Why Is It Always the Cute Stuff Trying to Kill Me?!

So there I was, face to face with an evil dude who just used his dark magic to turn an innocent woman into a giant monster that could destroy the city if it really got itself rolling. The man who called himself Meteron smirked a very evil smirk at me. Ugh! He looked so smug with his hat and his raccoon mask and his evil demeanor. I just wanted to whack him with my staff!

“I would love to stay and chat it up with you, Flower Girl,” Meteron told me as he ran away, “but I have official Coven business to attend to elsewhere! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-har-ha-harr!”

He then summoned a broom, which I assumed was his means of getting from place to place quickly. Not willing to let my first bad guy get away, I chucked my staff at him, trying to aim for his stupid head.

It was a direct hit! He fell off the broom and landed on the dirt roughly four meters below. Aichi and I ran over to check on him. He appeared to have a big red sore on his hairline.

“Dang, Ayame, you just killed that guy!” Aichi told me with a very concerned tone in his voice.

“I did not!” I insisted. “At least… I hope I didn't.”

We gave him a good look-over to make sure he was still alive. And sure enough, he was. He just got hurt pretty badly by my staff. Dang, what was that thing made of, anyways?

As I retrieved my staff, Shōko ran over to us.

“Should we call the police on this?” Shōko asked. “This looks really serious!”

“Yeah, you go ahead,” I told her. “They should be here by the time he wakes up.” And then the monster reminded us that she was still there. She was threatening to destroy the whole town by rolling over it. People had already started fleeing in terror over what was otherwise a giant cute fluffball.

I mean… I didn't want to hurt the poor creature, obviously; she was human prior to five minutes ago. But I had to figure out how to defeat her because she threatened to destroy Susaki if I didn't.

As she began to roll towards me, I called out “Brave Charm!” which gave me… a giant tennis racket. That extra magical girl strength really came in handy for jobs like this. I had to pull this plan off very carefully. I wanted to use the racket to stop the creature in her tracks. How I planned on turning her back to normal… I hadn't planned that far ahead yet.

I braced myself for impact as the giant fluffball rolled down the street, crushing and flattening various vehicles, lampposts, and postboxes in her path. Closer and closer it got to me, but I was ready.

Contact!

But I may have overestimated how strong I was as a magical girl. Despite my best efforts, I was not able to stop the fluffball; I was only able to slow it down. As we slid down the street together, I could feel my feet trying to slip under me.

“No, no, no!” I cried out to myself. “I almost got it!”

“Don't worry, Ayame, ~woof!” Aichi called out to me. He did a couple of spins in the air before chanting “Pulse Field!” A giant purple shield appeared right behind me. The shield stopped me in my tracks, but for some reason… The fluffball was still trying to push forward. I was now trapped between a fluffball and a hard place, slowly feeling the weight of both crushing me like a pancake. I let out a painful scream as I was running out of space and breath.

“Game Point! Service!” I yelled as I summoned a little bit more strength to push the fluffball away from me. And I hit the fluffball with all I had! Away it flew! … Towards a nearby hotel?! Luckily, the fluffball didn't deal too much damage to the building.

However, the fluffball was very angry now. I didn't mean to hurt her! I was just trying to stop her from causing too much damage! But she began to roll towards me yet again, much faster than before. Before I could even react, I had been flattened by the giant puffball!

“Ayame, are you okay, ~woof?” Aichi asked as he flew next to me.

As I picked myself up off the ground, I answered, “I'll be alright. I'm just a bit bummed that my Brave Charm didn't work.”

“Yeah, that's a bit strange, ~woof; those things usually make it easier for you to defeat them at the very least.”

While we were both trying to figure out what to do next, a girl pulled up next to us on a skateboard. Judging from her fashion sense, I could only assume she was Sayori, still dressed in her very messy school uniform.

“I should have known you two were here,” Sayori scoffed.

“What's that supposed to mean?!” I asked angrily.

“Don't take it too personally, Ayame,” Sayori continued. “You're just too inexperienced to deal with threats like this.”

“Threats?” I asked. “She's just a giant ball of fluff!”

“Whatever,” she scoffed. Fumiko, her snake Hollow, then appeared out of her bag.

“Miss Sayori, are we ready?” Fumiko asked excitedly.

“Fumiko, let's fly!”

“Just say the magic words ~sss,” Fumiko then told her.

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

Sayori's transformation into Magical Sukeban Fuji was somewhat similar to my own, except Fumiko flew around Sayori's head as opposed to Aichi running around my feet. A white wisteria sigil appeared in the air, and Sayori appeared to grab a hold of it. She appeared to throw the sigil down to the ground, instantly changing her clothes into her battle outfit. Her kimono was black with a wisteria pattern and the image of a snake printed on it. Similarly to me, she cupped her hands together, sprouting a heart-shaped badge and a giant, white bow. Finally, her yo-yo, which I guessed was her weapon of choice, appeared in her right hand.

With her transformation complete, she then turned to me and asked, “Wanna learn a new trick?”

I had no idea what to say…

She added, “Catch this!” Sayori then tossed her yo-yo to me, with her still holding onto the string.

While holding the yo-yo in my hands, I blurted out, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“What are you thinking?” asked Sayori.

“You want to use our combined magic to turn this yo-yo into a ramp,” I explained. “The fluffball will roll onto the ramp and go high into the air, allowing us to defeat the curse.”

“That's…” Now it was Sayori's turn to be speechless. “That was a pretty good guess. How did you figure that out?”

“I'm a journalist in training…,” I answered her, with a bit of a wavering, half-confident tone.

“Alright then, magical journalist,” Sayori then said, “take the lead.”

For the second time in this fight, I did the Brave Charm dance. It was a surprisingly easy dance to perform despite having one hand occupied with holding the yo-yo. True to my intuition, the yo-yo gradually phased out of existence, only to have a large ramp placed in the middle of the street in its place.

Sayori jumped in front of the ramp and began taunting the fluffball. “Hey, you stupid ball of fuzz! Come get some! I triple dog dare you!”

Sayori's taunting worked exactly as she had hoped. She had gotten the fluffball's attention, and she began rolling towards us once again. As she did so, I noticed something was a little off about the ramp. It was curved ever so slightly, gradually pointing in the direction of the Sakura River.

Could getting the fluffball wet cause her to return to normal? There was only one way to find out.

Sayori jumped out of the way just in time as the giant fluffball made contact with the ramp. Just as planned, she flew away from the city and into the nearby river. Now soaking wet, the fluffball returned to normal in a shower of dark energy. Some of the dark orbs flew in Aichi's direction, allowing him to eat them.

“Ohhhhh, that is sooooo good,” Aichi said with absolute glee. He must have really loved eating the dark energy.

Sayori flew the woman out of the water and back into land.

“Can you keep her feet on the ground?” she then asked me before casting Spring Gust on the woman. I grabbed the woman's shoulders as the wind began to dry her soaking wet clothes, allowing her to stay firmly on the ground.

“Oh, thank you both so much!” the woman happily cheered. “I'll have to write a strongly worded letter to the Journal about this. Hoo, were they so wrong about the two of you!”

With the police having arrested Meteron, it looked like another job well done for us.