The latest installment of...... Magical Girl Hunters Episode 19: That's one down... By: Matthew G. Campbell (mgcampb@clemson.edu ) Presented by ImproFanfic ( Magical Girl Hunters created by Aaron Shattuck And away we go..... ====== I don't know which one of us kissed Captain Kawaii, but I certainly know which one of us pulled back and excused himself to peek out the door. Me, good old sensible Yoi. Now don't get me wrong, 'Kumiko' was awfully cute and the half-lustful, half- worshipful look she was giving me was doing great things for my ego. On the other hand, my memories of Captain "I like hurting people" Kawaii were only days old. Not to mention that she had been acting none too stable since I had met her as Kumiko. Besides, this just wasn't the time or the place. Or so I kept telling myself as I dragged her down the corridor, the coast having proved clear. Her hand felt warm in mine and the way she kept pressing herself against me every time we paused..... "Yoi!" Aika rounded the corner in front of us and waved for me to follow. I don't think she was really waving for Kumiko to follow. Call it professional jealously, or perhaps the more personal sort. We followed, only to see that Aika was being led herself. Murray, the irascible old buzzard, was doing something useful for once and helping us find our way out. I felt almost glad I had never given in to temptation and blown his buzzard brains out. Almost. Six Shining Crayon Knights were standing guard at the front doors. Well, they were guarding a hole where the front doors used to be, anyway. Shamblers don't appreciate such niceties as bothering to open *before* going through. I took a split- second to consider my options. I could just toss a grenade at them, which ought to be enough distraction so the three of us (and Murray) could slip through. On the other hand, I had two magical girls and a soul-sucking wakizashi on my side. With a little effort and a little risk to my own skin, I could make sure Ultra wouldn't be summoning those Knights back from the dead to bother us again. Call me a short-term thinker. I rolled out a grenade. I think it might have killed the Magenta Knight, but the others just got thrown against various walls. In magical girl terms, that meant they would be up and shaking themselves off in about three seconds. Luckily, this gave us enough time to run through and make a rush for the main gate. We crossed the street, nearly getting ourselves run over by a Mizumo industries truck. (I made a mental note to myself to do something about those bastards. You let one client get away with screwing you over, and pretty soon they're all trying it.) A quick hop over some bushes, and we were back to where I had stashed my car for our getaway. Just in time too, as a brown energy bolt burst above our heads. "Itami, no!" I shouted. I used the gun in my hand to knock his throwing knife out of the air before it could bury itself in Kumiko's heart. Hey, occasionally I do manage to do cool things. "It's Kumiko. You remember, representative of our clients?" Itami shrugged and mumbled a quick "Sorry." to Kumiko. I could tell he didn't mean it though, as the Kawaii fuku and costume had to be making him mighty suspicious. I told Kumiko, "This is why I wanted you to transform earlier. See fuku, shoot fuku, that's how it goes in our business." A quick count showed everybody was there. Kyo and Mai must have hooked up with the first group somewhere along the way. Sailor H was hanging off of Itami as usual, though he still seemed fixated on Kumiko. Reika was huddled with Keikaku, wrapping his hand with a bandage. Brief stirring of jealously were beginning to well, stir, at how close they were getting when the bushes behind us caught fire. A quick glance showed the Shining Crayon Knights were out in force and they sure looked angry. "I hereby declare this raid over," I said, cocking a thumb at the horde of magical girls behind us. It looked like we'd cut their numbers some, but there were still dozens of them, and something must have happened to our shamblers. For once, nobody argued with me. Reika, Keikaku, Itami, and I piled into the car. We had planned for Mai and Kyo to travel with us, making for a tight squeeze. Given their newly revealed wings, I just told them to fly somewhere safe, and gave them directions to meet us back at Itami's place. Yeah, Itami's place. By that time, I figured my apartment was undoubtedly as compromised as the office. Mai looked like maybe he wouldn't show, but Kyo still seemed grateful for the rescue. Hopefully she could talk him around. H and Aika would use a little magical girl speed to get some distance, then detransform and make their way to Itami's place incognito. H knew where it was. Kumiko simply opened one of those rips in the fabric of space and vanished into it. Working for the Balancers obviously had its perks, though I was a bit annoyed she hadn't offered to take us along. Mind you, I caught this in the rear view mirror as I burned rubber. A few multicolored energy bursts scorched the paint job, but we made it safely out. Luckily, most magical girls can't outrun a car on a straightaway. Itami was sulking because I wouldn't let him drive. Oh, to anyone else it might have seemed like he was calmly looking out the window. I knew sulking when I saw it. A groan came from the back seat, and I remembered the bandage. "Zig when you should have zagged, Keikaku?" I could feel his glare even through my seatback. "One of those youmas Ultra was growing bit off two of my fingers! I'm crippled, maimed! Do you realize how much this is going to slow down my computer work?" Reika spoke up. "You saved my life, Keikaku-chan. I'm very grateful." Keikaku-chan? Those vague feeling of jealously returned, and I decided to change the subject from Keikaku's 'heroic sacrifice'. "So what happened to the shamblers?" Itami grunted and answered. "Ultra dissolved them." In compensation for Itami's laconic ways, Reika filled me in. "He must have been preparing for a possible break with Shub-Niggurath even earlier than I thought. Shamblers aren't exclusive to us, but the Cult does use them a lot. We got halfway in and some man in a labcoat tossed this white powder on our mounts. In about ten seconds, we were on foot." I was a little disturbed by her use of the present tense with regards to the Cult, but decided to let it go as a slip of the tongue. Mainly in the hope that she might slip me some tongue in the near future. ***** Itami's apartment was weird. He wasn't any richer than I was, so it was the same kind of small place in a bad part of town that my apartment was. The strange part was the inside. First of all, it was dark. I wasn't sure if Itami had so much as opened the windows or pulled up the blinds since the day he moved in (which admittedly had only been three years before). There was about half as much interior light as you needed to find your way around inside, though Itami never seemed to have any trouble. Despite all this, the rooms were actually pretty clean. There was always a scent of freshner and Lysol in the air and I never noticed any bugs. The whole place gave a shadowy, mysterious impression, like there were ancient treasures and dark secrets lurking about odd corners. Which I knew for a fact was a crock, as I had helped Itami move in and got an opportunity to see his possessions were all the typical junk of a young bachelor. He didn't even own a television set , which explained why he spent so much time hanging out at my place or the office. Not that I minded all that much. Itami could be good company as long as you didn't expect too much in the way of conversation. Anyway, we got there and Itami let us in. I, of course, bumped my shin on a chair first thing, while Reika rushed Keikaku to the bathroom to further attend to his wounds. Itami turned the radio on and adjusted it to a nice oldies station we both liked. Then he got us each a beer from the fridge (which didn't have a light go on when you opened the door). For a couple of minutes we just sat there, the two of us. It was almost like old times. Now I don't expect you to believe that Magical Girl hunting was ever a safe or easy job, but for most of the past three years, that's all it had been, a job. The sudden chaos infecting every part of my life was new, and I didn't much care for it. I wanted to be able to relax and have a beer with my best friend and maybe take Reika on that date like I had promised Koi. I wanted not to have to worry about where the next assault would be coming from. I wanted- A knock at the door interrupted. I got up and opened without bothering to check through the peephole. If it was a psychotic magical girl come to kill me, at least I could die happy. Luckily it was just Aika and a friend. Just some tall blonde in a loose-fitting dress, perhaps a bit on the pudgy side... It took a minute for the realization to hit me. I had never actually seen Sailor H untransformed before. More had changed than her hair color. It wasn't that she was ugly exactly, but the burning sexuality of her magical girl form was missing. She looked like somebody's sister, or maybe a young aunt. "Are you just going to stand there all day or are you going to let us in?" Aika sounded a little annoyed. I realized I'd been standing there staring way to long, and I moved aside so the could enter Itami's humble abode. Aika immediately softened and smiled at me, as she headed over to Itami's table and started to clean her gun. Say this for Aika, she knew how to take care of her weaponry. I was more interested in H. She headed straight for Itami as usual, but instead of straddling his body in some incredibly erotic way, she sat primly on the arm of his chair and clutched his hand. H smiled an utterly sweet and pure smile at my partner. "Oh Itami, I'm so glad you made it back safely. I was worried when I saw them firing at the car." Itami's face retained his usual stoicism, but I could see one of his feet tapping against the floor. Apparently H had never detransformed for him, because he was as freaked out as I was. "Looking good." Another smooth line from our ladies man. H just giggled, but I decided to put the question to her a little more directly. "H, what happened to you? You aren't being your usual sexual predator of a self." Apparently that was a little too directly, because she looked at my like I was something she'd scraped off the bottom of her shoes. Nice to know some things didn't change. "Call me Kasumi when I'm like this," H (or rather Kasumi) said. "I don't have my H powers when I'm not Sailor H, so I'm a little more inhibited right now. I like myself better the other way, but when Aika and I detransformed to get away, I thought I might as well stay like this for a while. I want to show I can be a proper girlfriend for Itami as well as fun." Itami gave a little grunt. He tried to pretend it was gas from the beer, but he wasn't fooling me. This was the first time the g-word had been raised, and I'm sure he was panicking a little. "Girlfriend" meant commitment and little commitments could lead to bigger ones and well.... Even as unimaginative as Itami could be, I'm sure his mind was rushing through the possibilities. "Maybe we can double-date." The words were coming from near my ear, and a hand gripped my shoulder. The other two had returned from the bathroom with the knock at the door and witnessed the entire scene. Reika had crept up behind me and put her face awfully close to mine, smiling a bit. I must have looked pretty startled, because her smile turned to a frown. "If you want to, that is. I like you Yoi, and I think you like me. I'm not one of those girls who has to wait for a guy to ask her out." "No, sure I'd love to go out with you sometime when we aren't immediately in danger of having someone brutally murder us." Not the smoothest acceptance line in history, but I was a little confused. Me asking a girl out was an unfortunately rare and treasured event in and of itself. A woman asking me out went against the natural order of things. Even though Aika looked a bit disappointed, she didn't say anything. I did kind of like her, but she was just a smidgen young. Besides, Reika wanted me enough to ask _me_, which gave her about ten thousand points in my book. Keikaku had the strangest reaction. He didn't look jealous, which I might have enjoyed. Instead he looked puzzled and maybe a little worried. The six of us shot the breeze for a few minutes, trying our best to make small talk. Between Aika's 'guns n ammo', Reika's 'demonic entities I have served', and Keikaku's 'dark futures I have foreseen' the conversation kept jumping pretty well. Still, we all knew we were waiting, and a knock at the door signaled what we were waiting for. As I had hoped, Kyo was outside, dragging a resisting Mai by the arm. For a wonder, they were even clothed appropriately for their gender. Maybe their stint at the Ultra Villa had shaken them up a bit. Even the enthusiastic Kyo shied back a bit, seeing the harsh looks we were giving the two. Her brother flashed her an 'I told you so' glance, but it wouldn't help anything. They weren't going anywhere until we finally got some answers once and for all. I took the lead, being the leader and all. Hey, even Ultra had said so. "Alright, I want the whole story from the two of you. What's going on with your father, what's going on with you, and what's he likely to do next. No more of these vague evasions you've fed us." Kyo looked to Mai, Mai looked to Kyo, and they both looked at the floor in surrender. Alternating, they told us their story. Kyo began. "I tried to tell you earlier, but I don't think you were paying attention. Our father, Mashihaish Ultra, is an angel. He was, in fact, charged with recruiting and training magical girls to fight various menaces to humanity." Mai continued. "Back before we were born, Dad took his job seriously. None of this creating hundreds of magical girls and sending them out to be slaughtered business. He loved each and every one of them; they were all like daughters for him. He even created a few Kamen so that those girls who needed it could have true loves to support them. None of this pedophile crap, either. I think at least some of those magical women were Dad's, back from before he-" Mai trailed off and Kyo took up the slack. "So he met Mom, and he fell in love. Romantic love, not the parental stuff like before. I can tell what you're thinking, but no, she wasn't one of his charges. She was just a teacher or something he ran into. Mom's name was Akane, Akane Ultra. Yeah, me and Mai were born in the bounds of holy wedlock. Did you expect anything less from an angel? It's hard for me to judge, but I don't think Dad slacked off any on his job, even after we were born. He's always been devoted to his family, but he considered his magical girls to be family as well. Then-" Back to Mai. My neck was getting sore from swinging back and forth. "Then Mom died. It was a shoot-out between some youmas and magical girls. Not any of Dad's, his wouldn't have been so careless of bystanders." "Though it was the youmas that actually did it," put in Kyo. This seemed important to her. Mai ignored the interruption. "This all gets kind of complicated and into things man wasn't meant to know, but Dad wasn't allowed to see Mom in heaven or communicate with her as long as he was assigned here on earth. And he wasn't allowed to quit his assignment. He was falling apart, and so were we. So we- me and Kyo that is, we decided to bring Mom back from the dead." I would have fallen out of my seat, except that I was standing up. Obvious, in retrospect. The two of them must have been the ones to come up with this coming back from the dead trick in the first place. All use of the technique could be traced back to them. "Explain it. I want to know how this works, and no put-offs this time. As long as your father can bring back anybody he feels like, we don't stand a chance." Kyo sighed. "Think of the universe as a giant computer system. Beings of power try to promote various causes but they don't really run things. It's all automated, so to speak. Sometimes when everybody agrees, changes can be made to the programming, but the system generally works without any supervision. Now occasionally things fall through the cracks that the programming doesn't cover. Things not anticipated by the original programmers or any additions since." "Oh come on!" This from Aika. "You can't tell me you're the first half-angels in the world." Mai shook his head. "Not the first half-angels, but the first to take advantage of this particular loophole. Angels can travel between the afterlife and this world, but are under hardwired limitations. Mortal souls can't travel, but have no limitation. We made special preparations in advance, and then I killed myself." "What!!??" I'm not sure who said that, maybe it was me. Kyo said, "I wasn't happy about it either, but it seemed like the only way. When I pulled him back to life, so to speak, I opened up a channel between this world and the afterlife. Under the proper circumstances, it's possible to bring someone back through that channel." This was what it all came down to. "No more 'under the proper circumstances'. Tell me how." Reika clutched my shoulder. "Remember what we discussed last time." "Sorry Reika," I said. "If we don't do something about this, it's only a matter of time before Ultra kills us all. Even those swords the Balancers are promising aren't going to be enough." "I agree." It was Itami. He grabbed Mai's collar. "Tell us now." I gave Kyo my best hardass look. "There you go. The two senior partners of Magical Girl Hunters have spoken. Spill it." Kyo nodded. "It's a computer program. Details are kind of complicated, but the operating system is really simple to use. Basically you feed it enough power and it brings back whoever you what. Mai and I can travel the channel ourselves, because of what we are, but the rest of you need somebody else to operate the program." "That doesn't sound like what you said before." Itami again, bless him. He was turning into a real chatterbox. Either he was as worried as I was, or Kasumi hanging off has arm was distracting him. Kyo shrugged. "We were still hoping it was possible to work out something with Dad before." Hearing this did not please me. "Great, just great. Ultra probably has that little program backed up a million times, and I just bet the two of you don't even have a copy between you. Neither of you need it." Mai broke in. "But it's possible to collapse the channel itself, so nobody can use it." Kyo grabbed his arm, but he shook her off. "Sorry, sis. Things have gone too far." Aika jumped in, sounding like a kid pointing out a plot hole in her favorite television program. "Wait a minute. You said you brought you mother back to life? So why is Ultra still with all this take over the world stuff? Why isn't your family living happily ever after?" Kyo answered in a whisper. "I said it was a channel. A connection that started out rough and got smoother the more it was traveled. Mai and I have tough spirits, but those of humans are more fragile. It drove Mom mad. Maybe it drove me and Mai a little mad, like Reika said, but it drove Mom a lot mad. She's hopelessly insane." There seemed nothing to say to that. Mai finished. "Me and Kyo dying so many times has smoothed it enough so humans only go a little crazy when they travel through it." He paused. "Dad never blamed us, though. He blamed the battle. The struggle between the forces of good and evil. Me and sis, we just blamed the youmas. That's why we're youma hunters." Kyo seemed to find her voice again. "He didn't start out so bad, you know. At first it was negotiation. You know, working out ways for good and evil to solve things without fighting. He didn't even want the secret of resurrection from us at first. By the time he did want it, Dad had gone crazy enough that we didn't want to give it to him. That's why he's been acting this way, you know. That's why nothing he does ever quite makes sense. Dad is insane. Completely and totally insane. He'll do things, then undo them. Try to hire you, then try to kill you, then try to hire you again. I wouldn't have believed it before he took us prisoner, but the things we saw there...." She shuddered. "So how do we take out this channel?" Yeah, I was really into this leader thing now. "It's tied into a central computer. The physical spell is embodied in that matrix. Destroy it and the channel is destroyed.." Kyo blew her nose. "Unfortunately, Dad's snatched the matrix and moved it somewhere. We don't know where." Keikaku spoke up. "I might be able to help there." We all looked at him. "I told you I design web sites, Yoi, but I'm also a bit of a hacker. I'm betting that the computer power required by this matrix thing would require it to hook into the net occasionally to dump data." "That's right," confirmed Mai. "Then I'll track it down for you. But I won't be going with you on the attack. This time I lost a couple of fingers, the next time it could be a lot worse. The Balancers made it all sound so exciting, but from now on I'd like to remain on the sidelines as the advisor type." Keikaku looked like he expected us to protest. "That's all right buddy. You got to do what you got to do." I meant it too. Some guys just don't have what it takes for a fight. If Keikaku got hurt so easily, he obviously didn't have any of it. Call it karma, call it luck, whatever it was that let Itami and I survive fighting monsters and magic with never more than a few scratches and twisted arms. And burned faces. And- well we were still alive, anyway. The discussion went on for a while after that. We were all, even Mai and Kyo, agreed on the necessity of hitting Ultra's place and taking out that matrix. I remembered to tell Aika about what the Balancers told me. That is, how they were willing to remove her powers so she could be Pretty Deadly no more. "I don't know, Yoi. I'm having a lot of fun with you guys, but-" Her gaze seemed to drift over to Reika. "I have to think about it." "Sure kid. I understand." She'd at least show up tomorrow, I was sure. She'd have to skip school, but what did school ever do for Itami or me? She could just tell her parents it was magical girl business. We all split our separate ways, agreeing to meet the next day if Keikaku could get the location fast enough. It sounded like he could, Mai having given him a couple of tips on what to look for. Itami offered to put me and Reika up at his place for the night, but to the immense relief of Sailor H (who had transformed back) we said no. It sounded like Ultra was so scrambled, he would have forgotten the location of my apartment if he ever knew. ***** That night, Reika came to my bedroom. "What? Isn't this.... isn't this a little sudden," I blithered idiotically. "Shhhhhh." she responded. A gentleman never tells. On the other hand, I kill little girls for a living. So..... I was great!!! My best sexual performance ever, if I do say so myself. Anyway. ***** I got up bright and early the next morning, and went to the office in the wee hours of the morning. Reika was still curled up in the sheets, sleeping the sleep of the satisfied. Itami was there, just as he had said he would be. I actually caught him yawning as I came in. No doubt Sailor H had kept him up late the night before, but I could no longer find it in my heart to be jealous. He and I had agreed to meet separate from the others. It's kind of difficult to explain why. I suppose that even with all that had gone on (or maybe because of all that had gone on) he was the only one I totally trusted at my back. Itami may have been weird, but I knew he would do everything he could to keep me alive, and I would do the same for him. The others were all still unknown quantities. Even our respective lovers had a screw loose in one way or another. Itami and I have known each other since we were like, about ten years old. We were tight. Sorry about that. I don't know why I get nostalgic like that. Let's just say it was time Itami and I had a serious talk about the future of our business. I found him with his feet up on his desk, throwing darts. He had a box filled with strange metal rods on the desk next to his feet. They looked awfully like those magic rods magical girls use to transform, so I asked him what they were. "Magic rods like the kind magical girls use to transform," was his answer. "What?" I took a couple of careful steps backwards from the box. There certainly were a lot of them. "Trophies. Took them out of Ultra's lab yesterday. He was gearing up." To produce magical girls, presumably. Sometimes I wish Itami wasn't the cool silent type. I didn't ask what he'd grabbed them instead of just tossing a grenade on them or something. Itami usually has his reasons. I just oh so carefully picked the box up and shoved it under my desk, out of sight. Wouldn't do to give clients the wrong idea. *THOCK* Itami tossed a dart instead the bullseye of the board. He said, "Do you trust them?" "SCITTER* My dart slammed into the wall beside the board and fell to the ground. "Who do you mean?" *THOCK* "From last night. Do you trust them, any of them?" Damn. He wasn't going to let this go. "We've known Keikaku since we were in school. I don't think he'd stab us in the back. Aika is a good kid. She's always played it straight with us, as far as I know. If she decides to stay on, she could be a good addition to the team. Kasumi has a screw loose, but she's head over heels for you. Unless the two of you had an argument..." *THOCK* He shook his head. "So Kasumi is probably okay. Kyo and Mai definitely aren't on our side, but I believed their story yesterday. No question but that Ultra is a whacko. They'll at least help us on this next job. As for Reika.... She could be really useful if she joins us. I know we don't have any formal arrangement here, but I figure if I propose and you agree, that makes them an associate." Itami lifted a dart, then put it down and looked at me. Shit. He was serious. He told me, "I don't like Reika." Shit. "I know we didn't exactly start off on the best foot, but I really think she's on our side here. All that karma stuff and such she keeps talking about her." Itami picked up his dart again. *THOCK* "I don't think Reika is on anybody's side but her own. She gives me the creeps." This from the king of creep-outs himself? Still, he was my best friend. I was willing to cut him a little slack. "Reika and I are getting serious, okay? We can hold back on bringing her into the business if that makes you more comfortable, but she's going to be sticking around for a while." Itami looked even darker than usual. "Shub-Niggurath thought she was serious too. You should have gone with Aika. I like her." I reached under the desk and grabbed a dart, intending to slam it into the board so I could avoid getting up and slamming Itami. Before I could throw, the doors burst open and Kyo and Mai burst in. I tucked the dart into my pocket for later. Their father had raided their hideout, trying for a retrieval. They didn't knew whether they had been trailed or not. Itami and I shelved the membership discussion until later, grabbed our weapons, and skedaddled with the twins to my apartment. We started making some calls, and by noon the entire team was there, rubbing elbows in the tiny space and waiting. The call came. Keikaku had us a target. ***** It was almost too easy. The guards were youma. Ultra couldn't very well use both magical girls and youma. Well he could, but not without being there to personally oversee things. At a guess, he had chosen youma because they were stupid and less likely to mess with what they were guarding. Magical girls are, after all, young girls. As such, they have a lot of curiosity and might not have been able to resist fiddling with the matrix. There must have been about twenty or so youma on patrol around the building. It was more of a shack, really. Just one room filled with telecommunications equipment. Keikaku called it some sort of substation over the phone. I just sent Kyo and Mai in to kill the youma. Hey, it's what they do, and they could always come back from the dead if they got hurt. It's a lot more entertaining to watch that sort of thing than to get involved yourself, let me tell you. I had to think that it was a pretty light guard for something so important, but Ultra was no doubt depending on secrecy as his best protection. Too bad for him. Kyo and Mai came through it alive and unhurt, except for a broken arm on Mai's part and really sour expressions on both of them. I don't know what they thought they were so upset about. Reika held us up at the door, muttering something about it "feeling funny". I gave Itami a superior look, my main squeeze having proved her worth yet again. He just grunted. Itami can be frustrating. It took a couple of minutes and some brief chants by Reika, but she eventually pronounced it safe. As a last step, I took out my .45 and cut power to the building, the hard way. Hopefully that would take care of any tricky lasers such as Ultra tended to install in his own headquarters. It would also probably alert Ultra, but in theory we could be in and finished before he could get there. Leaving the door open to connect directly to the outside would be our protection against any gas. Oh yes, Ultra was clever, but we had a pretty good idea of his typical tricks by this time. The matrix wasn't hard to spot. A glowing column of power, reaching up to the ceiling, tends to be pretty conspicuous. "I thought you said this thing runs off of some sort of computer," I asked Mai. He clutched his arm and sneered at me. "I also said it was connected to other planes of existence. What did you think, we used a Macintosh?" As much hurry as we were in, all of us took a minute to gather around the thing and just look at it. Itami was holding that cursed sword of his, and I remember thinking that I hoped he would keep it away from the matrix. Light and dark tend to explode when pushed together. Something was bothering me, something I couldn't quite place. I chucked my doubts, though, and decided we'd done enough gawking. Raising my gun, I started aiming for the matrix, figuring that we ought to start with the simple and work our way up. That's when it hit me what was wrong. All of us were gathered around the matrix. All of us except Reika. In an instant, it all came together: Itami's misgivings, Keikaku's reluctance towards her, her easy betrayal of 'Shubby-chan'.... I half-spun, trying to get my .45 retargetted. It probably saved my life, because Reika's bullet went through my lung instead of my heart. Lucky, lucky me. My .45 went spinning off across the floor and I collapsed, dying. I heard plenty of gunfire and saw Reika stagger slightly as she was struck. It would have warmed my heart, except that she didn't fall. Instead black splotches appeared on her skin where her flesh had been pierced, revealing the foul oil underneath. It was just like the Sailor Shuggoths. Even with a bullet through my chest, I thought of what I had done with her the night before and wanted to hurl. The imperfections healed over nearly as quickly as they had formed and the shots petered out as she made no move to advance forward. She looked at me and almost seemed sorry. I moaned, "Why?" which was a stupid question, but I was in no condition to choose my questions carefully. "You should have listened to me Yoi. Remember I told you once that Shub- Niggurath is subtle and thinks in the long-range? I'm Shubby-chan's sleeper agent. When you took me on that raid, I was supposed to betray her and stay with you until an opportunity came to really advance the cause, as Shubby-chan knew it would. Ultra is insane and becoming a liability anyway. You didn't think Shubby-chan was really fooled at the Concert, did you? We just provided a reasonable excuse for Shubby-chan to break the alliance without appearing to break her word." "But why?" It was Pretty Deadly this time. She was still young enough to ask the same question I had been hurt enough to ask. "I thought you were Yoi-san's girlfriend!" Reika chuckled slightly, but not happily. "I really did like Yoi. That's why I tried to kill him quickly instead of keeping him for a sacrifice like the rest of you. I am of the ninth rank of the eighth circle. I am Shub-Niggurath's hand in this world. I have surrendered my soul to her and allowed her essence to fill me. Turn my back on Shubby-chan? Might as well expect a hand to betray its body. Ramsbottom knew better. Why do you think he was so insistent on my death, when it certainly appeared I was no longer a threat? He knew I have become one of the great centers of Shubby- chan's power in this world." Reika grinned, and for a moment she looked human again. "Not bad for a twenty year-old who got kicked out of typing school, huh?" Then her face and body began dissolving into black slime. "That matrix is one end of a channel leading all through the spirit planes. I will infiltrate it with my body and spread the influence of Shub- Niggurath everywhere. Shubby-chan will grow great with power and I will sit at her right hand. There is nothing you can do to stop me." Gray mists were beginning to form over my eyes. I hear that's what starts to happen right before you die. I couldn't reach any of my weapons and couldn't lift them anyway. All I could do was fumble around in my shirt pocket and pull out the dart. Maybe I could put out an eye or something. It turned out not to be a dart. A magical girl rod. A henshin stick, I thought they called them. I had put the box of them underneath my desk, next to the box of darts, and I must have reached into the wrong box. It was smaller than most of them, and shaped enough like a dart to fool me. Call it an accident of fate. Call it.... karma. I let everything I had fill the rod. I sent in my hate and rage at Reika's betrayal. I sent it my desire to protect my friends. Most of all, I sent in my fear of death. The rod sent something back out. I felt an energy flow through me, energizing every part of my body and healing my wounds. Effortlessly I stood, feeling a breeze of power blow around me. My finger extended itself without my conscious will. "I am Yoshi Kurasaka, Magical Girl Hunter. You have hurt me, betrayed me, and been a real bitch in general. By the power of the dart I will defeat you." Then I blasted her. There was no longer enough of Reika's human face left to register surprise, but I felt surprise from her nonetheless. The bottom part of her legs had just vanished. I took this as my cue to keep blasting her, advancing all the while. It was just like the disintegrater Ramsbottom had given us, except that my power didn't have any ten second recharge time. Reika's flesh regenerated even better than the Sailor Shuggoths, but my continuous rate of fire was taking off bits of her faster than she could grow them back. If I hadn't taken out her legs first, she might have been able to flee, but the outcome was never really in doubt. Finally, I was standing over her. Nothing was left of Reika except part of her head. It writhed and her face formed out of the black slime. I mouthed the words, "Sorry baby," and let loose with one final blast. Reika Ichiko was gone. I hoped Shabby-chan was keeping a warm spot especially for her. Then the euphoria hit. I had done it. I'd won. Won! It was just like the high I got after a normal battle, but the power was enhancing it a thousand times. I remembered the promise I had made to Koi and shouted, "Hey Aika! Since Reika wasn't my girlfriend after all, you want to go on a date?" "Yes! Yes I'd love to, Yoi!" Aika was pretty pumped, but I only half heard her. You see, when I shouted to Aika, I noticed something strange about my voice. Also, everybody was staring at me with the expression you get looking at a particularly interesting car wreck. Everybody except Aika, who obviously had a hefty case of love/hero worship. Also, my body felt.... different. I looked down. Yep, breasts. That's when the screaming started. I wondered who was doing it for a couple of seconds, before realizing it was me. It wasn't just the being a woman part, though that was bad enough. It was that I was a magical woman. It's like a deer hunter suddenly turning into a deer. Not only is it offensive on some basic level, but you know it's all a setup for some sort of cosmic justice. Itami was there for me. "Calm down, Yoi. We'll figure this out" For him, that was the equivalent of holding me as I cried for six hours straight. Sailor H was trying hard to hold in a laugh. Lucky for her she managed, because if she had laughed, I would have blown her away on the spot. We covered Aika, though I was slightly disturbed to realize that she had accepted the date without any apparent problem. Kyo and Mai seemed oddly blasé, but they were a couple of crossdressers. What did they know? I couldn't justifiably kill any of them, but I wanted to kill something. I chose to go for the source of my problems. Well it wasn't really, but it was something I could hurt. The rest of the group scattered as I rained dart blasts upon the matrix. It proved tougher than Reika, not immediately disintegrating. It did start to flicker and waver though, so I felt like I was doing something right. "STOP!!! STOP THIS INSTANT!!!" Mashihaish Ultra had arrived and he wasn't pleased. That meant I was most definitely doing something right. He was in his seraphim form, which I guessed was closest my senses could get to perceiving his natural one. The wind of his passage knocked us all to the ground as he rushed to the matrix. Furthermore, no matter how unlikely it is, I remain convinced to this day that he paused along the way to punch me in the stomach. It certainly felt like it. Ultra encased himself within the field of the matrix. Its golden glow seemed to strengthen around him and slowly stabilize. He shouted, "My children, how could you betray me this way?" I think Mai said something, but I couldn't hear what. Call it sensory overload. Ultra responded, "Never mind. Naughty children, you will be punished. Don't despair though, your father will always love you." He turned his gaze to me, and it was even less benevolent. "Yoi. I asked you to join me Yoi, and you spurned me at every turn. I gave you every chance." Every chance? Yeah, this guy was nuttier than a fruitcake. Or is that a mixed metaphor? I couldn't see why I hadn't seen it sooner. He continued, though I didn't want him to. "Now you have insulted me for the final time. Using my own power, the power reserved for my precious little girls, against me! You shall pay Yoi. I can turn the power than you have stolen against you, for it is mine!" He was as good as his word. Agony shot through my body, worse than when I had been shot minutes before. So there I was, dying on the floor again. I was afraid it was going to become a habit. Then again, I was afraid I wouldn't live for it to become a habit. Something dark and evil flew over me, sticking itself in the matrix. Ultra screamed, "NOOOOOO!" and there was a tremendous explosion. Then I saw only darkness. ***** "Yoi! Yoi! Wake up!" Somebody was shaking me, so I opened my eyes. It was Kumiko. I searched through my most recent memories and wondered if any of them had been dreams. A quick bodily exam showed I was still female and Sailor Dart, which eliminated most of the possibilities along those lines. So I sat up "Ah Yoi, you're awake." It was Yoshiko, still wearing her business suit. Kumiko ran over and hugged her. "What happened?" That simple phrase really couldn't contain the enormity of my questions, but it was a good start. Yoshiko smiled, which made me slightly nervous. "Do you fully recall the events up to the point where Ultra entered the matrix?" "Uh-huh." Her smile got even wider. "Your friend Itami threw some sort of sword containing dark energy at the matrix. Not only did it penetrate the matrix, it penetrated Ultra himself. Your friend has quite an arm. The good news is that the sword weakened Ultra so much that he lost control and the matrix destroyed itself. The even better news is that by placing himself in the matrix, Ultra had technically left earth. We were able to snatch him back to heaven, where he has had his powers stripped and is currently undergoing treatment. He won't be back to earth for thousands of years, if ever." I looked, and sure enough, in the wreckage of the matrix was stuck the melted remains of Itami's sword. I looked a little more and spotted Itami. He was seated cross-legged on the ground. Sailor H was laying next to him asleep, her head resting in his lap. At least I think she was asleep. I called out to him, "Hey Itami, thanks. Sorry about your family sword." He waved back. "No problem. I think it was slowly devouring my soul anyway." I brushed myself off and got up. This seemed to be the signal for a few people to close in on me. First up were Kyo and Mai. They were pretty happy to see me, all that earlier business about making them fight youmas alone apparently forgotten. "So now that your father's in prison, what's up for you two now?" I ask. Kyo flapped her wings. I noticed that now her and Mai were letting them hang loose, instead of hiding them as they normally did. "Well some of these people-" she pointed at Yoshiko, "seem to think that two half-angels could make a whole one. We've been offered Dad's power and position as a team." Mai added. "Youma hunting was never that fulfilling anyway. We're abandoning life on earth for a while; have to go train in heaven. I'm not clear on how long that'll be. Could be months, could be years, could be longer." Kyo winked at me. "But in the end we'll be getting Dad's old job. That means outfitting and training champions. _Properly_ training them. I hope you retire before we have to become enemies." "Yeah, me too," I said as Kyo slung her arm over her brother's shoulder and they walked away together. Kumiko and Yoshiko took this as their cue to approach me again. Kumiko reached out and hugged me briefly. "Good-bye Yoi. The Balancers' work here is done for now, and they have other things for me to do in other places. Maybe I'll see you again before too long." Yoshiko nodded and added, "Now that the channel is closed, we've been able to correct the loophole in the universe's programming. No more half-angels or anybody else coming back from the dead. Not unless we want them to, that is. You did well Yoi. I know you won't believe me, but we honestly didn't anticipate what happened here today. I thought we'd have to go to much greater lengths to trap Ultra. You and your team are truly a force to be reckoned with." I joked, "I hope you never have to balance me!" She didn't laugh. "Yes, me too. By the way, the check for that last job is in the mail." As a rip in space opened in front of the two women, I suddenly realized something rather important. "Wait! I'm still stuck as a magical girl!" Yoshiko flashed me one final grin. Ultra's capture had seemingly made her very happy. "With Ultra gone, the only remnants of his power are stored in people and anchored by physical objects. Break your henshin rod and allow the magic to escape and you will no longer be a magical girl." With that, she and Kumiko vanished into the portal. Aika, who had apparently been a little intimidated by the others, walked over to me. "That was really cool when you blasted Reika, Yoi. I think I'm going to stick with being a magical girl after all." "Thanks, Aika. Give me your gun, will you?" I pulled the rod out of some sort of pocketspace and dropped it on the ground. Then I aimed and fired. Yoshiko had said to smash the thing and I don't much like half-measures. With Ultra gone, the rod was brittle as glass. It shattered into a thousand fragments and I felt a great surge of power leave me. My body seemed to groan and I was much weaker. Unfortunately, I was still a woman. "Iwillnotscream Iwillnotscream. Why didn't I change back. WHY DIDN'T I CHANGE BACK??!!" I shook my fists, before noticing that it made my breasts flop around. I had returned to my original clothing, which wasn't designed for a female frame. My partner cleared his throat "Path of least resistance. It had to make you a girl so that you could be a magical girl. It didn't have to make you a guy so that you aren't a magical girl anymore. It just took the magic away." I threw my worst glare at Itami, but he just ignored it. Probably more easily than usual, as I had no experience glaring as a woman. Even so, he was right. What's more, Yoshiko must have known! 'No longer a magical girl', my butt. She knew! I swore I'd find a way to pay her back. Sailor H was still pretending to be asleep, but I could see her smiling, damn her. Aika hugged me, which wasn't her usual MO. She said, "Don't worry Yoi. If you really want, I'm sure you can find some way to be a guy again. You'll feel better when you take me on that date." A number of thoughts ran through my mind. Aika was touching me a lot more than usual. She still wanted to go on that date. Her breasts were pushing very firmly against my arm. There were a number of stereotypes about women heavily interested in such masculine things like fighting and guns. Just stereotypes, but still.... Oh hell. At least now that Ultra was gone, I'd be able to slow down and think things through. Maybe take a few "normal" jobs. Of course, Ultra was going to leave quite a power vacuum. Who would fill it? His general Haikite? Ramsbottom, the mysterious youma boss? What about Shub-Niggurath? She wasn't going to be to happy with me for taking out her Reika. Mizumo corporation still owed us money. Princess Love was still out there, as were the Sailor Shuggoths. Then there were the difficulties we were going to have integrating Kasumi and Aika into the team, when one was a psycho and the other had to be home on school nights. And most important of all, I was still a woman! But at least Ultra was gone. That was one down. ========= How will all of Yoi's questions be answered? Will he be a woman forever? Will the foursome finally get some downtime for a little R&R? Is Aika bi-sexual? Turn in next time for part 20 and all or none of these answers!