SENSHI MUYO

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Episode 1
Call Me Queen!
by Mervyn the Wonder Slug
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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