Shibuya Division And The Muffin-Pocalypse

We arrived at the location four minutes later. Aki was a surprisingly fast driver. The scene was just as the report had described. There was pandemonium, people were running for their lives, and at the center of it all, a bakery was spewing sentient animated snack monsters out into the streets.

"Holy mother of Anpan," Miko commented at the scene from on top of her parked bike. And honestly, she wasn't far off. There were two variations of the three-foot-sized monsters, and each one was almost as tall as Miko herself.

The anpans were golden brown, burger-like buns that had somehow sprouted little arms and legs and a single tentacle on their heads that shot out a sticky substance at people as they chased after them. The melon pans were round, cookie-shelled creatures that rolled up and smacked themselves against their victims before throwing up what looked like butter all over them.

I couldn't believe such beloved Japanese snacks had been turned into these horrid things. Who would do such a thing?

"Captain, orders?!"

Aki shouted, bringing me back to attention. We were still situated in the police cruiser, observing the scene.

"Yeah, boss, I already got a hundred different ways I'm gonna smoke these guys. Permission to open fire and bring down hell?"

I quickly assessed the situation.

"Permission granted!" I shouted to Miko. "Aki, you're with me. We need to help the civilians."

We exited the police cruiser and began running towards the bakery. Meanwhile, Miko climbed off her bike, jumped onto the roof of a nearby car, took a knee, and began laying down nonstop suppression fire with her mana crystal-infused magitech machine gun.

The little monsters exploded all around us in puffs of smoke and crumbs.

"Lightning strike!"

I shot one of the melon pan creatures with my low-level assault magic, stopping it from continuing to vomit butter all over a man who had tripped and fallen.

"Are you okay, sir? It's not safe. Go, get out of here," I said.

The man, covered in so much butter, managed to get to his feet and ran, screaming the entire way.

"Fireblast! Fireblast! Fireblast!"

Aki had my flank covered. She was effortlessly disposing of the creatures with controlled fire punches, keeping them from surrounding us, the expression on her face calm, relaxed, and determined, despite the situation. Those were definitely traits of a near fire master.

Miko, however, was fearless for a whole different reason.

She was definitely in her element, truly embracing the nickname Bazooka Babe. She was still situated on top of the roof of the car, tearing through the enemy like paper with every shot. With every energy blast, three of the creatures instantly turned to dust. "Come at me, bros, come at me-eeee!"

She was winning, yes, but when I looked closely, I also saw she was causing serious property damage. To the pavement, to the walls of other buildings, and to nearby cars. Her weapon was set to overkill, and I was pretty sure it had been an intentional tweak on her part.

"Miko, come in, Miko!" I stopped and shouted into my walkie-talkie. "Lower weapon capacity. I repeat. Lower weapon capacity, you're causing collateral damage."

"Aaahahaha, come to Mommy, come get your ticket to hell, boys. There's plenty to go around. Don't be shy, bros."

She wasn't even listening.

"Captain! Vi must focus!" Aki shouted.

"Right!"

"Lightning strike!"

"Fireblast!"

Aki and I continued running around the perimeter, helping civilians. Some of them were stuck to walls and pavement, trapped in place by the sticky red substance the anpans were shooting from the tentacles on their heads.

"Gross."

I had to touch the adhesive muck while helping a girl break free. It was so sticky, and it suspiciously smelled like...

"Captain!"

I spun when I heard Aki calling out to me. She had just freed an old lady who was stuck to the wall. Her hands were covered in the goop, and she was tasting her fingers and smiling. Oh my god, she was putting the tentacle juice in her mouth.

"What the hell are you doing, Aki? Stop that!"

"No, captain, ze goo, it's bean paste. Like ze anpan. Yum. Zelicious."

She continued grinning and licking her fingers, and oh crap, I was going to hurl. I returned my attention to releasing the girl, and soon, everybody was free and had run to safety. But the chaos was far from over.

Miko continued mowing down the creatures while Aki and I ran towards the bakery. Any monster that tried getting in our way was instantly roasted by one of Aki's fire punches. We couldn't enter through the front, so we went in through a side door. Once inside, we soon discovered the source of the monsters—or at least, what was creating them.

Most of the employees were glued to the walls, ceiling, and floors, having been the initial victims of the outbreak. But a single figure, the head baker, was still cranking out batch after batch of snacks and shoving them into the oven. He was the one making the little monsters.

"M-SERT police!" I yelled, holding up my badge with one hand and pointing my spell finger in the shape of a gun with the other. "Step away from the oven, now!"

The man didn't respond. He just kept making more buns and placing them in the oven, creating more monsters.

The things would cook for about ten seconds, rapidly mutate, then burst from the hatch as they grew in size and ran outside.

Mother of God.

"Didn't you hear me? I said stop!"

But the man kept at it, not even registering my presence.

"All right, I warned you."

I was prepared to hit him with a low-level lightning strike when Aki placed her hand on mine.

"Captain, his eyes!" she shouted.

I saw it instantly.

The man's eyes were glazed over. He was not in control of his own body. The real head baker was probably asleep or unconscious, and the hunk of flesh and bone standing in front of us was being puppeteered by dark magic. Most likely by the same caster whose magic was behind the mutated snacks.

But we still needed to knock him out for the madness outside to end. So, I shot him anyway.

"Strike!"

***

Ten minutes later, the situation was more or less under control. The streets were clear of civilians and monsters alike, and Miko, now on her bike, was hunting down the remaining creatures that had escaped deeper into the city.

There was so much property damage. Blasted windows. Cracked sidewalks. Compared to the monsters, they hadn't even done much. Sure, they had terrorized people, but Miko had single-handedly nearly torn down an entire street. Maybe I should have actually finished fully reading her file instead of stopping halfway through. Maybe I would have seen this coming and avoided it.

"Wait... You don't have any weird quirks I should be worried about too, right? Anything that might compromise the mission and make you a liability?"

Aki and I were making our way to Sugar-Saboteurs, a competitor bakery that had recently opened a few blocks away. All evidence of the disaster pointed to them.

After the head baker at Sakura-Sweets had woken up—no longer mind-controlled—we collected statements from him and his employees and discovered that Sugar-Saboteurs had gifted them bags of high-quality baking flour just that morning.

According to the employees, the woman who had delivered the bags claimed it was a peace offering. A gift from one bakery to another to show there were no hard feelings.

Not surprisingly, it was the same bags of flour the employees had used that afternoon when their own pastries came alive and attacked them. And when we sampled the flour for traces of dark magic, we received a positive reading.

Aki flashed a nervous smile and shook her head rapidly in reply to my earlier question about being a liability. Somehow, that didn't reassure me at all. I definitely should have finished reading up on their files before bringing them along.

We arrived at the bakery a minute later and walked inside.

"Vow," Aki exclaimed in surprise.

I had to agree.

Sugar-Saboteurs was a lot fancier than Sakura-Sweets, that was for sure. Tiled marble floors, beautiful interior design. Whoever owned the place had not cut costs when it came to decor. The only downside, if I had to include one, was that the place was a little dark. Also, it was deserted. No customers in sight whatsoever.

"Huh. That's weird."

"Vhat is it, captain?"

"I don't know. Just seems like, with how fancy this place is, you'd think you'd find at least one customer."

"Ha, I see, captain. Zat is indeed strange."

"Yeah."

"Maybe zey heard about ze attack and have run for safety."

"That's possible. But something tells me this place doesn't get many customers even on a normal day, despite being so bougie."

Aki and I walked deeper into the bakery, towards the counter. The plan was simple: find the owner or an employee, ask a few questions, then run an investigation. However, the deeper we went, the more deserted the place felt. Was there even anyone here at all?

"Hello!" I called softly.

"Is anyone home?!" Aki echoed.

We continued walking toward the counter, completely oblivious to the entity that had crawled down from the ceiling and been trailing behind us this entire time. As soon as we arrived, we stopped, and the head of our stalker leaned in between our shoulders and asked a question.

"Can ah help y'all kind folks?"

***

"Mah apologies for the earlier scare, darlin's. Mah name is Voluntina B. Widow, entrepreneur, and the sole proprietress of this here fahn establishment."

"D-D-Daisuke Tanaka, M-SERT, Shibuya division."

My hand shook a little as I held up my badge. My heart was still pounding in my chest.

The moment we heard the voice behind us, Aki and I instantly jumped in opposite directions, frightened as we'd thought the place was empty. It also didn't help that when we turned, we instantly came face to face with a giant half-woman, half-spider creature who was staring at us and grinning.

Voluntina B. Widow was what was known as a jorogumo, a half-human, half-arachnid magical creature. They weren't as common in Japan as many other magical beings, which was why seeing one could be a bit of a fright for civilians.

"Ah do offer mah sincere apologies, captain," she said. "Please, whah can I do y’all for? Drinks? Cream puffs? Sugar buns?"

I cleared my throat before speaking up.

"Actually, Mrs. Voluntina..."

A finger was quickly placed on my lips to prevent me from talking further. It was from one of her many hands.

"Miss Voluntina, captain," she corrected. "Miss," she smiled. "Not misses."

I nodded, and she took her finger off my lips. "Okay, we are actually here to perform an investigation, Miss Voluntina." I gestured for Aki to carry on, and she produced an MSD from her bomber jacket—a magical scanner device—then proceeded to move deeper into the bakery to find any traces of dark magic.

"Hey now, y'all got any sort of search warrant?"

"Yes, ma'am, we do." I pulled out a piece of paper and laid it on a table between us. "But maybe you can make this easier for us. Do you have any idea who was behind the incident with Sakura-Sweets earlier this afternoon?"

Voluntina looked shocked for a moment, even placing one of her hands over her mouth to complete the expression. But despite trying to pretend, she didn't look that convincing.

"Y’all know, I heard tell of that. Poor things. Hope no one was hurt."

"No, they're all fine. Maybe a little shaken up, but everybody came out unscathed."

"Thank goodness then," she said, also trying to fake being relieved.

"Yeah, and that's why we're here. The employees back at Sakura-Sweets mentioned using a batch of cursed flour to make their snacks earlier this afternoon. Bags of flour that came from you."

"What are you sayin', captain? That ah somehow caused this? That ah am the mastermahnd?"

"Well, I didn't directly say that, Miss Voluntina, but you’ve got to admit. All the motives line up perfectly. A new business like yours, setting up shop right next to a heavy competitor like Sakura-Sweets. Must have affected you in some ways, right? Low customer turnout, profit cuts, all of these could have led you to do something that would change the status quo in your favor."

"Wah, you're just straight up accusin’ me now, captain," she smiled. "But ah can’t say as ah can complain, ah do like a man who can keep me on my toes, after all."

"Captain?!"

The sound of Aki calling out to me broke my gaze from Miss Voluntina's, and I kindly excused myself as I got up from my seat to go meet her in the kitchen. "What do you have for me?" I asked as I arrived, crouching beside her in front of several bags of flour on the ground.

"I found ze bags in zose locked cupboards over zere. I burnt ze locks to gain access."

"And did you find anything?" I asked.

"Yes."

Aki held up her scanner for me to see. The results were positive. It contained traces of dark magic; not only that, but the bags also had the same logo as the ones back at Sakura-Sweets.

"Well, I guess case closed then," I said. "Good job, Aki. Let's go make an arrest..."

"Ah, don't think so, sugar."

The voice came from behind us, but before we could turn to investigate, a large, blunt object caught us both on the side of our heads, knocking us out cold.

***

"Captain! Captain!"

A voice was whispering my name loudly, but I didn't want to wake up. I was having a dream; I was getting married to Kaori Katsuragi.

We were in a church, in the middle of a procession, and she was wearing a beautiful wedding dress. When I lifted her veil, she smiled back at me. That gorgeous red hair. Those deep blue eyes. It was the happiest moment of my life.

"You may kiss the bride."

"Hell yeah."

However, just as I leaned in to kiss those pretty lips, her head instantly transformed into that of my field agent Aki.

"Huh?"

"Captain! Vake up!"

I jolted awake, my eyes shooting open, and quickly realized something. We were hanging from the ceiling. Aki and I were completely wrapped in spider silk, unable to move. What the...?

"Nice of you to join us in time for the climax, captain. Won’t be long now. Jus’ cookin’ up a li’l special somethin’ for the both of y’all, ’fore Ah skip town mahself, to go find other opportunities elsewhere."

Voluntina was mixing something in three large pots. I shot an inquisitive look over to Aki, and she rapidly shook her head. She didn't know what the Spider-Woman was cooking either.

"Voluntina, you're under arrest for triggering a public disturbance, endangering the lives of civilians through the use of mutation magic, sabotaging a fellow business, and directly assaulting two M-SERT officers."

"Really, captain? Y’all know Ah currently got the upper hand, right?"

She continued stirring her pots with her various hands, eventually mixing a strange, shimmering dark powder inside each one. I recognized the substance almost immediately. Black powder, used during our academy days to create small explosions to burst down walls and doors.

She was planning to use it to blow us up. Us, and the bakery. Wiping us out and any other shred of evidence we might need to lock her up permanently.

"Boss! Come in, boss!"

My walkie-talkie crackled on my waist as Miko tried to reach me. However, no matter how much I struggled against my binds, I just couldn't reach it. The webs were too tight.

"Aki? Come in, Aki. Guys?!"

Aki couldn't break free of her webs either.

"Alright, I'm almost done with patrol. I'm jetting over."

"Ah guess that’s mah cue to leave. Toodles, captain. Make sure y’all survive mah homemade bombs so we can meet up some day fer drinks. Don’t die on me now. Bah."

"Scheiße!" Aki hissed in frustration, watching as the Spider-Woman took off, leaving us for dead. The three pots were starting to bubble over, the black powder just about ready to ignite. We were running out of time, and no matter how much we struggled, we just couldn't break free of the webs wrapped around our bodies like cocoons.

I guess this was it. First day on the job, and I was not only about to die, but I had somehow also managed to drag a teammate with me.

I mean... I guess it was part of the job and all, but dying was still going to suck.

"Captain, I have a plan."

"Aki?"

"Zu you know any protection magic, captain?"

"Yeah, why? I honestly don't see how that will help with our current situation, Aki. Our hands are tied, remember?"

With the kind of training we received at the academy, captain candidates were usually taught a number of spells thanks to their affinity to easily pick up different kinds of magic. But just because we knew a decent number of spells, almost all of them were low to medium-level, and we could never truly master any one. We always had our agents for that.

"Aki, what are you planning?" I asked, taking note of the expression on her face. She seemed to be battling with a decision. What the hell was she thinking?

She ignored me and closed her eyes. She rapidly began reciting something. A spell, maybe?

All around us, the building began to shake and collapse in on itself. I wasn't sure if this was because of the boiling pots of black powder about to erupt at any moment, or what my agent was doing.

The air around Aki began to spark and crackle with orange flashes and scattering embers. Her ponytail came loose and floated upwards, as if her entire hair was caught in zero gravity. When she opened her eyes, I was speechless. Her pupils were now a bright orange, surging with energy. Again, what the hell was she doing? What kind of spell was that? Was it something level-six fire mages normally do?

Soon, the cocoon of web around her melted to the ground, dropping her with it. Calmly, she walked over to where I was still hanging from the ceiling by a thread and melted my binds. I dropped to the ground with a crouch.

"Aki, are you okay?"

"Now captain, zu it now. Cast ze protection barrier, zen shoot me vith a lightning strike to knock me out."

The heck did she just say?

"Absolutely not, Aki. What has gotten into you?"

"Just hurry, captain, I can't control zis form much longer. Please hurry, before ze bomb explodes. Or before I lose contro..."

***

By the time Miko arrived at the scene, Sugar-Saboteurs was nothing but a steaming pile of rubble and ash. Voluntina B. Widow was long gone, as was any hard evidence we had to help bring her in.

Miko jumped off her bike and came running towards us at the center of the fray. "Hey! You guys okay?!"

I released my grip on the bubble shield spell I had conjured around us at the very last minute. The blue dome slowly dissipated, giving Miko a clear view of the unconscious Aki lying in my arms.

Just as she had requested, I had shot her with a low-level lightning strike after I created the bubble shield to protect us from the blast. But that wasn't something I was ever planning on doing again. She had a lot of explaining to do when she woke up. Why ask me to do such a thing?

My top shooter is a reckless, trigger-happy gremlin who almost destroyed an entire street on our first mission as a team. My first officer is an extremely powerful mage with a mysterious side that she seemed to be afraid of. I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, since I was the captain of said team. But we needed to get our shit together, and soon.

Or, at this rate, we were so getting fired.