Is It the Bottom of the Ninth Already?!

Aichi and I were surrounded, stuck inside the restroom with no way out, or so Aichi thought. The two hooded figures continued to pound on the door.

“You've got ten seconds to surrender before we come inside,” the mysterious man said. “One!”

“Aichi!” I shouted, making sure those hooded figures would hear me. “Flower Power! Rise Up, pretty pretty please!”

“You got a plan?” Aichi asked me.

“I got a plan.”

“Let's do it! ~woof!”

I had forgotten that the entire transformation took way longer than ten seconds to complete, but that hardly mattered. Once the transformation had started, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. I could hear, but not see, the two hooded figures barging into the restroom. They certainly tried to stop the transformation, but it seemed like even though the four of us were in the same room, the two groups couldn't be further apart. Was this the magic behind the transformation? I had not noticed this until now.

“It's the Flower Girl the Count told us about,” one of the hooded men said. “Let's get her!”

The two of them, however, were no match for mine and Aichi's teamwork.

“Aichi!” I shouted.

“Hide Away! Hide Away!!” Aichi shouted back, causing us to disappear. We reappeared right behind the two men and kicked them into the far wall of the restroom.

“Shall we?” I asked Aichi.

“Shut the door, and I'll lock it,” Aichi answered. “Sealed Shut!!”

The door was shut and magically locked before the two men even knew what hit them. As we ran down the hallway, I noticed there were many cameras dotting the interior of the stadium.

“Should we do something about those?” I asked Aichi.

“We're already doing it ~woof,” Aichi immediately answered.

“We?”

“Your human technology stops working when exposed to too much magic,” Aichi explained. “We're practically overflowing with mana right now ~woof!”

“That doesn't make any sense!” I told him. “If that was true, nobody would be able to take pictures of us or the giant monsters.”

“I said too much magic, ~woof,” Aichi elaborated. “People are able to take pictures of our magical escapades when we're low on mana.”

As we ran back towards the field, we encountered a crowd of people trying to run in the opposite direction. Whatever they were running from, we were running towards. And I had a feeling that it wasn't good.

“Let go of me this instant!” I heard the voice of Mr. Kaneko shouting in the distance.

“But why would I want to do that?” Wait a minute… I recognized that voice… It was Count Franz, the man with the box that made his voice sound like wind chimes. “You'd make a perfect monster of the week.”

We tried to run faster, but by the time we made it out and into the stands, it was already too late.

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

It took very little time for the curse to do its work, turning Mr. Kaneko into a giant octopus monster with a baseball bat in each of its eight tentacles and a baseball cap on its head. The giant octopus’ body filled the entirety of the baseball stadium and its tentacles spilled out into the rest of the city.

Why is this always happening to people in my life?

“Ah, you're the annoying magical girl from the other day,” the Count said once he saw me. “Don't you like how I turned your boss into a giant monster?”

“No!” I answered immediately. “Put him back now! And also, how did you know he's my boss?”

“We have eyes everywhere, child,” the Count answered in response. “Your secret identity is no longer a secret to us, Ayame Tanaka!”

I was caught. That explained how they knew where I lived. That explained how they could capture Aichi and leave notes on my front door. If I was caught, that meant that Sayori was also caught, because they also captured her Hollow, Fumiko. That made defeating the Count all the more urgent.

Fortunately, the area around the stadium consisted mostly of homes, except for a freeway that ran behind home plate. This meant if we could just find a way to block the octopus' attacks, we could minimize the damage he would deal to the rest of the city.

“Aichi, can you use Pulse Field to block his swings?” I asked.

“I can try,” Aichi immediately answered. “With eight arms, though, it'll be difficult to sort this out.”

“Oh, wonderful, the backup arrived,” a voice called out from the direction of first base. It was Sayori!

“Sayori! What are you doing here?” I asked her.

“I was here to watch my high school win the Summer Koshien,” Sayori answered, "when these sorcerers decided to ruin the fun.”

“Miss Sayori, ~sss, shall we do the thing?” Fumiko asked.

“I thought you'd never ask,” Sayori replied. “Flower Power! Rise up, pretty pretty please!”

With Sayori transformed, the Count's attention was now divided between the two of us. Once he noticed her presence, he said, “Another magical girl?! I demand to know who you are!”

“You already know who we are, old man,” Sayori immediately countered. “I'm the cool defender of justice! Magical Sukeban Fuji! Count up your sins, because I'll destroy you!”

I followed with my own introduction: “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?”

“I don't care what fancy titles you two give yourselves,” the Count replied, completely shaking off those introductions we worked so hard on. “Prepare to die!”

The octopus then lifted all eight of its arms high into the air. There weren't enough of us to protect the city against an attack like that! But I had a potential idea…

“Does anyone here know what would happen if we all cast Pulse Field at the same time?” I asked the others.

“I'm not sure ~sss,” Fumiko answered. “We can try it.”

“Pulse Field!!!” All four of us shouted at the same time. We generated a massive shield that blocked the octopus’ attack. The force of the impact forced the octopus into the air, giving us an opening to strike.

“Summer Wind!!” Aichi roared as he unleashed a whirlwind of hot air at the octopus monster. “Fried katamari coming right up ~woof!”

“I think you mean calamari, Aichi,” I corrected him. “But this is an octopus.”

“Tastes all the same to me!” Aichi insisted.

The Mr. Kaneko octopus landed inside the stadium with an impact that almost cracked the ground below.

“Don't hurt him too much!” I shouted. “He may be a giant octopus right now, but he's still my boss! I would like to still have a job by the time we're done here.”

“Strong emotions seem to be the key to reversing the curses ~sss,” Fumiko told us. “Rile him up if you have to!”

At that moment, I performed my “Brave Charm!!” dance, summoning… a giant baseball?! Well, I supposed it made sense considering Mr. Kaneko the giant octopus was holding eight baseball bats. The baseball, unfortunately, was too big and too heavy for even my comically magical strength to carry alone.

“Everyone, I'm gonna need help with pitching this ball!” I called out to the others.

We had to fly out into Osaka Bay and about fifty meters into the air to have the needed distance to pitch the giant baseball to the octopus.

“So what's the plan, ~woof?” Aichi asked.

“When I say swing,” I explained my plan to them. “We're going to throw this ball at Mr. Kaneko. He won't resist trying to hit the ball, so either he hits the ball so far that the curse will be broken due to how happy he is…”

“Or the curse will be broken due to how sad he is that he missed,” Sayori realized.

“That's what I'm hoping for,” I concluded. “Alright! One! Two! Three!”

“Swing!!!” we all shouted at the same time as we tossed the giant baseball at Mr. Kaneko. True to my plan, Mr. Kaneko was all too excited to make his swing. He hit it! He actually hit the ball so hard it flew right past us and high into the sky. It looked like he aimed the ball at the moon, which, despite it being daytime, was visible in the sky as a half-moon.

You could hear the giant octopus giggling (gurgling?) with glee as he made the giant octopus version of a home run. Dark energy shot up into the sky in all directions as the curse was becoming undone, revering Mr. Kaneko to his normal self.

“This can't be happening!” Count Franz shouted in defeat. “My plan was foolproof! Perfect, even!”

Several hooded figures flew past the Count as they made an attempt to flee the scene. 

“Let's get out of here!” one of the figures could be heard shouting.

“You should have thought about that before you decided to mess with us!” I shouted back at the Count. “Uh…”

“We'll come up with a team name later, Ayame,” Sayori told me. We were officially a team now… “For now, let's just get this guy outta here!”

“The Dark Master is among you!” Count Franz shouted as he made his retreat. “If you do not bring him to us within three days, we will destroy one city of our choosing! Consider this your first, and last, warning!”

Before Sayori could try to rope him in with her yo-yo, the Count vanished in a puff of smoke.

As the Count left the stadium, Aichi asked, “How many people did he think heard that threat ~woof?”

“I think that threat was directed specifically at us, Aichi,” I told him. “But how are we, let alone anyone else, supposed to know who the Dark Master is?”

“~woof, I don't know,” Aichi answered. “But I think we know someone who does…”