound if you say it over and
over to yourself. But eventually her brain shifted out of neutral and she
began thinking about life, and specifically if it was worth living.
It would be so easy, she thought, so terribly, terribly easy just to lie
here and die. They say it's just like sleeping, and I'm so tired. Poof.
Pfft. End of scenario.
A persuasive argument, certainly, and her brain quickly carried the motion,
with two for, none against, and an abstention from the medulla oblongata.
Hooray for death!
Then the mud began to dry.
Uzume was starting to itch something awful, and she was damned if she was
going to die in discomfort. Hell, she thought, if I'm going to move I
might as well get up and live. It's not as though I have anything more
pressing to do.
She freed her arms with a faintly disgusting sucking sound and pushed
herself up on her knees. After pausing to cough up a little blood, she
rose unsteadily to her feet and surveyed the twisted wreckage around her.
This was all that was left of her Dark Edifice of Fear and Terror, which
had, once again, undergone massive structural failure the moment a bunch of
smarmy, fuku-wearing junior-high brats got the best of her.
Dark Queen (failed) Uzume sighed, scratched, and began clambering over the
rubble, searching for a way out. Fortunately her previous three defeats
had accustomed her to this sort of thing, and she was getting good at
spotting the difference between stable and unstable heaps of shattered
rock. She was almost in the clear when her dress snagged on a broken
gargoyle's fangs and split right up the back, exposing her posterior to the
cold, cruel world.
She stood very still for a moment, noting the sudden draft as the day's
events piled up on her, and then sank to her knees and started doing a very
creditable Lucille Ball impersonation.
"Waaaaahhhhh!" she bawled. "Why me? It's not faaaaaaiiiir!" After
several minutes of wet, seal-like sobbing, she dried her eyes and managed
to compose herself just a little.
"What am I doing wrong?" she sobbed. Then inspiration struck her like an
iron skillet. Her whole face slowly brightened; she rose to her feet again
and stared into the middling distance with a look of childlike wonder.
"That's it!" she cried, clasping her hands in front of her. She giggled
girlishly, and even bounced, before remembering that her ribs were not
exactly in peak bouncing condition.
"Ouchie. . ."
*********************************
Two weeks later she was in Venice Beach, California. This may not seem
like the ideal location to begin rebuilding a dark kingdom, but it did have
two very important things:
1) Some nifty stores for retail therapy
2) Her brother, who had money to buy things from nifty stores for retail
therapy.
Her brother, Shiryo, lived in Venice Beach because it was one of the few
places on Earth where a man could go around with fangs, 17 feet of hair,
and a wardrobe that went out of style sometime in the Song dynasty and
still be considered only mildly eccentric. He had met with familial
disapproval when he decided that Dark Monarch was not a career
option he would enjoy, and found that there was much more money to be had
as a Dark Litigator. Very quickly he realized you didn't even have to be
particularly Dark. He was now the behind-the-scenes operator of a
nationwide network of law firms, and had so much money that, while he could
not buy Bill Gates, he could probably rent him.
Uzume had sent him a letter hinting that she had ideas that were new and
vibrant and revolutionary and terribly, terribly expensive. She spent a
week rooting through what was left of her home, salvaged a few things
(including her great-aunt Shonagon's hideous vase that had somehow survived
all four post-defeat collapses) and hocked them all.
She bought a plane ticket and flew to California, where she did some retail
therapy and looked at really big trees and now here she was, lying in the
sun, killing time until her two o'clock appointment with Shiryo. She
checked her watch, adjusted her new, expensive, very cool sunglasses, and
discovered a large, friendly Labrador retriever attempting to conduct a
nasal investigation of her personal regions.
"Ack!" she said, shoving it away with her leg. It merely barked cheerfully
at her and resumed its invasive efforts. Uzume finally gave up and vacated
the beach. Slinging her (new) beach bag over her shoulder, she started
hiking toward her brother's palatial residence. She attracted a lot of
stares along the way, since her bikini left little to the imagination and
on a good day she could claim a Gainax Bounce Factor of at least 7.4*.
She arrived about fifteen minutes early; she did not bother with niceties
such as the doorbell, or even the door. She simply phased into the living
room, where she found Shiryo sprawled on the sofa, watching soap opera.
"This was your 'important afternoon appointment' that you couldn't postpone
for your own sister?" she asked, startling the bejeebies out of Shiryo, who
had been absorbed in a heated argument between someone named Dirk and
someone named Thad about someone named Mona.
"Gaah!" he said, springing upright and turning. "Uzume! Heh heh! You're
early..." He gathered himself and adjusted the long black braid draped
around his shoulders, once more appearing cool and bishonen.
After some mild sibling mockery had been exchanged, Uzume began expounding
upon her brilliant new ideas. Before she could really get into her speech,
Shiryo interrupted her.
"Let me get one thing straight. Do these brilliant new ideas mean that
your brilliant old ideas flopped again?"
Uzume glared at him. "I wish you'd have a little more faith in me. Just
because I haven't had the best luck with my plans in the past is no reason
to assume that...yes. Yes they did."
Shiryo sighed deeply. "Uzume, Dark Kingdoms aren't cheap, you know."
"I know," said Uzume, bouncing anxiously. "But I really do have some great
plans this time!"
Shiryo handed her a robe. "Please put this on. Your jiggling is rather
distracting."
Uzume blushed and donned the robe, pushing on nevertheless. "Listen! I
had the most amazing revelation while I was crying in the mud. Dark Queens
are a dime a dozen these days. I've been falling into all the same traps
and formulas as the others; I need to come up with a new angle that will
really set me apart from the rest of the crowd. So I
was thinking, why do Dark Queens get defeated in the first place?"
"Because the other side has truth and love and honor and justice and all
those other things that traditionally win?" His sarcasm was lost in the
maw of enthusiasm.
"Exactly! And people WANT to destroy Dark Queens. So I thought, what can
I do to make me different? How can I make sure that I won't be bothered by
a bunch of schoolgirls in revealing outfits? And then it came to me!
Brace yourself, this is the brilliant part--"
Uzume paused for dramatic effect. Shiryo continued to look vastly
unconvinced.
"--I'm going to make people... HAPPY!"
Silence. Shiryo looked very, very worried.
Uzume pouted. "You think my plan is stupid, don't you?"
"Well," Shiryo said, uncomfortably, "it *does* address the central
problem... in a way..."
"But...?"
"But, well, I don't think you can *make* people happy, I think it's more
something they have to work out for themselves ... and it's not
particularly Dark, is it? Happiness, I mean. I can't imagine what the
family... will.... say....."
He trailed off under the effects of Uzume's cute but horribly dangerous
stare. She grabbed his braid and hauled him close to her face.
"You are my brother and I love you very much, so I am not going to
eviscerate you for foolishly sneering at my brilliant revelation. I am
going to build a safe and fun Dark Kingdom of Happiness. I am going to
make people HAPPY, DAMMIT, if I have to put them in a vise and SQUEEZE them
until the unhappiness oooooozes out of them, OKAY?!"
Evidently, he had struck a nerve. Shiryo carefully weighed his choices and
picked the correct one. "...okay," he said.
"Does that mean you'll help me?" said Uzume, all bounces and giggles again.
"Yaaay! Thank you thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
Shiryo gently removed his hair from her grasp. He was very protective of
it. Uzume started dancing around the room, then stopped, aware that she
was not exactly projecting the proper image.
"Of course," she said seriously, "there are lots of details to work out. I
can't have the youma walking around looking all scary and menacing, after
all, that wouldn't fit right, and just the other day I was thinking it
might be a good idea to give them some sort of combat training ... oh,
speaking of youma, I'll need to get some more. All mine are dead. Let's
see, I'll also need a new general staff, a new Dark Edifice of Fear and
Happiness and Terror, and maybe I could work out some kind of demerit
system instead of just killing all
those who fail..."
"Um, Uzume dear, I'm not certain I understand why you need all that stuff
to make a few people happy."
Uzume sighed in exasperation. Really, how dense! "Not just a few people,
silly, the world! And I'll have to conquer it first, won't I? Let's see,
I think a few hundred million should be enough to get me off to a
comfortable start."
Shiryo choked. "H-h-h-hundred....?"
"Oh, and I charged some stuff to your account in town, too."
Shiryo fainted.
________________
*Lower than Mai from Fatal Fury but higher than Martina from Slayers.
*********************************
Remember the nasally intrusive Labrador? Let's check back with it, shall we?
Casual observers who happened, out of curiosity, to follow the dog off the
beach, through the streets, and into the yard which contained numerous
signs along the lines of "Keep Out--Extremely Private: Yes, that means you
too, buster," might have been surprised to see it scamper around to the
side of the house and lift an ear outside the living room window, as though
it were trying to eavesdrop on the conversation inside. In fact it *was*
trying to eavesdrop on the conversation inside, for this was no ordinary
Labrador: this was no less than the estimable Ruffers, top secret
intelligence agent.
When Ruffers was finished spying he scampered away, pausing only to leave a
calling card on the lawn. He returned to HQ, known to residents of Venice
Beach as the home of Miss Myra Lou Poonster, who was not from Pasadena but
was a little old lady widely recognized as a Grade A traffic hazard. What
no one recognized was that Myra Lou was the reincarnation of Princess
Loving Buttercup of the Magical Kingdom of Scrumptiousness, and was the
world's oldest living magical girl, now long retired. She'd been kicking
ass for justice as early as 1923; there were no proper Dark Queens back
then, just lame old Dr. Fungoid and his many spore-producing minions, but
the principle was the same.
Inside, Myra Lou was sitting in her Craftmatic adjustable chair, watching,
ironically, the same show as Shiryo. She hit the mute button when she
heard Ruffers enter through the doggie door. He came in and sat in front
of her.
"Well?" she said.
"Scent recognition confirmed at 98.79% certainty. It's definitely Queen
Uzume, and whoo, did I ever get the dirt on her."
"Go on," said Myra Lou, taking a swig of vodka.
Ruffers repeated the conversation he'd overheard between Uzume and her
brother. "I don't know if she's just snapped, or what, but I think we'd
better keep a close eye on her."
Myra Lou nodded, readjusting her false teeth with her tongue. She punched
a button on her chair and a complex command console popped out of the wall
around the television. "I gotta hand it to her," she said, "she just don't
give up. What is this, the third time she's been whacked?"
"Fourth," said Ruffers.
"My, my," said Myra Lou. "There's some as never learn. Who was handling
her account? Oh yes, the girls who transform into exotic animals..."
There was a pause as she called up the appropriate records, and a few
seconds later two startled cats appeared on the Advise-O-Com screen. The
female, rather sleek and black, sat up and saluted sharply. The male, on
the other hand, continued to resemble a lethargic ball of gray fluff. He
rolled his eyes.
"Rrrrr," opined Ruffers.
"Ffft," offered the black cat.
"Oh, hush now, the both of you," said Myra Lou. "Carlisle, Whittington,
I'm afraid we've got some bad news. Queen Uzume's planning on coming back
again."
Carlisle, the black one, groaned and sagged. Whittington sat up and said,
"What the #&££?" Carlisle looked at him strangely.
"Good grief," she said, "does the woman never give up?"
"There's more," Ruffers said. "This time she wants to make the world a
happy and joyous place, by force." He added some of the extra details.
Carlisle and Whittington slowly tilted their heads until they were cocked
at a perfect 45 degree angle (you at home can join in, too!).
"You know her tactics inside out by now," said Myra Lou. "She shouldn't be
much of a challenge for you. Get on it, guys."
"But we just beat her two weeks ag--" Carlisle started, before Myra Lou cut
the link.
The grand old dame of magical girlhood sat back and took another swig of
vodka. "No rest for the elderly," she muttered, as an urgent call came in
from a team somewhere in Bali.
*********************************
"Great, just great," fumed Carlisle. "We'll never be rid of this woman."
Whittington stretched and yawned. "Why worry about it? It's not like
she's ever been much of a threat before. We'll just call the girls and lay
the smack down on her royal @$$. Besides, what would be so bad about
making the world a happy place?"
Carlisle glowered at him. "You're missing the point, Whittington. It
sounds like she's gone completely off her head, and heavens only know what
that blue-haired freak would consider cause for satisfaction. Not *only*
that, Whittington," she said scathingly, "would you really trust her to
decide how to live your life? Who knows what kind of
strange, Orwellian world we'd end up with? What horrid perversities will
be committed in the name of bland, uniform contentment? We'll be stamped
out from molds! There'll be seven-block lines for bread and government
cheese! We'll all have to watch The Sound of Music over and over and over
and over! It'll be horrible! Horrible, I tell you!"
Carlisle stopped, more to catch her breath than anything else.
"Chill, kitty. All right, I get the picture. But still, we can just call
the girls, like I said." Whittington began bathing himself.
Carlisle sighed. "We took away all their sailor memories after we beat
Uzume the *last* time, remember?"
"That never stopped us before. Just give them back their pens."
"...Um."
Whittington sat up and stopped bathing. "What did you do?"
"Heh heh," said Carlisle. "You'll like this, it's funny."
"Carlisle..."
"I...kind of flushed the pens down the toilet."
"WHAT?" Now Whittington was freaking out.
"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. Perfect! When we beat Dark Queen Klutz for the
*fourth* time I thought she'd take the hint and give up. And besides,"
said Carlisle, drawing a long, shuddering breath, "I HATE them."
"What?"
"I HATE them. I know, I know, it cries against all my sense of duty, but I
just can't take it anymore. After four seasons of the whining and the
bitching and the moaning and the constant infighting over who got to be the
leader I am SICK OF IT. And if I see ONE MORE overblown transformation
sequence, ONE MORE attack with the word 'uterus' in it,
if I ever hear the words 'spotted lemur transform power' again, I am going
to sink my claws into something soft and fleshy and I don't much care who
it belongs to. I think we'll be much happier, and *they'll* be much
happier, if they just live nice, normal lives."
"I *guess* you have a point. But now what do we do? I'll say this, I'm
not going to be the one poking around in the sewers if we get desperate.
And you're gonna explain it to Myra Lou."
"Relax," said Carlisle, beginning to pace. "Okay, we'll just assemble a
new team. It shouldn't be too hard. After all, this is Japan. You can
hardly heave a brick here without hitting someone with a mysterious
mystical backstory."
"But the pens..."
"Oh, find a gumball machine. Open a Crackerjack box. It's mostly the
power of positive thinking anyway."
"You're scaring me, Carlisle. I'm supposed to be the irresponsible one."
"Right, right. Okay. I'll pull some strings at the bureau somewhere. I
have a friend who owes me some favors. You get out there and start looking
for people with mysterious backgrounds. And whatever you do, try to steer
clear of junior high girls."
"Okay," said Whittington, stretching out on the floor.
"I meant now."
"Aww, do I have to?"
"YES." Carlisle nudged him, hard.
"$#|+."
"And stop making naughty words with ASCII, it's damn annoying."
*********************************
Takusan Fushin had led what few people would call an interesting life.
Many would debate whether "life" was even the appropriate word. He worked
in the Pulp Product Fixative Device Quality Assurance Division of
Amalgamated Amalgamation, Inc. What this means, essentially, is that he
spent eight hours a day (sometimes more, when the workload was
heavy) checking paperclips. After all, reasoned the corporate strategists
who first dreamed up such a position, who could say how much time and
effort was wasted, how many man-hours of labor lost, because of faulty
paperclips?
The most frightening thing about it was that Fushin actually liked this
job. Granted, if someone offered him an executive position with a corner
office and perks out the yin-yang he'd take it in a flash; odds are,
though, that he would still check his own paperclips personally.
It wasn't just his job that was dull. He lived in a bland apartment,
collected stamps for fun, owned a large collection of elevator music, and,
on a *really* wild night, sometimes didn't brush his teeth before he went
to bed.
Fushin suffered from a classic variant of Tenchi Syndrome; not that space
pirates and princesses and officers and geniuses were fighting to get into
his pants, but he did exert a certain inexorable charm on the women at the
office. They found him borderline bishonen, especially when he flicked his
bangs back with one hand whilst sorting paperclips. Sadly, he was
completely incapable of detecting any amorous advances less subtle than
full frontal nudity; since that would violate any number of workplace
regulations it never happened, and thus Fushin's love life was also deader
than Confucius.
It may also be worth noting that his great great great great great great
grandfather was Takusan Ikuji, the legendary warrior who once defeated
thirty-seven oni merely by telling them how splendid he was. Bear this in
mind, as it may prove important later. There could be a quiz.
Fushin was also being followed by a sulky ball of gray fluff.
It tracked him as he was returning to work from a pleasantly uninteresting
lunch. He paid no attention to it until he got back to his cubicle and
discovered it was still there.
"Um, I don't really think you're supposed to be in here," he said, and then
felt extremely stupid, because he was talking to a cat. "Shoo," he said,
nudging it with his foot.
The cat merely rolled on its back and stared up at him. "Bite me," its
body language said.
Fushin sighed. "I guess I have to call one of the security guys to take
you outside."
"You do, and I'll shred your pants," said a voice from his ankles. Fushin
looked down. He blinked several times, and started to reach for the phone.
"Uh-uh," said the voice.
He tried again, cautiously.
"Nope."
The voice appeared to be coming from the cat. Fushin dismissed this as a
rational possibility. Cats, as is well known, do not speak, except to say
"meow," or possibly "ffft." They should be entirely incapable of "You do,
and I'll shred your pants."
"I do not believe you can speak, Mr. Cat," he announced, mostly for his own
benefit.
"That's going to make things difficult," the cat conceded. "And my name is
Whittington. I wouldn't object if you were to scratch my belly."
At this moment, a (female) co-worker poked her head into Fushin's cubicle.
"Ne, Fushin-chan," she said, "has the new shipment of ZX42 'Supergrips'
come in? Oh! You have a kitty!" She reached down and scratched him.
Whittington meowed happily. "I just adore cats," she said. And you, her
eyes added, though of course he didn't notice. "You really ought to hide
him, though, before some bigwig sees him and gets his knickers
in a knot."
"Oh, um," stammered Fushin. "It's not really mine, it just followed me in
here."
"Oh," said the female co-worker, whose name was Yuriko.
Pause.
"They haven't," said Fushin helpfully.
"What?"
"The ZX42s haven't come in."
"Oh," said Yuriko, disappointed. "Thanks." She withdrew, and Fushin sat
at his desk to recommence his important task of paperclip inspection.
Whittington rolled his eyes. Was this guy for real? Ah, well. These
mystical destiny people were never entirely there, and Whittington's
mystical advisor senses were screaming a list of destiny a mile long. He
leaped onto Fushin's desk, scattering paperclips, and from there onto
Fushin's head.
"You're special," he said.
"Do tell."
"No, really. I see big things in your future. Wondrous events, saving the
world..."
"You must forgive me for doubting the predictions of a cat," said Fushin,
attempting to shake him off. This proved unwise, as cats have claws.
"I'm not really a cat," said Whittington. "I'm actually...," he paused,
inventing wildly. "Uh, the reincarnated Minister of the Interior of the
Kingdom of, um, Job Satisfaction."
Well, it sounded better than "I'm a talking cat trying to cover my ass."
But not much.
Fushin considered this proposal. He supposed there was no particular
reason that a talking cat could not be the reincarnated Minster of the
Interior of a stupidly-named magical kingdom. Of course, that would first
require the existence of a talking cat.
"I believe you are a figment of my imagination," he said, in reply to which
Whittington dug his claws in a little.
"All right, all right, you're a Minister of the Kingdom of Job Satisfaction!"
"That's better. You be a good drudge, and we'll talk more after you get
off work."
Fushin sniffed haughtily, or at least that was the effect he tried for.
"Er, Takusan-kun..."
Fushin turned his head and saw, to his everlasting horror, his boss
standing in the door of his cubicle. His heart performed a brief
gymnastics routine.
"H-hai, Yamada-san?"
"Er, I cannot help but notice that you seem to be wearing a cat on your head."
"H-hai...," said Fushin. Whittington waved a paw cheerily.
"I think you've been working too hard, Takusan-kun. I'd like you to take
the rest of the day off."
"Aww," said Whittington, leaning down into Fushin's line of sight. "What a
considerate boss you have!"
Yamada-san went deathly pale. He stood, blinking, fishlike, for several
seconds, which is especially impressive if you consider that fish have no
eyelids.
"I think I'll do the same...," he murmured, meandering vaguely away.
"Splendid!" said Whittington. "We can talk more now." Whoohoo! he
thought. And I just started looking two days ago.
He was so excited he fell off Fushin's head.
"ƒµ©«," he said. "Let's go meet Carlisle."
*********************************
Dark Queen Uzume was back in Japan by the time Whittington got hold of
Fushin. Shiryo had come with her, because he'd just given her several
hundred m... several h.... s... a hell of a lot of money and he wanted to
be certain she didn't accidentally spend half of it on chocolate or shoes
or something.
Uzume quickly found a nice apartment to serve as a temporary base while she
sited for her new Dark Edifice of Fear and Happiness and Terror. She was
hardly unpacked before she hied herself down to the We-B-Youma employment
agency, dragging Shiryo by the braid.
The receptionist wore a tight-fitting black dress, had five-inch, blood-red
nails, and a black beehive tall enough to menace commercial aviation.
"Gyood afternyoon," she crooned nasally. "How may I hyelp you?"
"I'm looking for some youma," said Uzume. "A full set, Generals and legions."
"Very well. Shyall we start with the legions? They're generally the
easiest." She drew a thick book from behind the desk. It was bound in
something thick and black and scaly. She opened it, revealing photographs
of various youma.
"What would you like? We have the basic styarter set, which comes complete
with mismyatched animal parts *and* a set of generals...though I wouldn't
really trust them to plot their way out of a paper byag."
"Hmm. No," said Uzume, "I think I need something a bit more specific..."
"Lyet's see," said the receptionist, flipping the pages. "We have the
Hentai Set. More tyentacles than you'll ever need or your money back."
"Ah, no."
"The Tooth and Fang Spyecial?"
"Mmm. Do you have anything more...subtle?"
"Wyell, there's the Undercover Set. Don't look completely human, but they
do come with myasks."
"Oooh!" said Uzume, snatching the book. "I think that'll be perfect! What
do you think, Shiryo?"
"Yes, it's lovely."
"You didn't even look!"
"She'll take them," Shiryo said. Uzume stuck out her tongue.
The receptionist slid the book back under her desk and stood up. "If
you'll fyollow me," she said, "we'll pick out some generals."
To Shiryo, who'd seen mind-altering quantities of American television, the
General selection process bore a suspicious similarity to The Dating Game,
except that you got to see the bachelors. In fact, Uzume seemed to be
basing her choices mostly on physical appearance. All right, wholly on
physical appearance.
"I'll take you, you, you, and...you," were her exact words. She didn't
even bother looking at the little cards that said things like "Hello, my
name is ___________ and I enjoy candle light dinners, walks on the beach,
and the screams of the subjugated beneath my heels." He finally forced her
to look into their strategic capabilities, and was thoroughly chagrined
when all of them passed muster.
"See?" said Uzume. "I have an eye for these things."
Shiryo said a bad word.
*********************************
Uzume was very pleased with the arrangements she'd made; her new legions
were ready and waiting in a pocket dimension, and she had four lovely new
toy--er, commanders, to carry out her bidding.
The generals could have been happier. Not all of them were on the best of
terms, and having to share the same bathroom did not make matters much better.
"Varese, if I find one more long, moussed-up hair in the sink, I'm going to
make you clean it with your tongue."
"Who used my toothbrush?"
"Marais, the rest of us would take it as a sign of compassion if you ate a
little less often at the Burrito Barn."
"Dammit, Schein, stop hogging all the hot water!"
"Could you KNOCK first?"
"Okay, no more reading material longer than four pages in length."
"~Tallis wears tiger-print UNDER-wear! Tallis wears tiger-print UNDER-wear!~"
"Varese, there comes a time when one must ask, how many hair care products
does any one man need?"
"My towel is the second from the right. My towel is *always* the second
from the right."
"That's it! Schein, if you're not out of the shower in thirty seconds,
we're going to toss you naked in the hall and let old lady Mitsuda have her
way with you."
"There is a reason we place extra paper under the sink. Can you guess what
that reason is, Tallis?"
"For pity's sake, Marais, USE the FAN!"
*********************************
Uzume spread a nine-dimensional map out on the table and spent some time
pouring over it with Shiryo and her generals, who spent a lot of time
elbowing each other.
"If I may make a suggestion, my Queen," Schein said coolly, "I heard on YNN
than Dark Queen Prudence's has been defeated. Most of her castle is still
standing here." He indicated a spot on the map. "It would be an
advantageous position, and we would save significantly on construction
costs, as she spent extra on post-demise structural
support."
"Why Schein," said Uzume. "That is a perfectly splendid idea."
Schein bowed serenely. Varese rolled his eyes, Tallis gagged, and Marais
made a crude gesture involving an intimate portion of his anatomy, albeit
where the Queen could not see.
"In fact, Schein," said Uzume, leaning forward in a way that clearly
emphasized her cleavage, "I would be very happy if you and the others took
some youma and secured the area first thing in the morning. Dismissed."
The various generals wandered as far away from each other as the apartment
allowed. Marais flopped down on the sofa, effectively occupying the entire
thing, and watched American professional wrestling. Schein read Racine in
the original French. Varese groomed himself. Tallis sat in a corner and
sulked because he couldn't watch the copy of Sleepless in Seattle that he'd
rented.
Shiryo looked at them and shook his head.
"Aww, c'mon," said Uzume, with Happy Bounce #13. "Everything is going
perfectly. You'll see."
[OMINOUS CHORD]
"What was that?"
"Sounded like a c-sharp diminished seventh," said Shiryo, unhelpfully.
*********************************
Silence fell over the audience chamber of Dark Queen Nyx as she flowed into
the room. Literally. Her hair streamed endlessly behind her in an
intangible wind, and countless stars swirled in the folds of her robes.
"Prudence has fallen..." she announced, her voice sighing like the night
breeze. "Now is our chance.... Erebus... Charon... Tartarus... Acheron...
go, and secure her realm...."
"Hail Nyx, Queen of the Night," they chorused, but veeeery quietly.
[OMINOUS CHORD]
"Shhhh!"
*********************************
Dark Queen Yasha sat with one leg cocked over the arm of her throne, with a
glass of what might possibly have been wine in one hand. Her outfit was
leather, but so minimalist even the radical animal rights groups would
hardly bat an eye. Her tastes ran to an odd mix of goth and fluffy
romance, which did very strange things for the decor.
"Looks like Prudence bit the big one," she said. "She was boring anyway."
Yasha paused, and swirled the contents of her glass thoughtfully. "I hear
she had a really primo wine cellar," she mused. "Gérald?"
Her Generals exchanged glances among themselves. She tended to change
their names about every two weeks. One of them stood up and asked, "Um,
which one of us is Gérald again?"
Yasha looked at him with mild disgust. "You, you stupid git. Why don't
you take some of the boys tomorrow and see if she left anything behind?"
[OMINOUS CHORD]
"François, put that damn accordion down."
FIN
Tune in next time, and hear Myra Lou threaten: "Sugar, I'm 89 years old.
You don't want to see me in a fuku."
Or maybe not.
________________________________________________
Author's notes:
Post-Sweepstakes addendum: Many thanks to Brian Stricklin for suggesting
both the Senshi Muyo and Call Me Queen! title ideas.
Aiyee.
I have no skill in titling things. The Title Muse only laughs when I
beseech her aid. I thought about calling this "Inverse," (i.e. the bad
people doing the feelgood act), which seemed like a better title, but it
also begged the addition "No, Not Lina, You Fool."
I apologize if things seem a little rushed towards the end; I had intended
to revamp a stagnant project for the Sweepstakes, but I then came to
realize that a) I let it stagnate for a very good reason and b) there was
really no freedom for other people to develop it in their own way. So I
wound up coming up with a completely original (I hope) idea very late
Saturday night (Sunday morning) and spending the rest of
fall break either working on this or feeling mildly guilty for not working
on it.
I don't want to go back to class!
Possible future plot points:
What will Uzume and Shiryo's family think about all this? How will
Carlisle and Whittington manage to assemble a decent hero team on such
short notice? *Will* they manage to assemble a hero team on such short
notice? Did anyone else get the feeling that pawning Great Aunt Shonagon's
hideous heirloom might have far-reaching and mysterious ramifications? Was
it really smart to flush a bunch of transformation pens down the toilet?
Will Fushin ever realize Yuriko has the hots for him? What is Myra Lou's
role in all of this, exactly? Just how many Dark Queens ARE there? Will
it occur to Whittington and Carlisle that Fushin probably wouldn't even
notice if the world became an Orwellian land of strictly enforced
contentment? Do those thirty-seven oni have any relation to the plot at
all? Will Fushin's actual destiny distract him from the destiny
Whittington and Carlisle have planned for him? What IS his actual destiny,
anyway? Why are the line lengths of this thing so uneven? Okay, that's
not really a valid plot point. Sue me.
Some, but not all, etymological matters:
For further information about some of these names you can check the
Encyclopedia Mythica
http://www.pantheon.org/
Uzume--Name of the Shinto goddess of joy and happiness.
Shiryo--a type of ghost.
Nyx--The Greek personification of night.
Yasha--a type of vampiric spirit who got nailed by jealousy in the karma
department. No connection to the author Yasha, who seems like a perfectly
nice person with no noticeably exsanguinous drinking habits.
Yes, the Venice Beach bit came from the episode of Freakazoid! with Jeepers
and Vorn the Unspeakable.
I must say I am extremely pleased with myself for the Kitty Carlisle/Dick
Whittington's cat thing. Good for me!
________________________________
--Mervyn the Wonder Slug, better known (but not by much) as Keith
knoke@rhodes.edu
Scott Schimmel Ex ignorantia ad sapientium;
Ex luce ad tenebras
"You really aren't normal, are you?" - Miki Koishikawa