Pookie’s tentacles flared out behind him as he launched himself forward,
trailing the most unhappy form of Shiryo behind him. Princess Moonshine
shrank back as the massive, plush behemoth bore down upon her, a look of
as-close-to-terror-as-she-could-manage in her wide, wide eyes...

############################################################

SENSHI MUYOU! 

Episode 21 - Call of the Mall

By Jon ‘Ojin’ Rowbottom

Original concept by Mervyn the Wonder Slug (c) 1999, 2000

Hosted by Indie Madnesse

(http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net)

############################################################

... Outside the castle, Tallis and Marais watched as the troops of the Silent
Smiling Doom began wheeling their other artillery through the trail of
devastation the two-headed Barney had left behind. A thought suddenly
appeared to cross Marais’ usually vacant face, trailing worry in its wake.

"Um... Tallis?"

"What?" replied the other General, who was seemingly involved in an attempt
to push himself through the several feet of rather thick stone at his back

"Uh... How much longer do you think those protection spell thingies will hold
out? I mean, these guys have been attacking for the best part of a day, and I
just kinda thought..."

The look of worry spread to Tallis’ face.

"Oh... crap."

The two of them looked up to see the giant Youma reach lumberingly in front
of it and plunge it’s hands into the field of protection that surrounded the
castle. Straining its grotesquely purple muscles, it slowly tore open a large
rift, little coronas of spent magic crackling around its edges.

"Gyhuk! Now c’mon kids... you don’t wanna be all shy and closed up! Let us
come and play with you all!"

An almost unbelievably loud crack signalled the fact that the Mime militia
had taken this opportunity to let loose with the largest of their catapults.
The generals looked up one again, following the parabola of a very, very
large boulder, and had just enough time to leap out of the way before a
significant amount of rubble plummeted down from it’s point of impact.

*****

Dark Princess Moonshine heard the crash and felt the force as a wall of air
rushed past and around her. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut in
anticipation of Pookie’s attack, which made it a little hard to see just what
had happened. She stood for a moment without opening them, until she realised
that this was making it very hard to see just what had happened.

Opening them didn’t, in fact, make it much easier to see. The room was filled
with swirling dust, and Moonshine had to pick her way carefully across a
floor that was suddenly strewn with debris. The one thing that she couldn’t
miss, however, was the presence of a very big boulder sitting almost exactly
in the middle of the room.

Moonshine frowned cutely. "How odd! I wonder how that got... eek!"

The dust around the boulder had started to clear sufficiently to reveal just
why Pookie’s assault on her had stopped. A long tentacle trailed forth from
beneath the boulder.

Unfortunately, so did Shiryo’s arm.

"Shiryo-nii-san!" Yelled Moonshine, her pitch and volume such that the
outburst echoed through the corridors of the castle for quite some time.

Outside the castle, the Barney-Youma paused at the sound of Moonshines
scream. Slowly it turned both of its heads to the ragged hole in the castle's
walls. Below it the mimes did likewise, bunching a little closer together as
they did so.

As they watched, the hole began to glow with a faint, blue light. Suddenly
the petite form of the Princess appeared on the lip of the hole, drama and
poise virtually oozing from her every pore. She shot a fierce glance at the
troops that filled the castle’s grounds.

"You!" She yelled. "You have destroyed the castle of my adopted sister! You
have crushed my adopted brother! You have saved me from a hideous monster,
-but that’s beside the point-... I’m going to make sure that this horrible
behaviour stops -right now-!"

She stopped, and struck yet another pose. "I am a Magical Princess, and I
command this... Supreme... Joy... Lance!"

A beam of pure pastel blue light shone forth, striking the massive Youma in
its chest. It staggered back in shock, causing Mimes to scatter in terror...
and then.... Hiccuped.

A confused look crossed each of its faces in turn, as a feeling of even
greater saccharin coated goodness than usual welled up inside it. And
continued welling. The Youma began to shake with the stress of keeping such
pure happy energy repressed. A pink glow suffused it’s bulk, pulsing in a
manner which suggested to even the most dense of onlookers what was about to
happen. Unable to contain such massive glee the creature let out one final
stupid chuckle and then exploded in a flash of pink light, scattering mimes
in all directions on the back of an equally pink shockwave.

After a short while Tallis picked himself up from his hiding place behind the
rubble, gagging a little.

"I feel terrible. What was that?"

Princess Moonshine scampered down the pile of rubble from whence she stood,
giggling a little at the question.

"It was -happiness-, silly."

"You mean... you made that thing so happy it -blew up-?"

"Yup!"

"I know how it felt."

Marais poked his head up from his own hiding place, grinning vacantly.

"Oh, I don’t know... it wasn’t so bad."

Tallis shuddered, and looked like he was about to say something when he was
cut short by the sound of mindless chuckling. Fearing the worst, he turned to
survey the battlefield, but there was still no sign of the Youma beyond a
slightly smoking crater. The laughter was coming from the mimes.

"The mimes are... laughing..."

Moonshine nodded, smiling widely. "Of course they are! When the Youma
exploded, he made them all happy too!"

Marais blinked in confusion. "This is -really- weird... You made happy
mimes?"

Moonshine nodded. "Yep! And happy mimes are..."

*****

"Clowns!"

A difficult word to mime at the best of times, and even harder to do so while
in the midst of mortal combat, but Mnnemlem managed not only to do it, but to
do it in a way that illustrated his utter disgust and contempt.

Schien stopped briefly, not quite sure why his adversary had ceased his
assault.

"Clowns!" came the mime again. With a mad look in his eyes, Mnnemlem took a
greater hold on his knife and slashed forward, the least perceptible distance
from Schien’s body. Schien leapt back as a hole opened up before him, and had
barely enough time to realise what was happening before the mime vanished
through the portal. Acting on instinct he pitched himself forwards and
entered the rift in the instant before it closed... to emerge alongside the
mime, stood between the castle and a group of very substandard entertainers.
Mnnemlem surveyed the scene sadly, even for a mime. He looked at the suddenly
goofy ex-mimes, at the smoking crater where once the Youma had stood, and at
the generals and Princess Moonshine. Finally, he looked back at Schien.

"You have... -sullied- my troops!" he mimed. "Turned Mimes into Clowns! Some
of the finest troops of the Silent Smiling Doom... ruined!"

He hefted his knife once again, and tore another hole in the by now somewhat
moth-eaten fabric of space-time, and scowled, miming one last phrase before
he left.

"You’ll regret this... the Silent Smiling doom will make you -pay-!"

He leapt through the rift, leaving nothing behind but the smell of too much
make up.

"That was... different." muttered Tallis.

"Yeah." agreed Marais "Isn’t it cool the way he can get so much -emphasis-
into a mime? Cool knife too..."

Moonshine gasped suddenly. "Oh, no... I forgot!"

"Forgot what?" said Schien slowly, noticing the panic in the girls voice.

*****

It was only a few minutes later that Queen Uzume herself joined her generals
in what remained the throne room. The huge throne had been destroyed, along
with the roof and two of the walls. There was a lot of rubble... the boulder
had had to travel through a lot of castle before it eventually came to rest.

Uzume looked at the carnage and seemed to visibly sag, her eyes beginning to
fill with tears.

"Oh, Shiryo! Shiryo, my brother... how could this happen!"

She choked back a sob, during which time a strange, muttering sound filtered
through the room.

"Cut down! In the prime of your life!"

Another pause, and again came the noise. Schien definitely heard it this
time.

"g’tsbrffm"

"Who... who’ll fund the show noooowwwwwww!" wailed Uzume, still oblivious of
the world around her.

"G’t ts b’lr ff’me"

The other Generals hesitated now, certain that they’d almost... but not
quite... caught something in the noise.

"Well, we’ll have to have a big ceremony to send you off... a big, big
event... really expensive. I know it’s what you would have wanted!"

This time the muttering was more like a yell, penetrating even the fluff of
Princess Moonshine’s personal universe.

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! WILL SOMEONE GET THIS BOULDER OFF ME!!!"

Uzume blinked cutely. "Did somebody hear something?

Schien dashed forward. "He’s alive under there! Quick... help me get him
out."

The generals engaged in much pushing and straining, eventually managing to
roll the boulder aside. Underneath was Shiryo... bruised, battered and most
distressed, but still definitely alive.

Uzume bounced happily up to her brother, giving him a big, big hug.

"Shiryo! You’re still alive!"

Shiryo’s eyes bulged massively in their sockets, veins pumping in his
forehead. A definite crack could be heard. He looked as though he was again
going to pass out, but a sudden change came over Uzume’s statement.

"Bozo!"

She ran across the room to where her agent’s body lay, tears again welling in
her eyes.

"Oh, you were a good evil agent... you lay down your life for your Queen..."

Bozo slowly rolled his eyes up to her. "Actually... I’m not quite dead... but
I’m in quite a lot of pain."

He stopped, then added quickly "Please don’t hug me."

Uzume straightened up, bouncing a little in the process, a determined glint
to her eyes.

"Fear not! I will see that both of you get the medical attention that you
deserve! You will be put into the finest hospital I can find!"

Shiryo looked through the wobbling; endorphin generated clouds in front of
his eyes and just managed to catch his sister’s gaze. Even in his less than
lucid state, his heart sank.

*****

"Oh, my, GAWD!"

"Yeah. I don’t beLIEVE that the hospital is so overcrowded we have to share a
ward with GUYS!"

"And come ON! One of them’s a CLOWN"

"Yeah... but... the other one’s kinda cute still."

Shiryo slid further down his bed in an attempt to avoid the girls gaze. Bad
enough to find out that the hospital was overcrowded enough to force them not
only into a public ward, but a supposedly female one at that... even worse to
discover that he was sharing it with the still recovering villains of his
sisters stupid TV show.

Worst of all, the only part of his body that -hadn’t- been the least bit
damaged by the boulder was his hand. He could still sign cheques...

He might have been better off under the boulder after all.

*****

Nadako skipped cheerfully down the road, followed closely by Macavity. She
was in the best of all moods today. Well, you get like that when you find out
that your ultra-cool destiny is going to get fulfilled soon.

"Are you sure he’ll say yes, Kitty-cat-san?"

"Provided that you do -everything- like I told you too, yes."

Nadako nodded, and slowly advanced around a corner. Just in time to bump into
Fushin.

Macavity grinned. Mystic destinies could be -so- much fun. Now, if the girl
could just follow the script...

"Wai! Hi, Fushin-san!"

"Uh... Hi Nadako... What’s up?"

Nadako paused. Macavity cringed, wishing that he had something approaching
fingers just so that he could cross them.

"I... dreamt about you last night, Fushin-san."

Fushin stiffened. Macavity, for his part, noticeably relaxed.

"Well, Nadako... dreaming about me isn’t so unusual... I mean, we’d just
worked together and..."

Nadako, warming to the script, shook her head. "No... I dreamt that you
had..." she giggled " A moustache! And you were wearing -really old- armour!
Isn’t that silly?"

Fushin laughed, but not with much feeling. "Yeah... really silly..."

Nadako looked up at him with big, big eyes. "I was going to go to the mall
today... do you want to maybe come along?" Though Fushin didn’t notice it,
she was blushing.

Fushin looked at her. It was stupid to think that she might know something
about his destiny, but... heck, right now he’d take any chance he could get.
Even if it did mean missing out on the extra work he’d planned on doing.
Sighing inwardly, he nodded. "Sure. I guess I can go for a little while."

"Wai! Thank you Fushin-San!"

It was all that Macavity could do not to laugh out loud.

*****

Deep in her own lair, Rei watched two of the pieces on her board move closer
together, and began to grind her teeth.

"This is -not acceptable-."

She moved her attention a little way further across the board. The marble was
faint... but it was still there. Whatever had happened in the castle, she
still had a few tricks up her sleeve...

*****

Varese and Schein nodded as they surveyed the holding cell. The bulky,
somewhat squashed form of Pookie was piled within it, somehow still managing
to look threatening. Tallis, for his part, just sulked.

"Why isn’t Marais helping with this?"

Schien frowned. "Because Queen Uzume asked him to supervise the new...
troops." He said belligerently "Besides, even the air down here is held in a
stasis field. We may be trying to keep this thing prisoner, but I don’t want
to get prosecuted for war crimes, and a permanent aura of Marais is cruel and
unusual even by -my- standards."

Varese peered at the wavering field in front of them. "And you’re sure that
this will keep him in?"

Schien nodded. "Positive. It’s something that I found in the room of
artefacts. It seems that Prudence went in for more than a little of the old
Storybook kind of magic... the only thing that would wake the creature up
from this slumber is a kiss." He looked again at Pookie "And I really can’t
see that happening."

He stepped away from the cell and grimaced. "Now, lets go... I think that
Uzume has a... meeting that she wants us to attend."

*****

Uzume beamed happily at the table in front of her. On it’s surface stood
little tiny voodoo-doll like representations of her generals, and a somewhat
larger, monumentally fluffy representation of a Youmabibble.

Sitting opposite her were two men in well pressed suits. One of them was the
producer from the network that was now showing the Youmabibbles Show almost
in rotation... the other was a representative of Bandaizumu toys.

"Wai! I love them! They’re so cuuuttteee!"

The producer nodded. "I’m glad that you like them. Um... we wanted to get
confirmation of your approval sooner, but the place has been unaccesable for
a while... Did I drive past a siege engine on the way in?"

Uzume blushed in response, but the Bandaizumu man shook his head. "Doesn’t
matter... nice place you have, by the way. Might make a nice playset.
Anyway... like we say, we wanted confirmation, but since things were a
little... difficult, we decided to go ahead with the launch anyway."

"Launch?" asked Uzume, slightly confused. 

At that point the Generals walked in, but the suits continued relentlessly.

"Yes. We decided that it would be a bad idea to waste any time in getting
these toys to market, so we went right ahead and got these things into stores
nation-wide. We’ve only been advertising them for a day but already the
response is amazing... these things are selling better than –anything- we’ve
ever seen."

There was a long and pregnant pause. Schien, unsurprisingly, was the first to
recover his wits.

"You... made action figures of us?"

The suits nodded. Uzume grinned, performing Happy Bounce #192 - "Wai! I’ve
got even more ways to reach into the minds of the young!". And Tallis and
Varase, to his amazement, smiled.

"This is great!" said Tallis, picking up the plastic replica of himself.
"Look! The hair doesn’t even -move-... not even a tiny bit!"

Varase lifted his own figure. "They’re... even wearing good clothes."

The toy man nodded. "Of course. The desire for fashion as a means of
acceptance is -very- important in our target demographic."

Varase closed his eyes, almost in bliss. Schien looked from one to the other
of his blissful compatriots, then sweatdropped massively.

"I give up."

"That’s not all, though. Just squeeze the Youmabibble."

Uzume did so, and squealed when she heard the response.

"I just want to do what -ever- Queen Uzume tells me to." Came the scratchy
voice.

"Wai! It’s perfect!"

"I’m glad you agree. And... Uzume? You should see what’s happening in the
stores right now..."

*****

Yuriko sighed as she paced up and down her apartment, her hand occasionally
straying to rub the vase on its stand. Her head hurt, and she kept getting
dark flashes behind her eyes.

She wandered over to her window and looked out onto the street below. There
was a crush of some kind outside the doors of the shopping mall opposite...
so may -people-... so many foolish... she blinked, wondering where that train
of thought had come from.

She scanned the crowds below, her heart giving a sudden leap as she spotted a
familiar face in the crowd... it was Fushin! She leaned further out of the
window, craning to make him out better. It was definitely him... making his
way through the crowds with a young girl... a young girl clinging lovingly to
his arm....

Her breath caught in her throat.

"This... this is -not acceptable-..."

A few minutes later Yuriko had left the apartment... and she’d taken her
armour with her.

*****

At the house of the Advisor Cat’s, things were at a loose end.

"Where -is- Fushin?" Muttered Whittington. "He normal at least makes an
appearance... it’s not -like- him to break a routine..."

Sachiko shrugged. "Well, at least Nadako hasn’t shown up either... I was
getting more than a little sick of her..."

Carlisle looked up. "Nobody knows where -either- of them are?"

Sachko shook her head. "Well, I’ve not seen them. I’m pretty sure Meryl and
Kagi haven’t either."

Whittington hopped onto sofa next to Carlisle. "Well... it could just be
coincidence."

"It could. But I’ve got a nasty feeling. Sachiko, get the others. I think we
might be needed somewhere."

Her voice trailed off to a whisper as Sachiko headed off. "I just wish I knew
-where-"

*****

Inside the Mall, Fushin found himself buffeted in every direction by what
seemed to be an omnipresent wall of shopaholics and small children. He was
starting to find it hard to breathe, let alone even -see-. He turned to look
at Nadako, who still clung onto his arm will all the force of a deranged
limpet.

"What are all these people -here- for?"

Nadako looked at a loss for a while, until her gaze settled on a display that
had been designed -specifically- to attract the attention of people like her.
Her eyes seemed to shine with an inner light.

"Oooohohhhh.... For -that-!"

Fushin followed her gaze to the stand, bedecked with colors in a variety of
shades, all pastel and most nauseating to any tasteful adult. It was also
bedecked with a lot of children, who seemed to be clinging to it in a
desperate attempt to get hold of one of the rapidly diminishing number of
fluffy, plush... things.

"Hey... they look like the things that we fought against in the park! Isn’t
that..."

"Oh...hohohohohohohohohohooooo!"

The sound came from the upper floor of the mall. Standing straddling the
handrail was a woman dressed almost entirely in ancient armour, everything
about her position implying arrogance of the highest level.

"Foolish Humans! Your visit to this place is -badly- misguided. Prepare for
me to show you the error of your ways!"

With that Yuriko stepped forward and, despite the weight of the armour she
managed to drop gracefully to the level below, malice written all over her
face.

This was going to be -fun-...

*****

Tune in next time to see Varese forced to wear a brown courderoy suit! ... or
not...

Authors Notes

<blinkblink> Well, it’s done. I think that I should -really- thank my stupid,
nerve-addled foot for allowing me a little extra time off work, meaning that
I could lavish a solid chunk of attention on the piece... it turned out
almost, if not entirely, as I’d wanted it to. I’ve introduced a few elements
that I thought might be fun to watch develop, most notably Macavity starting
to take a hand in Fushin’s business as well as Nadako’s.

Anyhoo... I hope that I’ve not done too much damage, and I’m glad to turn out
a section that’s only -slightly- late... well, in the grand sceme of things,
anyways... ^^;