Amazing Magical Girl
Ruby Moon
Another Strange CCS Fanfic by CardCaptor Schlueter (aka Syaoran-kun)
Legal Disclaimer: "CardCaptor Sakura" belongs to CLAMP. But you knew that already, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?!
Uh… Sorry about that. By putting in this disclaimer I can't be sued. Even if I could, you'd never find me. Nyah, Nyah!
Throughout the history of anime, there have been tales of great heroines who used their powers to save the world from destruction. These tales tell of girls who put their lives and sometimes their very souls on the line to fight the forces of darkness.
This is not one of them.
**
It was yet another sunny day in Tomoeda. A typically ordinary day; a day filled with the general clichés of life, such as birds singing, children playing, etc. etc. One could of course note that, if anime is to be believed, there is no such thing as an ordinary day in Japan. At least, not ordinary in the sense that we dull Westerners understand it. No. An ordinary day around here consists of going to work or school, going through the dull tasks of the day, go home, complain that, despite having one thousand, four hundred and eighty six channels available, there is nothing good on television, sleep and so on. But, in Japan, according to reliable anime sources, on any given day, buildings are destroyed by martial artists, university students get jobs in girls dormitories, people are malleted, punched or kicked into orbit, vampire princesses roam the night, duels are fought, people are sucked into alternate realities, alien princess crash land their ships and most of all, magical girls fight the forces of evil, which continue to choose Japan as the target of their evil deeds, despite the fact that it is the very place where they keep getting their butts kicked.
Oh, and in the future there will be giant robots added to the list too.
What was going on during this particular day in Tomoeda involved a not-so-ordinary girl named Nakuru Akizuki. There were a lot of reasons why Nakuru was not like other girls, starting with the fact that she was not, technically, a girl. She was also not, technically, a boy either.
It can be confusing, so don't think about it too hard.
The reason Nakuru had no defining gender based characteristics was because she was actually Ruby Moon, a guardian created by Eriol Hiiragazawa, a half-reincarnation of the powerful sorcerer Clow Reed who bared a strong resemblance to Harry Potter. As you might have guessed, Eriol has kind of a weird sense of humor when it comes to his guardians.
Just think of the identity crisis Nakuru must have.
Of course, all of you out there in reader land already knew all this information. But, it certainly makes for some interesting padding to the story, doesn't it?
Well, don't answer that.
**
"Spinel," said Eriol. "Have you seen Nakuru around anywhere?"
The small black plushie-like guardian looked up from his reading. "No," he replied. "I haven't. And actually, I'm kind of glad. As long as she's not around my life isn't in any immediate danger."
"It's just that I haven't seen her all morning, and it worries me," said Eriol.
"You're worried about her?!"
"I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about what she might be doing," Eriol replied. "You know what kind of trouble she can get into."
Spinel Sun shuddered. "Well, she has to be in the house somewhere."
Then came a cry of "Hold it right there, evil doers!"
Eriol and Spinel Sun turned to see Nakuru leap down the stairs, dressed in a weird outfit that looked like Utena's school-shirt with a lot of elaborate little touches worthy of Tomoyo paired with a short pleated white skirt, gloves, boots and a Sailor V-style mask.
As she landed at the bottom of the stairs she immediately struck a dramatic pose. "You are plotting evil! And I have come to stop you!" the oddly dressed Nakuru shouted, "I stand for life, love, liberty and the pursuit of Touya! I am Magical Girl Ruby Moon!" Nakuru struck another pose. "And on behalf of… No, wait… That's been done. Oh… Just stop or I'll kick your butts!"
There was a brief silence, and then…
There was laughter.
A lot of laughter.
Eriol and Spinel Sun were having considerable difficulty controlling their mirth over this particular scene. And could they really be blamed for it?
Well, Nakuru sure seemed to think so. She put her hands on her hips and glowered at them. "What the hell are you two laughing at?!" she shouted. "I happen to be very serious here!"
"G-gomen, Nakuru…" Eriol managed, trying to catch his breath. "But what on earth are you up to with that outfit? You do realize that Halloween is still a long way off."
"It's not a Halloween costume!" Nakuru growled. She held back on the insults because, after all, Eriol was still a dangerous person to cross. "I've decided to become a magical heroine, The Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon!"
Spinel Sun snorted. "Watch out, Sailor Moon."
"In case, you haven't noticed, Nakuru," said Eriol. "Tomoeda already has a magical girl. You remember her right? Green eyes, auburn hair, named after cherry blossoms, her best friend is a slightly diluted camera nut and her boyfriend is my descendant? Remember her?"
"Yeah," said Spinel Sun. "What's with this sudden urge to join the short-skirted, wand wielding elite anyway?"
"I'm tired of being a mere moon guardian!" Nakuru announced "I want to use my powers to fight evil youmas and…"
"…be rescued by Touya wearing a tux, cape and mask?" Eriol finished for her.
Nakuru blushed as she stared towards the sky, her eyes going sparkly. "Oh, yes. My dashing prince who will come and rescue me!"
"Please…" muttered Spinel Sun. "You're making me sick. Do us all a favor and stop reading Utena, okay, Nakuru?"
"So… you're hoping that Touya will play Lantis to your Hikaru?" said Eriol.
"Asuka Jr. to your Saint Tail?" suggested Spinel Sun.
"Van to your Hitomi?"
"Syaoran to your Sakura?"
"I wouldn't go that far, Suppi."
Nakuru snapped out of her revelry. "And what's wrong with that?!" she snapped.
"Well, for starters," said Eriol. "In case you've forgotten, the only strange and deadly creations in Tomoeda are created by us, remember? We're the… um… antagonists of the CardMistress."
"We're the Metallia to her Usagi," said Spinel.
"The Zagato to her Hikaru," Eriol added.
"The angels to her Shinji," said Spinel Sun.
"The Mariemeia to her Relena,"
"The… uh… giant chess pieces to her Ja Ja Uma Quartette?"
"That's a tad obscure, Suppi."
"I was reaching. What can I say?"
"In short, Nakuru," Eriol said plainly. "There isn't going to be much in the way of evil for you to fight."
"I don't care," Nakuru responded in a huffy and childish tone. "I'll come up with something."
"So… you're planning to create youmas and then destroy them?" Spinel asked.
"Well, maybe not that," Nakuru replied.
"And in case you've forgotten," said Spinel, "We're not heroes. We're Clow guardians. Eriol's Clow guardians. Remember?"
"Exactly," said Eriol, nodding in agreement.
"We're the Luna and Artemis to his Sailor Moon," said Spinel
Eriol sweatdropped. "I don't know if I care for that analogy."
"The Larva to his Miyu," Spinel continued.
"That's enough, Suppi," said Eriol.
"The giant animated wooden blocks to his Ayeka," said Spinel.
"They had names you know," said Nakuru.
"Yeah, but I can never seem to remember them,"
"KNOCK IT OFF!" Eriol shouted, immediately silencing the two guardians. He pause a moment to compose himself. "Now Nakuru, you have to see that this loony plan of yours can't possibly work."
"Yeah," said Spinel. "First you need a tiara to go with that outfit."
"Oh, you're right!" Nakuru immediately darted up the stairs in search of a tiara to go with her outfit, completely missing the bemused expression of Spinel Sun.
"When she gets back, I think I'll remind her that she needs a wand or something too," said Spinel.
"I really don't think that was a good idea, Suppi," said Eriol.
"Yeah, well, maybe Nakuru deserves to dance for my amusement for a change," Spinel Sun grumbled. "And quit calling me Suppi."
"Well…" Eriol paused to push his glasses back up. "I suppose it wouldn't be too much to humor her this one time." Eriol grinned. "This could prove to be quite amusing indeed."
"So, we're going to give her some evil force to fight?" said Spinel. "What should it be?"
Eriol shrugged. "Eh… We'll just use the standard shadow monster drones that all magical girls fight during the first round. And who knows, maybe Touya will actually be impressed."
"Or he could be ripped limb from limb by the monster," said Spinel. "I think Syaoran would appreciate that."
**
Meanwhile, somewhere in Tomoeda, Touya sneezed.
"Are you sure you're not coming down with something?" Yukito inquired. "That's the sixth time you've sneezed in the last five minutes."
"I think so," Touya replied.
**
Silently, through the night, the shadowed figure leapt gracefully from rooftop to rooftop, prowling the city in search of danger.
CRASH!
Okay, maybe the graceful part was stretching it a bit. Ruby Moon had decided that she would go through the usual routines of being a magical girl and not use her wings.
Also, they clashed with her new outfit.
Ruby Moon grumbled as she struggled to get out of the hedge she had fallen in. "Geez…" she muttered. "This is so boring!" She paused to brush herself off. "Well, it would be if it wasn't so dangerous falling off these damned rooftops."
Ruby Moon let out a sigh. No evil, no youmas and worst of all no Touya to save her when she fell from rooftops. Now she understood why Sakura could sleep so soundly. Speaking of sleep, Ruby Moon was feeling mighty tired herself at this point.
"The hell with this…" she muttered as she stifled a yawn. "I'm going home to bed."
With that, Ruby Moon leapt back on to the nearest rooftop and began roof-hopping her way back home. She only fell three more times before she got there.
**
The next morning, Nakuru was soaking in the bathtub, trying to ignore the aching of all the bruises she had acquired the previous night, several of which were on a sensitive region commonly used for sitting. She was starting to have some serious doubts about her plans to be a magical heroine. She had figured that if a klutz like Usagi Tsukino could manage it, surely she, a great and powerful guardian could do it too.
Well, nothing is ever as easy as it looks in anime.
"Thinking of giving up?" came a voice.
Nakuru looked up to see Spinel Sun perched on the edge of the sink. She immediately grabbed a shampoo bottle and hurled it at the small black cat's head. "Suppi, you little hentai! Get out of here!"
Spinel easily dodged the shampoo bottle. "Please, it's not like I haven't seen it before. Besides, in case you've forgotten, you don't have anything to look at."
"OH SHUT UP!" Nakuru screamed. "If I didn't have so much feminine modesty, I'd get up and throttle you."
"How can you have feminine modesty if you're not female?" Spinel mused. "Perhaps what you have is asexual modesty."
"Suppi, before I come over there and make you into a gooey black spot on the tile, do you have any reason to be in here, or is this just your way of getting cheap thrills?" Nakuru growled.
"Well, our master has decided to give you a chance to prove yourself as a magical heroine," Spinel explained. "He's planning on having a shadow creature of some kind attack sometime tomorrow. Maybe it'll even give you a chance to defend what's-his-name."
"Touya," Nakuru hissed. "Eriol is going to do that for me?"
"Well, I think he's just humoring you," said Spinel as he hopped back down to the floor. Nakuru glared at him. "Oh, and next time you might want to consider locking the door." Spinel said.
Nakuru was about to throw something else at him, but he was already gone.
**
Meanwhile, in the park, Sakura, Syaoran and Tomoyo were taking a leisurely stroll.
"You know," said Tomoyo. "I could've sworn I heard footsteps on my roof last night. It was really kind of unnerving. I wonder if someone was trying to rob us."
"Hoeee?! There was someone on your roof too?" said a startled Sakura. "That happened to us last night too. Onnichan got really worked up about it."
"Yeah, well someone made a real mess of the shrubbery outside my apartment building," said Syaoran. "Why someone would want to vandalize hedges is beyond me."
**
Nakuru was very wary of her surroundings when she walked to school on Monday. There was the possibility that the creature Eriol had created could be lurking anywhere, waiting to pounce upon her at any moment.
And then there was the possibility that Eriol and Spinel were playing her for a fool and were even now laughing themselves senseless.
That was a very good possibility.
No, she thought to herself. She was just going to have to trust Eriol this time.
Nakuru was getting goosebumps. Her chance to be a magical heroine was at hand. Soon, Touya would be obsessing over her the way Asuka Jr. obsessed over Saint Tail, or how Sailor Moon obsessed over Tuxedo Kamen (or maybe the other way around).
Yes. She could see it all now…
The creature loomed over the battered Touya as the young man huddled against the brick wall looking desperately for a route of escape.
"No," he cried out "Leave me alone!"
The creature responded with a laugh that sounded like a very deep bass version of Jinnai from El-Hazzard. "You cannot escape!" it growled in a voice that sounded like James Earl Jones with a serious phlegm problem. "No one can save you now."
"Oh!" Touya cried out, sounding more and more like Princess Emeraude. "Won't someone please come and save me?"
"Hold it right there!" someone cried from out of the darkness. The creature and Touya both looked up at a silhouetted figure, perched dramatically a top a building, her hair blowing dramatically in the wind. Suddenly, her form is illuminated. No one knows how since the lighting has not, technically, changed, but no one questions it.
Touya suddenly brightened. "Oh, a powerful heroine has come to save me!" he said in a voice that definitely didn't sound like his, unless he was wearing really, really tight underwear.
"No! It's Ruby Moon!" the creature said.
"That's right!" Ruby Moon announced. "And on behalf of all that is good, I'm here to kick your butt!" Ruby Moon leapt from her perch and kicked the creature in the head.
"Arghhhh!!!" it screamed as it was sent crashing into a wall.
"Syaonara, scum!" Ruby Moon yelled as she unleashed a powerful blast of red magical energy that incinerated the creature.
"Curse you, Ruby Moon!" the creature yowled as it was incinerated. "Your incredible magical prowess has destroyed me! Arghhhhh…"
"Oh, thank you, mysterious heroine," said Touya as he got to his feet. "But… who are you?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that," Ruby Moon replied in a dramatic tone as she turned her back to him. "I'm afraid I must go now."
"Wait!" Touya yelled as he grabbed her by the shoulder. "At least, give me a chance to thank you." Touya turned her around and leaned in to kiss her when…
Suddenly, Nakuru felt something squash her nose. She had been so involved in her daydream, she had accidentally walked into a tree.
Let's just be glad that the fate of the world isn't really in her hands.
**
Around lunchtime, Nakuru was starting to wonder if she hadn't been right about Eriol playing a prank on her. After all, nothing of particular consequence had happened so far today. Then she remembered that in anime, any day that starts out this mundane will result in the end of the world before dinner time.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it's close.
Magical girls don't generally face evil powerful enough to rend the fabric of space and time or obliterate humanity on their first mission.
Okay, there was Devil Hunter Yohko, but that was more of an exception than anything else.
**
"Something wrong?' Yukito inquired.
"No," Touya replied. "It's just that I've never had a day go for this long without being violently glomped by that Akizuki girl."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"No. I guess not."
**
Suddenly, there was the sound of girls screaming. Nakuru meant this could only mean one thing! A big sale on 501s at The Gap!
No. Wait. It meant that Eriol's monster had finally shown up. This was her chance!
She looked around, hoping to see Touya about to be attacked (admittedly, something she had never hoped for before). But, she couldn't see anything because a whole stampede of students was running her way.
"Eep," she said before desperately leaping out of the way of the charging mob. She quickly got back to her feet and dusted herself off. She certainly hoped someone was finding this funny.
Then she saw it. In the middle of the schoolyard was a vile green, glowing creature with fangs and claws.
It looked a lot like Pauly Shore. Now that was scary.
All right, thought Nakuru, Now's my chance!
She reached into her shirt and pulled out a fancy gold and red amulet with a crescent moon symbol on it, which she hurled at the ground. It exploded in a cloud of pink smoke revealing a small, portable dressing room. Nakuru had made a conscious decision not to be another magical girl whose panties would be on display, at least while changing. It also had the added benefit of cutting down on the stock footage.
**
Meanwhile, the evil creature was wreaking havoc. Or, at least as much havoc as can be wreaked in a giant open field with no one around, which is to say, not very much. Still, it was busy stalking about trying to maintain its menacing evil persona.
One could say this was pointless when no one could see it, but let's not get too carried away by logic.
"Hold it right there!" Ruby Moon made a dramatic leap, intending to jump clean over the tree she had been hiding behind.
That had been the plan, anyway.
CRASH!
rustle, rustle, rustle
Thump!
"Ow!" Ruby Moon had once again landed on a part of her body that was not her feet and was seriously considering giving up if only to ensure that she might be able to sit down again one day. But, instead she leapt to her feet brushed herself off and adjusted her mask.
Meanwhile, the evil creature was looking at something shiny in the grass.
Ruby Moon struck a pose. "Cease and desist, foul creature! I stand for life!" She struck another pose. "Liberty!" Another pose. "And the pursuit of wealth at the expense of others! I am the Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon! I shall kick the butts of evil creatures, invading demons and Cher for singing that damned 'Do You Believe In Love' song! And that means you!" Ruby Moon struck a final pose before noticing that the evil creature in question was not paying any attention to her.
Ruby Moon sweatdropped. "Hey! Dumbass! I'm talking to you!!" she shouted, her face turning red with anger.
Still, the creature continued to ignore her.
Why the hell am I going through this song and dance when there's no one here to see it? Ruby Moon thought to herself.
Ruby Moon shrugged. She came to a decision that would have saved a lot of time for a lot of magical girls. "The hell with this…" she muttered. She used her magic to form a powerful red sphere of energy and blasted the creature.
Poor dope never knew what hit him.
"Well, at least that crater will be evidence of my awesome power," Ruby Moon said with a sigh.
"That was actually quite entertaining. Although it was an awful lot of build-up for you to just blow his brains out. Still, very amusing."
Ruby Moon looked up at a nearby tree and saw Spinel Sun perched on one of the branches. "Well, I'm glad someone was here to see it." Ruby Moon muttered. "Where the hell was Touya?!"
"Don't look at me," said Spinel "I'm not his keeper."
Ruby Moon just sighed again.
**
Eriol looked up from his reading as a morose Nakuru slammed the front door and marched her way through the front hall grumbling.
"I take it things didn't go well at school today," Eriol said with a smirk as Spinel Sun hopped up onto the armrest of his chair.
"You know, it's bad enough no one, including Touya saw my incredible victory today," she growled "But, did you really have to send such a wussy youma after me?"
Eriol blinked. "Oh, that's right. I was supposed to create something for you to fight, wasn't I?" Eriol shrugged. "I guess I forgot."
Nakuru and Spinel stared at him wide eyed.
"You mean, that thing that attacked the school wasn't created by you?" Spinel inquired.
"I'm afraid not," said Eriol.
Spinel and Nakuru stared at each other.
"This is certainly a twist, isn't it?" said Eriol.
THE END (Maybe…)
Author's Notes:
I can honestly say I have no idea why I wanted to write this fanfic. But, hey! As long as it was funny, right? Well, maybe not. In case anyone is wondering, I have no plans to write any more "Magical Girl Ruby Moon" fics. But, if for whatever weird reason, people want to read more of these, I'll be happy to oblige.^-^
-CardCaptor Schlueter (aka Syaoran-kun)