What Kind of Dancing Is This?!

How did that magic puppy find me?! Ugh! Could I not just have a single day to myself anymore?

“I got it,” Shōko said as she made her way to the door. She opened it to reveal, true to my intuition, Aichi had found me.

“Oh no…”

“Oh my fluff, you are so cute!” Shōko said as she picked Aichi up. Despite my initial worries, Aichi acted like a perfectly normal puppy in her arms. “Who's a cute widdle guy? That's you! Yeah, you are!”

As Shōko was cuddling Aichi, he shot me a look that said Why can't you cuddle me like this?

“Aya, do you think this puppy belongs to someone?” Shōko asked me. “I don't see a collar on him or anything.”

“He's mine,” I told her. “Just got him last night. I have no idea how he found me. Let me, uh… take care of this real quick.”

Shōko handed me Aichi and I took him outside.

“Aichi!” I scolded the puppy. “You're going to get me in trouble!”

“Ayame, I'm just glad I was able to find you ~woof,” Aichi told me. “The Covens are making their next move. I saw they were looking for things to turn into monsters.”

“Really? At this time of the day?”

“Justice never sleeps, ~woof. Now, transform and let's go beat up some bad guys!”

“I'm a little busy right now,” I told Aichi. “I have a life outside of this magical girl nonsense.”

“This magical girl nonsense, as you like to call it, is your life now, ~woof.”

I would have said more, but our conversation was interrupted by the sound of a woman screaming. Shōko immediately ran out the door to see what was happening.

“Did you hear that?” Shōko asked. “Sounds like someone screaming.”

“It sounded like it was coming from the park,” I replied. “Let's go check it out.”

Aichi and I immediately ran in the direction of the screaming, with Shōko following right behind us.

•

Just a short distance away from the park, Aichi led me into an alley where we encountered someone attempting to cast a spell on a young girl, complete with strange, almost pop idol-like dancing.

“Dark Powers, guide my hand! Make my monster -”

“Leave her alone!” I shouted at the man, interrupting his spell. “Don't even try anything funny!”

“And what are you going to do about it?” the man asked me. “You're just a little girl!”

The man was right, in a sense. Normal me would have been no match for this guy, with his fancy magic and all that. But now I had a little bit of magic of my own.

“Aichi, let's do this!” I then said.

“~woof! Say the thing!”

“Flower Power! Rise up, pretty pretty please!”

Despite the narrow space of the alley, Aichi was able to perform the transformation spell flawlessly. The iris sigil appeared at my feet, and slowly rose as it transformed my outfit into the battle outfit. The bows and ribbons were next to appear; I had learned that if I place my hands in the right places, the bows and ribbons just appear by themselves. Finally, my staff was now appearing in my hand instead of needing me to catch it.

The transformation had been perfected.

The man was clearly impressed with the transformation. “Ah, you must be one of those Flower Girls I keep hearing so much about. The boss will be quite pleased to hear about how I defeated the pesky Flower Powers.”

“Whatever!” I challenged the man. “Your reign of terror is about to be over!”

“Oh… my… fluff…”

That voice was unmistakable. My best friend Shōko was standing at the end of the alley. She had witnessed the entire thing.

“You're a -”

“Don't say it,” I immediately shushed her. “There's not enough time in this chapter to explain everything.”

“You're a magical girl! Just like Star Soldier!” Shōko yelled.

“I told you not to say it!”

"So, magical girl,” the man then said. “Introduce yourself so I can see how much I get paid when I defeat you!"

What?! Was this guy a bounty hunter or something? Was he sent here to defeat me JUST so he can get paid?

"I, uh... What?! What are you talking about?" I struggled to even form the words.

"Ugh! Can't these sappy magical girls do anything right these days?” The man was clearly upset about me not knowing how all this magical girl stuff was supposed to work. “You're supposed to introduce yourself as the Guardian of, oh, I don't know, Flowers and Rice Fields or something, and then I introduce myself as METERON, SERVANT OF THE DARK MASTER. And then we fight to see who's the better magic user. If you win, I run away vowing my revenge against you. And if I win, you're dead and I can collect my big payday. That's how this works.”

Okay, good to know this guy was called METERON, SERVANT OF THE DARK MASTER, whoever that was. I turned to Aichi, hoping he would give me something to work with. "Aichi, did you know anything about this?"

"Don't worry, I got you. Just say what I'm about to whisper in your ear. I'm the cute defender of justice! Magical Intern Ayame! For the sake of all that is cute and fluffy, stop this evil at once! Please?”

"There is NO WAY I'm saying that as my magical girl introduction!" I protested. I stomped my feet and everything. I wasn't doing it.

"Oh, come on! I worked all week on that delivery!” Aichi whined. He then started his whimpering routine again. He knew exactly how to get me to do exactly what he wanted.

“Alright, fine…”

“Hooray! ~woof!”

With a couple of twirls and the best fierce pose I could do (which was really just me brandishing my staff like I could actually hit someone with it), I said, “I'm the cute defender of justice! Magical Intern Ayame! For the sake of all that is cute and fluffy, stop this evil at once! Please?” That please was accompanied by me cupping my hands together and attempting to do a pleading puppy face. Whether that worked or not, I would never know for sure.

The man who called himself METERON began the fight with what I could only describe as thirty seconds of hip thrusting. I found myself rendered speechless by the sheer… strangeness of the dance that I forgot to start doing my own magic tricks in response. He then shouted “Fireblast!” before sending a barrage of fireballs right at me! I had to hurry and whack each fireball upwards and away from me with my staff. Any other play I could have made could have put innocent lives in danger, and especially it could have put Shōko in danger.

“What kind of magic involves dancing that looks like... that...?” I asked him upon landing back on the ground.

“The kind that involves me shooting fireballs at you until you go away, that's what! Have at you!”

As he shot even more fireballs at me, I had begun to perform the Flower Shower dance. It was the only thing I could think of that would put me on the offensive.

“Flower Shower!”

As expected, the Flower Shower magic threw METERON off his feet, allowing me to gain the upper hand in our fight. I knew I had to finish him off quickly, so I performed the Spinning Flower Kick: a quick, flowy ballet routine that ended with me leaping high into the air, and spinning into the enemy.

While METERON was still on the ground below, he began to perform some rapid fire breakdancing.

“Solar Flare!”

A bright flash of light filled the area, nearly blinding me, and almost certainly blinding anyone else nearby! It also allowed him ample time to escape, because as soon as my feet spun into the ground…

I missed him!

“Help! Help me!” the woman from earlier could be heard screaming. METERON had grabbed a hold of her, presumably in order to perform his dark magic on her.

“Dark Powers, guide my hand, make my monster GROW!!!”

He and the woman began to perform a tango, with the woman obviously not wanting to go along with this at all. But as they say, it takes two to tango. METERON was a surprisingly good dancer; his form was practically flawless and despite his evil intent, he treated his unwilling dance partner kindly and gently. As the two danced their tango, however, dark energy began emanating from the man's hands, flowing into the woman. This dark energy caused her to begin growing massive and mutate into yet another giant monster, probably 10 meters tall and 10 meters around, basically a giant ball covered in white fluff everywhere and with a big, toothy grin.

Because of course…