Most cults have a knack for finding tiny ratholes or abandoned
warehouses.  It's almost traditional, and it makes cult jobs truly
boring; we had to fix a pack of cult-hunting magical girls a while ago,
and watching their target Warehouses 'O' Sacrifice got old fast.  Staking
out those places was just dull.  Shubby-chan's Happy Happy Joy Joy Fun
Club got creativity points, though; very few cults had cheery storefronts
with big pastel signs saying 'Shubby-chan's Family Center'.

        "What's that in the window?" asked Aika, shifting on the floor for
a better view of the photos on my table.  We'd wound up at my place for
the post-recon strategy session by virtue of a stocked fridge and a
working TV, both of which I probably shouldn't have mentioned with
everybody else around.  Itami was on the couch watching sumo, and I'd
claimed the easy chair.  H had vanished into the bathroom, giving us our
first clear view of Itami all night.

        I popped open a can of Coke and spun one of the photos to face me.
It was a simple shot of the storefront, with a couple kids coming out the
door under their sign.  The kids had white Shubby-chan T-shirts on, with
the same logo as the window behind them.  It looked like a big fly that
just met a bigger windshield, except that it looked intact.

        "A cloud?" I guessed.

        Aika poked at the picture as a flush came from the bathroom.  "I
thought it was a goat."

        "Hey, Itami," I asked, holding up the photo, "Isn't that like one
of those Rorshach things the counselor kept showing you in high school?"

        "They were blobs," said Itami.

        Aika looked confused, but she didn't ask.  I guess she'd managed
to stay out of her school counselor's way, which was kind of surprising.
School counselors like to chat with kids who have her kind of interests;
not that I can talk.

        I thought they were mostly birds.

        "So what's this one?" I asked, waving the photo.

        "Shub-Niggurath," said Itami, without looking away from the TV.
The crowd roared as some big guy pushed some other big guy out of the
ring; I never got into sumo.  If I thought I had a prayer of getting the
remote from him, I'd do something about it.  I put the photo down instead.

        "Doesn't look like much," I said.

        Aika nodded as the bathroom door burst open to reveal H, who
promptly whisked past the pictures and wrapped around Itami on the couch.
"What's in the pictures, Itami?" she purred.  "Fun things?"

        "Shub-Niggurath," he said.  H moaned and coiled a little tighter
around Itami.  Naturally, he didn't move.  At least she could have
knocked his hand away from the remote.

        Aika started talking.  I gave the remote one last glance and
looked back to the pictures.  "You can't just shoot this place up, can
you?" she asked.  "I mean, it's a day care center, right?"

        "Gets better," I told her, pulling some pamphlets out of my coat
pocket.  Yes, I wear the thing at home; it takes some of the pain out of
unexpected visitors.  "They hand these out to anybody who cares.  I
picked some up when we were checking their trash."  Itami grunted,
expressing his love for that part of the job.  I dropped the pamphlets on
the table.  The weird one was on top; a little glossy thing with a cute
little girl surrounded by youma on the cover.  They weren't jumping her,
though; she had two things flanking her, and the youma kept their
distance. Trenchcoats and hats obscured most of them, which didn't keep
them from feeling wrong somehow; I'd stared at it for ten minutes earlier
before realizing that one of their coat sleeves was twisted completely
around, like the thing's arm was broken and it didn't care.  They didn't
have faces in the picture, either.  What got me was the pencilling; it was
drawn with just a hint of cutesiness, like this was an everyday thing.

        "Shubby-chan: Guardian of the Young," read the title.

        "Oh," said Aika.  "So it's a cult day care center."

------

Improfanfic presents
Magical Girl Hunters 11:
...And All I Got was this Lousy T-Shirt
By Tim Harahan

Magical Girl Hunters created by Aaron Shattuck
C&C is appreciated to harahan@uiuc.edu.

Cautions and fair warning:
This story is rated PG-13 for a pinch of language, a chunk of violence,
and some dark content.  This standard was scientifically selected
by taking a wild guess.  Parental discretion is advised.

------

        "So how come you didn't hear about this before?" asked Aika.  She
picked up the stack of pamphlets and started leafing through them.

        I shrugged.  "We heard about Shubby-chan's Happy Happy Joy Joy
Club, but they were pretty harmless.  Some people went out on Saturdays.
These guys did rituals instead.  Nothing special."

        "This's new," said Itami.  "Read the pamphlet."

        Aika opened up the Guardian of the Young pamphlet, putting her
finger in the middle of a page.  "Shub-Niggurath is called a terrible
thing," she read.  "Some people are afraid of her, the same way they're
afraid of lightning.  People are always afraid of what's stronger than
they are."  She turned the page.  "Smart people make friends with
Shub-Niggurath because she shares that strength with her friends.
Criminals and youma are everywhere, so we need Shub's help to be strong
and help our friends.  That's why we call her Shubby-chan; we've made
friends with her, and we want to help you know her too."

        H started doing something to Itami's ear, so I got really
interested in a photo of a family walking into Shubby-chan's.  Aika held
up the pamphlet to block her view.  "This is for kids, isn't it?" She
glanced at me from behind the pamphlet.  "They give these to anybody?"

        I nodded.  "We can't do this one the usual way," I said, pointing
to the family's daughter.  She had a big smile on her face, like
Shubby-chan's was some kind of amusement park.  "Too many potential
civilian casualties.  Itami and I got an apartment across the street and
did some head counts; there's usually at least fifteen people inside
during the day.  Three staff and twelve kids on average until six o'clock;
then it's mostly adults until the evening sessions finish."  Aika dropped
'Shubby-chan: Guardian of the Young' and started on 'The True Universe'.
"There were lights on up until eleven at night, too, but it looked like
the classes were finished by nine."

        Aika looked up from the pamphlet.  "Um, I don't know if I can go
on a night job," she said.  "I can get away for a while after school, but
my parents are going to expect me home at night."

        Personally, I didn't mind; Aika might be handy, but something
about her with a gun still made me nervous.  Besides, I didn't really want
to see her too deep in the business.  So, naturally, Itami jumped in.

        "Need the firepower," he said.  The sumo went to commercial, and
his hand twitched like he'd almost changed the channel.

        H tore herself away from Itami's ear and glared at me.  "There
aren't any of them here," she said, just as Aika started to say something.
"What about the girls?"

        I shrugged.  "They should be in the area.  It's a bad part of
town for youma; everything west of Ureshii Park has been hit pretty hard
lately, especially with Princess Love out of the picture."  I waved at
the pictures.  "This area was bad before, and it's been getting the worst
of it now.  The police just aren't keeping up."

        "Um, the night thing?" asked Aika.

        H ignored her and shot me one of her death looks.  "If there
aren't any of them, I have better things to do."

        "They could show up," said Itami.  He risked missing sumo long
enough to check another channel, and a perky couple talking about their
new Toyosan car.  The wife raved about its gas mileage, and the husband
talked about the armor that saved him from gangs and youma.  "You could
scout," said Itami.  He flipped channels again, back to sumo.

        "You know, I could, Itami."  A light went on in H's eyes.  "And
if any of them sneak up on you, I can take care of it."  H rubbed up
against Itami, which sent Aika back to the pamphlet with a blush.  "I'll
always take care of you, Itami."

        I snorted, which earned me another look of death from H.
"Anyway," I said, "We're going to have to hit the place after hours.
Hopefully we can find out just what the deal is with these guys."  I
whipped out the list Ramsbottom had given us.  "Technically, we only have
to catch these four."  I ran down the names; Kotonatta, Bara, Reika, and
Jiyu.  Full names would have made me a lot happier, but that's what I get
for not checking the list before taking the job.  "With any luck, we can
at least find someone who knows where they are."

        Itami nodded.  Two other huge guys slammed into each other on the
TV.  "OK, then, we go tomorrow," I said.  "Aika, you don't have to worry
about this."  She nodded and went back to 'The True Universe'.  She hadn't
turned the page in a while.  "Everybody else, we'll meet out by
Shubby-chan's tomorrow at ten.  I'll give you a place in the morning,
after I get check some maps and get some plans from City Records."

        Things broke up pretty quickly after that, even if I did have to
pry Itami off my couch to get H to leave.

------

        Itami wouldn't agree, but mornings aren't that bad.  For some
people, it's all associated with bouncy happy things; the sun comes up,
the world starts over, and it's a brand new day.  If they're also the
sort of people who use the Tokyo Protectors Happy Healing CD with their
alarm clock, like my beloved next-door neighbor, then morning gets bad.
Those are the people who give sunrise a bad name, trying to share their
joy so hard that everybody else decides to share their pain.  Me, I
figured morning was just a time of day.

        I never would have figured that the Finn would fit the other
category.

        "Ah, Yoi, good to see you."  He practically threw the warehouse
door open for me and took a deep whiff of early morning commuter smog.
"You out for the sunshine, kid?"

        "Hey, Finn."  I walked past him into the warehouse part of his
warehouse.  On this side, it was mostly crates and auto parts; the fun
stuff was in the other corner.  Mixed in with the fun stuff were all the
toys Ramsbottom had given us; I get a little paranoid about anybody with a
time-stopper handing me presents.  We may be good, but anyone with that
kind of hardware is probably better, which makes me wonder why they needed
us.  "You get a chance to check out that stuff I brought you?"

        "Yeah."  The Finn slammed the door and hopped past me.  I wandered
through the crates after him.  "It's all legit; no tracers, no tricks.
Quality hardware, though I'd keep those Smith & Wessons I got you around.
The .45s are nice, but they're only semiautomatics, and the magazines are
all too small.  Eighteen rounds ain't thirty, Yoi."  He took another one
of those big, cleansing morning breaths, and I wondered just how much
dust he sucked down in the process.

        "Never knock a freebie."  I shrugged.

        "Well, you oughta stick to my goods," he said.  We rounded a
corner into the heap of spare parts he called a workshop.  I could see
our guns on a corner table.  The Finn pointed to a vise holding one of
the deatomizers in a wad of wires and sensors, next to a blinking
oscilloscope and some other funky-looking gadgets.  "Especially with this
Star Trek junk they're giving you.  You check this thing out?"  I shook
my head as he bounced over to the coffeepot in the corner.  "Neat toy,
but one big problem.  Here, take a look."

        I walked over to the deatomizer as the Finn got poured himself a
cup of sludge.  No way did I ask for a cup; I learned my lesson a few
months ago.  "See the magazine release?"  I shook my head while he
bounced over to the deatomizer and put the coffeepot down on something
that blinked a lot.  "There isn't one."  He tapped the stock, which made
the blinking thing beep.  "Some kind of charge unit.  Stand back."

        I stood back.  The Finn pushed a button on one of his gadgets,
which made the coffeemaker bubble, started up a stereo I hadn't noticed
and popped a beat up steel plate twenty feet in front of the deatomizer.

        "Welcome back to the Tokyo Fun Morning Commute!" flounced the
stereo.  "Now, back to our Hero Hour, with a little something from volume
three of the Happy Healing Compendium.  Remember, folks, we're still way
short of our Princess Love Memorial Scholarship Fund goal, so keep those
contributions coming.  Now, off the album better known as 'The Smile',
here's Cheery Crystal Knight with 'Just Another Face with the Smile, part
Two.'"

        The Finn studiously ignored my look, even when I started choking a
laugh.  The Finn?  With the Tokyo Fun Network?  This beat the time I
caught Itami trying the macarena when he thought I wasn't watching.  No
way was that just research, like he said.

        "We don't need no deep de-pres-sion," sang the radio.  "We don't
need no thoughts of doom..."

        The Finn shook his head, straightened up, and started clicking
buttons on the remote.  I guess he had the off button wired strange,
because nothing happened to the stereo.  A lot of other things were
starting to whir or beep, and a machine gun on a tripod started swinging
back and forth.  The Finn jumped over to it and pulled the plug, which
didn't do anything to the radio.

        "Hey!  Creature!  Leave those kids alone!"

        After a moment, the Finn walked over to the stereo, kicked it
once, and flipped a switch.  The thing went dead right before the chorus,
and the noise faded into the whirs of everything Finn hadn't turned off
yet.  I shot him a raised eyebrow.

        "Gee, Finn, right before that sweet widdle guitar solo."

        He snorted and went back to the deatomizer.  "I got your yummy
light right here, Yoi."  His finger wrapped around the trigger.

        "Um, Finn, noise-"  He pulled the trigger anyway.  A streak of
gray slid out of the barrel with a rumble like trucks on a bridge,
followed by a whoosh as it vanished.  My heart started slowing down when
I realized we weren't going to get cops in here responding to automatic
weapons fire.

        "And there you are," said the Finn.  I turned my eyebrow on what
was left of the steel plate; there was a big hole in it, but not a neat
one.  A splatter of steel was missing, like somebody threw acid jello
through it or something.  "Hear that whine?"  The Finn tapped the gun for
my attention.  "I clocked it.  Fire once, then wait ten seconds.  Keep
the usual or get a really big bayonet, unless you want me to fix it up
for you."

        "You do lasers now, Finn?"

        The Finn buffed his nails on his grimy jacket.  It's a lot more
impressive on someone who doesn't look like a rodent.  "I'm hurt, Yoi.
Really; you should know I can figure it out.  Leave me one of these and I
might even cut you a some credit."

        I shook my head.  "They're all loaners, Finn."  I went over to the
workbench with our guns and pulled out one of the duffels.  "What if I
get you an autographed copy of the Pink Album?"

        "How many angels can dance on your head, Yoi?"

        That one got me blinking.  Every have one of those moments where
you know you were just insulted, but you're not sure how?

        Great way to start the morning.

------

        Night wasn't that cheery, but Itami's just not a Tokyo Fun Network
kind of guy.  At ten, we were standing next to the car a few blocks away
from Shubby-chan's, and I was tapping out that stinking Just Another Face
with The Smile song on the hood for the fourth time.  Itami leaned on the
window and stared at people until they walked faster.  "Is this where
we're supposed to meet H?" I asked, glancing down the alley we'd parked
next to.  Itami nodded.  "Well, she'd better hurry up."  Anything to get
some action and ditch that song.

        "We're early," grunted Itami.

        "We're going to get cops asking questions," I told him, glancing
around until I saw the ice cream shop up the street.  Pale blue letters
over the door called it the Kenkai.  "C'mon, let's get out of the street.
You like cookie dough?"

        Itami grunted his feelings about the king of ice creams.  We
strolled through the door and got in line.  There were a few funny looks,
as usual, but nothing Itami couldn't handle.  If somebody stared at him,
he stared right back.  I ordered for us while Itami got a booth with a
view.  Wouldn't do to leave all that hardware in the trunk without
keeping an eye on the car, after all.

        Ice cream is a weird thing for Itami.  With most things, he'll eat
whatever you drop in front of him.  The only way you know if he liked it
or not is by seeing if he glares at you or not between bites.  With ice
cream, though, Itami turns picky.  If it isn't a cup with one scoop of
vanilla and one scoop of chocolate, forget it.  Personally, I never got
what the big deal was.

        I picked up the ice cream; one cup of cookie dough for me, and
Itami's usual for him.  "You missed the good stuff this morning," I told
Itami as I sat down and slid him his cup.  He took a spoonful of
chocolate.  "Turns out that the Finn listens to Hero Hour."  My spoon
tapped the cup.  It's a lousy rimshot, but what the heck.  "It was
beautiful," I continued.  "He's just bending over one of the big pieces,
right about to set it off, when he hits a button on one of those
overblown remotes of his.  The next thing I know, we're right in the
middle of 'The Smile', and the Finn's practically bouncing off the walls
trying to turn it off."

        "Hm," said Itami, taking another scoop of chocolate.  How he
manages to get exactly one flavor on his spoon is beyond me.  Even if
they're completely melted together, Itami never gets his flavors mixed.

        You find these things out on long stakeouts, okay?

         "Part two," I said, grinning.  "The Cheery Crystal Knight
version."  Itami stared out the window.  "They just announced this
Princess Love scholarship fund, and then bam.  You should've seen his
face, Itami."

        Itami hit me with his 'you what?' gaze, which looked an awful lot
like his 'oh, that' gaze.  "Did you call?"

        "What do you mean, did I call?"  I put my spoon down and opened
my hands.  "Do I look loaded, Itami?  Do I look like we've really got
spare cash right now?"

        "Call," he said, taking a spoonful of vanilla.

        Shoot.  He meant this.  "Look, Itami, we're not rich, and any
committee running a Princess Love fund is going to be hunting for kids
like her.  Remember her?  Cutesy defender of justice, part-time abuser of
music?"

        Itami gave me one of his 'so what' stares, with another bite of
vanilla for emphasis.  I caught a couple not so friendly looks from the
neighboring tables and lowered my voice.

        "It's not worth it, Itami.  They'll probably give some ten year
old a wand along with the check, and she'll go down just like Princess
Love did."  Itami just wasn't making the connection here, was he?  "I am
not going to have a hand in building up the whole magical girl thing,
Itami.  And that includes helping out any of their lovey-dovey scholarship
funds."

        "I'll call."  He followed that up with another spoonful of
vanilla.

        My cup of cookie dough hadn't been touched, so I started
stirring it up, checking to see if I'd gotten any of the big dough chunks
this time.  "Look, Itami, it's a free country and everything, but I'm not
calling and you shouldn't either."  I sighed.  "You remember the time you
got stuck between Heian Helper and the Bleak Creature, back when the
Helper was with Princess Love?  Back when they were all working in that
Angel Idol Defense Force?"  Itami stared at me, twirling his spoon in his
cup.  "When you caught the Happy Harmony Song three times inside five
minutes, and got the Civic Duty Song on the way out?"  This time I got
one of his 'whatever' stares.  "You quit and spent the next two weeks
agonizing about reporting me."

        He took a spoonful of vanilla.  "Did not."

        "That's bull, Itami.  I found that diary you kept then."  The
stare grew an edge.  "Don't give me that, Itami.  You'd gone over the
edge.  I had to know how far, or we'd both have been screwed."  My spoon
stabbed into the cookie dough.  I took a bite.  "You bought the Pink
Album, for crying out loud.  You went out with one of them."

        He took another spoonful of vanilla.  "She was not."

        I took another bite and gave him my best 'whatever' stare, which
didn't work too well with a load of cookie dough in my mouth.  "Her dog
talked, Itami.  You were too far gone to notice, but I was watching out
for you."

        "She was not."  Again, he punctuated it with a spoonful of
vanilla, like an ice cream Terminator.

        "Itami," I said, "You don't get this, but at least it doesn't
matter anymore.  You spent two weeks singing along to the Pink Album.  Do
you know how many times I had to sit through your godawful rendition of
'Everyone Matters'?  And how about 'All Forgiven'?"  I leaned over the
table, pointing with my spoon for emphasis.  "You got sucked into their
world, Itami.  For two weeks, you were the older boyfriend with the dark
secret.  Her second boyfriend, while she was on the rebound from that
masked avenger type.  You know what the survival rate is for those?"  My
spoon almost touched his nose.  "Twenty percent, Itami.  You went this
close to turning yourself in for redemption and getting us both busted
for that."  I took a shot at outstaring him.  Not that I had a chance of
beating an Itami staredown, but he'd get the point.  "That's where
Princess Love was, and that's where the money goes.  Do you really want
to support that?"

        Itami took a spoonful of chocolate and grunted.  I leaned back.

        "Exactly," I said, taking a bite of my own.

        We gave H ten more minutes, but she never showed up.  Itami made
us check the area, but I wasn't too surprised; H isn't exactly Miss
Reliable when there's no guaranteed fuku in the job.  We hit the road.
Itami put the radio on the Fun Network, but he didn't do anything when I
changed to a funk station.

        Ten minutes later, we were there.

------

        We parked next to the outlet of an alley that ran behind
Shubby-chan's.  Itami got the duffels of hardware out of the trunk while
I paid off the gangbangers asking if I wanted them to watch the car.
That probably dropped the chances of grand theft auto down to
fifty-fifty.  I bargained them down some and promised the rest of
the money with a little bonus when we left, which made it maybe
sixty-forty.  It was more for the disturbance than for the car; losing
our escape route would bite, but having the cops respond to some of the
Finn's anti-theft innovations would be a lot worse.  Besides, I figured
the gangbangers could tell we weren't people to tick off; having Itami
staring from across the street did a lot for the negotiations.

        With that out of the way, we headed down the alley towards
Shubby-chan's, checking behind each dumpster as we went.  According to
the records office, Shubby-chan's was a converted hardware store, which
meant a rear delivery entrance.  That was our ticket in; nice and out of
the way, with a nice restricted field of view compared to the street
entry.  Halfway down the alley, we dropped the bags and loaded up.  Itami
was Minister of Pointy Things again, with the deatomizer and sword on his
back, one heck of a lot of knives under his coat, and one of the Finn's
prototype automatics just in case.  I felt like sticking to the flying
lead motif, which looked a lot like Itami's loadout if you switched most
of the knives for spare ammo and grenades.  We hid the duffels under a
dumpster and kept moving towards the entrance, trading off between who
was moving and who was covering just in case.  In a minute, we were at
the door.

        Naturally, when a girl in a fuku jumped off a rooftop into the
street in front of us, I came about this close to blowing her head off.
Our guns snapped onto her as her head jerked up; she'd seen me.  Lucky
for her that the camoflage fuku is pretty distinctive.  "Guys, it's me!"
she yelled.  "Aika."

        So much for the quiet approach.  I lowered my gun and joined Itami
behind one of the dumpsters, waving Aika over.  Itami's gun kept cruising
up and down the alley, just in case something chose that moment to pop
up.  "What are you doing here?" I hissed.  "You said you'd be at home!"

        Aika looked down sheepishly.  "I decided to go out anyway; the
pamphlets kind of bugged me.  I sort of got caught."

        Brilliant.  I glanced around the alley.  "Did anyone follow you?"

        Aika shook her head.  "No, but I saw a lot of magical girls.  Do
you know how many of them are bouncing around those rooftops?  Somebody
even put road signs up there; I couldn't hide the whole way, and I had to
yield to Peachy Keena and the Fruit Fighters on top of city hall.  They
weren't paying much attention, though."

        "How do you know?" asked Itami.

        Aika glanced over her shoulder at him.  "They were talking about
this big Idol Achievement benefit concert the whole time.  That and an
argument about which one of them was really destined for some Tetsuo guy.
They mentioned a youma on the waterfront, too."

        "Wonderful," I said.  "Skip to the part where you got caught."
Dropping into a hit like this was not a good plan, and Aika really needed
to catch onto that.  That talk would have to wait, though; we were kind
of in the middle of things here.  "Who knows what?"

        Aika sniffed.  "My parents.  My window jammed, and they heard me
force it.  Naturally, I was in the fuku, since I hadn't had a chance to
switch it, and, well-"

        "Well what?" asked Itami, personable as always.

        "I told them," said Aika, red-faced and staring at the pavement.
I could see Itami's gun quiver once before going back to its sweep, and I
understood why.  "Not about you; about getting hit by that blast and
finding the magic flashlight.  They were so proud; Dad said this was the
first good thing I'd ever gotten from wanting to join the self-defense
force.  Mom almost cried, saying how great this was, and how I shouldn't
jump into any demon realms without calling first."  She kicked at an
empty carton on the alley floor.  "They think I'm off fighting youma like
everybody else."

        Okay, kids, do you see why I'm not too find of the whole fuku
brigade here?  Say it with me now: collateral damage.

        "OK; the bottom line here is whether or not your parents can
track what you really do.  Can they keep up with you this way?"  Aika
shook her head; good.  We'd had one case where a magical girl pack got a
den mother right after we took the job.  She was a nasty piece of work
who'd picked up a few things as a war correspondent in the eighties.
We'd had to catch her transforming with a couple shotguns; girls were
bad, but we tried to dodge the women for a reason.  Plus, with Aika,
there just isn't a good way ask someone to hit their mom, though Itami
could probably fudge something.

        "Did any other girls say anything?" asked Itami.

        "No," said Aika.  "Most of them are pretty occupied up there.
They just bounce to wherever they're going; maybe they chat if the
traffic's not too loud.  The Fruit Fighters went right by."  Aika got
this little half smile on her face that reminded me of Itami.  "I
could've popped any of them.  They were so close."

        "Whoa."  I grabbed her shoulders; her head snapped back up.  Good.
"We don't do anything we don't have a contract for.  No freebies."  I
smiled.  "Got it?"  She nodded.  "Good."

        "My parents took the gun anyway," she said in a small voice.
"They said it was dangerous.  Then I started running over the roofs."
She glanced around the alley and then back at me.  "They waved."

        "And you came here?" I asked.

        She shrugged.  "Why not?"  She got that Itami-ish grin again.  "I
might as well do what I came for."

        It's a good thing she isn't interested in Itami.  I'd hate to see
those kids.

        "OK, Aika," I told her.  "We don't have any spare guns, though."
She pouted, which gave me a warm feeling; that's the Aika I know.
"You'll come in with us."  Maybe she could have stayed with the car, but
she was almost guaranteed to overreact to the gang.  Even if she just
beat them up, it'd be more attention than we really wanted.  The
underworld let us stay in business because we got things done without
stepping on too many toes, which meant that there wasn't any percentage
in risking something with the gang.

        "What do you want me to do?" asked Aika.  She looked pretty cooled
off; good.

        "Itami," I said.  He passed her one of his knives without looking.
"Hang onto that, stay back, and let us know if anything comes up behind
us."

        "Check."

        "Follow me," I told her.  We went all the way to the door this
time; anything that wanted to take a shot at us had had plenty of time by
then.  Itami caught up in a moment, and we spread out to either side of
the door.

        "Ready, Itami?"  I held one of the .45s under my coat.  Itami
nodded and put one hand on the doorknob of Shubby-chan's back alley.  It
turned slightly; unlocked.  Good.  Aika stood behind Itami, watching my
hand as I counted down from three on my fingers.  At zero Itami threw the
door open and I burst into the room.

        Once again, Shubby-chan's Family Center defied expectations.  What
the plans showed as a rear storeroom had been converted into a reception
area.  Wooden benches lined the left half of the room, around a low table
with a spread of magazines and newspapers.  Abstract prints and kid's art
lined the walls, most of which involved the blobby Shubby-chan from the
window.  A wood-paneled door across from the entrance led deeper into the
Family Center.  I didn't pay it much attention, since I had my gun on the
receptionist behind the desk that dominated the right side of the room.

        "Stand up slowly and put your hands where I can see them," I told
her.

        "Hello," she said, putting down her pencil and casually complying.
I glanced at the nameplate on her desk: Ichiko.  Itami darted in and
covered inner door while Aika closed the outside one.

        Why the heck does anybody put a reception area on their alley
entrance?  "We're here to see-" think of the list "-Kotonatta.  Show me
his office."

        "Kotonatta-san doesn't work here," said Ichiko calmly.  Aika
shifted behind me; I guess she wasn't too sure what was happening either.
"Is there anything else I can help you with?"

        "Step away from the desk," I told Ichiko.  She gave me a bemused
little look, like my fourth grade teacher would when she thought I was
being especially silly.  "Now!"

        "You really should go," said Ichiko.  "There's nobody else here,
and Shubby-chan is watching me."

        "That's just peachy."  I waved her backwards with the gun.
"Pretty, get their records."  I could feel Aika's dirty look; heh.
"Now, where is Kotonatta if he isn't here?"

        Ichiko looked down at Aika.  "Second drawer from the top, dear.
No, on the left side."

        "Kotonatta is not in the desk."  I've never been that great at the
whole menacing voice thing, but I had to try.  Aika dug into the desk
while I talked.  "Where is Kotonatta?"

        Ichiko kept watching Aika.  "I'll be with you in a minute, sir."
I coughed.  The thing about the magical girl business is that they do all
the talking; I really needed to practice this. "You want the third book in
that stack, hon." Aika slid a ledger onto the desktop; its pink cover and
decorative little Shubby-chan blobs stood out on the black blotter.

        "Who does work here?" I demanded.

        Ichiko tsked.  "You should really be nicer, or Shubby-chan will
get you.  She likes cheery people better."

        I gave up.  "Itami."  We switched places while Aika finished
checking the other drawers in the desk.  A few more pink Shubby-chan
ledgers went on the desktop while I let the God of Gloom take a shot at
Ichiko.

        "Kotonatta, Jiyu, Bara, and Reiki," said Itami.  "Where are they?"
He cut loose with one of those looks that always got him elbow room on
the subway, even during rush hour.

        Aika finished cleaning out the desk, grabbed the books, and moved
behind me.

        Itami kept staring, and Ichiko made conversation.

        "This is mostly a day care center, you know."  Ichiko nodded
towards the inner door.  "Did you know that the youma attack rate in this
area is finally going down?  First time in three years."  She smiled.
"We're finally getting through to them.  It's rather nice, really.
Shubby-chan really doesn't ask much; would you like some literature?
It's in the third drawer down on the right; it's very interesting
reading."

        Mercifully, the inner door opened before she could get any
further.  A balding man in dark robes stuck his head into the room.  His
eyes widened and his mouth opened as he stared down my Smith & Wesson.
The gun kicked, and he redecorated the wall before he could yell.

        "Bara-san!" gasped Ichiko, staring at the hole in his 'I
sacrificed a goat to Shub-Niggurath and all I got were these lousy robes'
outfit.

        I gave up and told Itami to knock her out.

------

        We tucked the books under a bench and hid Ichiko under the desk
before scouting deeper into the building.  Aika'd found a few sets of
handcuffs and rags under a false bottom in the desk, so we tried them out
on Ichiko.  They worked like a charm, which was a lucky break; Itami and
I usually didn't carry that sort of thing on the job.

        The inner door turned out to lead to a corridor.  On the plans,
it had been a transport lane between the different storerooms and
different parts of the storefront.  To our right were the storefront
doors; down the hall to the left was a door into another storeroom, with
the furnace room door further down.  The storefront turned out to be
empty.  It had been converted into play areas and clusters of desks.
Shubby-chan was everywhere: posters, rugs, pillows, even the papers on
some of the disks.  Kids holding hands danced around Shubby-chan in the
pictures, while adults watched and smiled with trenchcoated black
things.

        "Dark Young," said Itami quietly.

        Aika shivered.

        We slipped into the second storage room; no one was home.  Boxes
of pamphlets and school supplies were crammed into the racks that lined
the walls.  They came from ordinary manufacturers; I recognized most of
them from keeping the office stocked.  Aika cracked open one box, which
turned out to be full of Shubby-chan T-shirts.  The box I peeked into was
full of knives.

        Someone was chanting something with a lot of urks and ucks in it
when we went back to the corridor.  I raised my hand to stop the group
and pointed to the furnace room door.  Itami and Aika nodded, and we
spread out to either side of it.  I did another finger countdown, and on
three we went in.  "Freeze!" I yelled.

        The furnace room had been converted into a traditional cult
chamber.  The furnace room had plenty of heating and cooling gear off to
one side, but its center was decorated with all the squiggles and
pentagrams that cultists get so into.  Three girls stood in the center of
three circles in the middle of the mess, while a middle-aged man stood
under a giant inflatable Shubby-chan balloon with an open book in his
arms.  A low altar sat across from the furnace, complete with bloodstains.
Of course, the average unholy chamber didn't have the runes and
bloodstains fingerpainted in place, but it looked like Shubby-chan's was
avant garde that way.

        Fun.

        "We're ready for you!" called one of the girls, a teenage blonde.

        "Drop the book," I told the man, walking towards him.  Itami and
Aika fanned out to cover the girls.

        "You won't hurt Jiyu-san!" chirped another girl.  This one was a
brunette grade-schooler.

        Okay, this made two people on the list.  I waved the book down
with my free hand.  With luck we'd be able to burn it; cults are a lot
easier to deal with when they're missing a few rites.

        "Be calm, children," said Jiyu, staring at the girls.  He had a
soft voice, like a TV golf announcer.  "Shubby-chan gives us strength."
He turned to me.  "You should go.  This shouldn't involve the girls."

        Itami clacked a round into the chamber of his gun, and the girls
jumped.  "We'll protect you!" chirped the blonde.

        The third girl shook her long black hair out regally.  "We owe it
to you."

        "No," said Jiyu.  I glanced at the girls; each of them had pulled
out a thin black plastic wand.  Jiyu winced, and I ran for him.
Lesson one, kids; hostages do help.

        "By the milk of the anointed, I pledge myself to thee," said the
girls in one voice.  "Grant me the strength to protect my kin, your
people." A drop of something glistened on the tip of each wand.

        Jiyu threw his arms wide and yelled.  "No!"

        I stayed a few meters behind Jiyu as Itami opened fire.  The
black-haired one dropped, but the other two already had their wands to
their mouths.  The room seemed to get a little darker, like when Itami
pulls his sword.

        "Don't you dare, kid!" I yelled.  My burst blew past Jiyu and tore
a gaping hole in the blonde while Itami ventilated her head.  The blonde's
wand clattered on the floor as the other brunette dropped hers.  A little
slice of me registered that both wands looked dry as I took a shot at the
brunette, but the light show had already kicked off.  Dark blue light
swept through the circles, catching the blonde as she fell.  Our shots
clipped the brunette as she rose into the air, spinning her around in a
spew of black.

        Black?

        "You might want to run," said Jiyu.  The girls turned deathly
pale, and they were growing.  Dark lumps formed under their skin,
shifting outwards all over them.  "Magical girls were unreliable,"
continued Jiyu.  He sounded tired but confident.  I took a step back and
felt the wall behind me.  "The police, too.  The youma hunters were quite
capable, but very few of them last long."  The blonde flopped back
and forth in the light.  Something black spurted from her bulletholes with
the rhythm of a pulse.  She wasn't so pale anymore, either; the black
swirled out of the lumps under her skin, like she was a bag of oil.  "We
sought a more complete solution," continued Jiyu.  Itami emptied his clip
into the brunette, bouncing her around in the light.  The shots ended in
wet squelches.  "Shubby-chan's Dark Young are wonderful guardians, but
they can't be everywhere."  The girls dropped to the floor as the light
faded, looking like oil slicks crammed into schoolgirls.  Jiyu scratched
his chin.  "I really hope I set up the de-transformation right."

        I'm not going to repeat what I was thinking at this point.

        "Deatomizer!" I yelled, kicking Jiyu over.  It'd be nice to keep
him later, but I needed to get my deatomizer free.  Itami already had his
out, while Aika ran for Jiyu.  Itami fired at the blonde while the
brunette jumped  for me.  I opened fire too.  The gun bucked and kicked in
my hands.

        Imagine a really big case of jello.  Got it?  Good.  Now mix it up
with a few bags of black food dye and swirl in a lot of raspberries.
Anything kind of  squishy fruit works, but I like raspberries.  Once you
have all that, stir it up and pour it into a pinata.  Go get a shotgun, a
nice big double-barreled one.  Throw a fuku on the pinata and blow the
hell out of it.  You'll get about the same mess as Itami did with that
deatomizer. If you wanted to think about what my shots, imagine a semi
plowing through a cloud of flies.

        Ever notice just how stupid your thoughts get when you know
you're going to get whomped?

        The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and the
nastiest-smelling excuse for a magical girl ever started slamming my ribs
into the ground.  I tried hitting back once or twice, but it was like
punching a sack of moldy potatoes.  She tried tearing the deatomizer off
my back and dislocating my shoulder, which worked a lot better.

        "Hey!" yelled Aika.  I tried to slip loose of the girl-thing's
hold, but the thing flipped me over and pinned me down.  Itami was
hollering something in the background.  "Beating people up when you can
reach their guns is stupid!  I'm Pretty Deadly, and you're dead!"  I
could swear that the girl-thing took a second to blink like I did.  Aika
must have shorted out her cute-speech instincts with that one.  "LOVELY
CANISTER WHUPASS STRIKE!"  Something clanked on the floor twice as the
girl-thing scrabbled for a chokehold.

        "Oops," said Aika.

        The clanking thing on the floor roared, and I went flying.  The
girl-thing's hands tore off me, and I really hoped that Itami had a clear
shot and a charged gun by then.  The wall got in the way before I could
check, though, so I took a little nap.

------

        "Hey...Yoi?"  I blinked.  The reception area came into focus,
minus Ichiko and the ledgers.  Itami was keeping watch with one
deatomizer on his shoulder and another ready while Aika bent over me.
Both of them looked like they'd gotten into an oil balloon fight, and
Itami's face was speckled with blood.  "Hey, um, sorry about that," said
Aika. I tried to move and winced.  My shoulder moved with the rest of me,
but it felt like the rest of me too.  Not moving sounded very attractive
at that point.

        "What, exactly did you do to me?" I asked.

        "Beautiful field medic-go," deadpanned Itami.

        Aika blushed.  "I kind of got carried away."  I tried to give her
my take on Itami's 'no, really' look, but it came out pretty weak.  "It
sneaks up on you sometimes.  You try to do something when you don't know
how, and then, well..."  She bit her lip nervously.  "But your shoulder's
better, right?"

        "Great, but what about down there," I said.  "And where're the
freaks?"

        "Gone," said Itami.  He patted the deatomizer.  "Show him."

        Aika reached behind her and muttered something about lovely
whupass.  When her hand came back, there was a bright pink and blue
canister in it, like the head of a stick grenade.  "No way," I told her.
"No freaking way."  She turned even redder as I read the camouflage
lettering.  Mystical avenging whupass, it read.  Property of Aika-chan;
shake well before using.  Caution: contents under pressure.

        I laughed until it hurt, which meant that I barked once.  Aika put
the can down.  "So you blew her off me and Itami nailed her?"  I asked,
pulling myself up on the desk.  Aika nodded and helped me up.  "What
about the Jiyu?"

        "Gone," said Itami.

        "I sort of nailed him," said Aika.  "He stood up next to the can."

        Guess he should have tapped it first, I almost said.  "So what
about the books?"

        "We checked," said Aika, picking a shredded wad of leather and
paper off the desk.  Black gunk completely covered the thing; it dripped
on the desk as she lifted it.  "Someone cleaned up while we were
downstairs.  We got this and a pizza box someone stuck under the altar,
with a delivery address across town."  Aika dropped a torn pizza receipt
on the desk.  "There were these, too, and the stuff in the storeroom."
She walked around the desk and took a low box out of one of the drawers.
I opened it up stiffly and found myself staring at the Shubby-chan logo
on a neatly folded T-shirt.  "Souvenir?" asked Aika.

        I grinned weakly.  "Later."  I nodded at the pizza receipt.  "How
about we go home and check that out in a couple days?" I asked.

        They nodded, and we picked up the goods and headed for the car.
Aika grabbed her can on the way out.  "Do any of you know how to put one
of these back?" she asked, staring at it.

        Itami and I shrugged, so she ran back into Shubby-chan's.  We
heard the blast as she came out, and for once I hoped the cops showed up
to check the scene.

-----

Next time, on Magical Girl Hunters....

We discover where H was, and the Reika makes some trouble.
Or does Ramsbottom show his true colors while the Ultra impersonator
returns?
Or maybe everybody goes out and has a pizza with the Shubby-chan's Sailor
Shuggoths?

Darned if I know.  Find out next Sunday, only on Improfanfic's Magical
Girl Hunters.