A/N: For those of you hoping to read more of Body Swappers, you'll have to beat the fic flying squirrel off my head that's making me write this instead. Yes, I have fic flying squirrels instead of bunnies… and yes, I realize that if you haven't seen Hundred Stories, you are probably REALLY confused now. There are flying squirrels that fly up and bite necks in that series, and it just reminded me of Monty Python, so now… um, yes, I'm rambling.
My original intent was to have each little "Episode" chapter have a lesson and a song, but I really think my brain might leap out of my head if I attempted songs. We'll see how the spirit moves me. Sorry there's no lesson in this one, I was going to have one but around page five my hands cramped.
Episode One: Meet the Babies.
Baby Ban slept quietly behind the counter of his grandmother's shop, his chubby hands curled around his little yellow blanket. For that reason, he didn't hear his grandmother sigh loudly. "In this economy, sales of hexes and spells are really down. I'm going to have to find some other way to make ends meet."
Teshimine, with his mysterious unmatching one eye, nodded and bounced Baby Ginji on his hip. "Talk about the economy, it's costing me limbs to buy daycare for Baby Ginji. You're lucky; at least you can keep Baby Ban here in your store with you…
"That's it!" Ban's grandmother cackled. "Since my witch shop is only open at night, I'll run a daycare center during the day."
Teshimine sweat-dropped at the notion of the witch-woman having a day care, but he really did need a cheaper place to keep Baby Ginji safe from the Beltline thugs during the day. Who better to protect him than the witch master of the Jagan, after all? Perhaps this could work out….
"Okay, consider me your first customer!" he cried. "I'll bring Baby Ginji by tomorrow morning for his first day at a new daycare."
"Aren't you excited, Baby Ban?" his grandmother asked. "Now stop being worthless and hold that dust pan still. I don't want any of my new clients realizing what kind of shop I have in the back of the house. It might make them nervous."
"Yesh, grannie," Baby Ban said, his voice already full of youthful defiance. Despite his grandma's claims that he was going to get new playmates, Baby Ban was suspicious. He certainly wasn't going to share his pacifier with them, and they'd have to take his blanket and toys from his cold, napping body. Simply put, Baby Ban didn't want to have to share.
Morning came more quickly than Baby Ban would have preferred. He was still rubbing his sleepy eyes when the doorbell rang. "Ah, that will be Teshimine with Baby Ginji." Indeed, it was. With only a few words, he dropped Baby Ginji off and left.
Baby Ban and Baby Ginji regarded one another. Baby Ginji stared at Baby Ban, who stared back. Baby Ginji's little nose twitched in curiosity, Baby Ban made a rude baby noise at him.
"Let be friends!" Baby Ginji cried, falling over on his little diapered butt.
"Don't need no friends!" Baby Ban retorted, crawling off with his little booty-covered feet going a mile a minute.
"Awwwww…" Baby Ginji sniffled. "Why not you be my friiiiiiiiiiend?" Baby Ginji asked, breaking into hysterical tears.
Baby Ban sighed. "Otay, otay. Stop cry! I be your friend!"
In an instant, Baby Ginji's tears were dry. "Yay! You my friend now! Let play!"
The door opened again, and a frightened looking older boy holding Baby Himiko in his arms looked about. "This day care offers protection from… bad things, right?"
"Of course," Ban's grandmother assured him. "It's protected by… angels." She didn't want to scare him away by saying black magic. "As well as the most expensive security system money can buy."
He breathed a sigh of relief and handed Baby Himiko over. "Take good care of her!" he called, running from his pursuers.
Baby Himiko crawled into the room and let out a gasp of shock when she saw Baby Ban, who returned the gasp. "YOU," both babies cried in unison.
Baby Ban would never forget the day. He'd been innocently playing with his blocks when Baby Himiko had snatched one. He'd angrily cried for her to give it back, but she'd refused and had kicked sand box sand in Baby Ban's face. By the time their respective caregivers had gotten to them, they were pulling each other's hair.
"Dun trust her, Baby Ginji," Baby Ban advised. "She a girl. She got cooties!"
"Eeeew," Baby Ginji said, wrinkling up his tiny nose. "Wait, what a cootie?"
"It an icky bug that eat your brain out!"
"Girls dun got cooties, booooys got cooties!" Baby Himiko angrily answered, crawling off to another corner of the room. She wanted nothing to do with Baby Ban.
Two small babies toddled into the room, holding hands. Baby Ginji gasped. "Look, he hold a girl hand! He get cootie!"
"I not a girl!" Baby Kazuki cried, the jumbo-sized bells in his hair jingling. Of course, he had to have extra large bells so he wouldn't accidentally swallow them.
"You dress like girl," Baby Ban pointed out. Suddenly, the other baby lunged forward, running a good two steps before he fell to his knees and crawled angrily up to Ban's face.
"No insult Baby Kazuki! Baby Jubei will protect!"
"No fight!" Baby Ginji cried, toddling between the two. "Be friends!"
Next to enter came Baby Shido, carried gently in the mouth of a lion. "Big kitty," the other babies cooed, impressed by the one who brought Shido to daycare. Baby Shido sneered at them as Baby Emishi toddled in behind him, carrying both their snuggle toys.
"It not kitty, it a lion," Baby Shido snorted.
"Look like kitty to me!" Ban protested.
"Stupid snake baby," Baby Shido answered. Immediately, Baby Ban was at his throat.
"I not stupid! You got stupid kitty for a mother!"
"No fight! No fight!" Baby Ginji protested.
Meanwhile, Ban's grandmother was trying to assure Baby HEVN's mom that she'd be fine. "My baby is the two-time winner of most beautiful baby Japan! Are you sure she won't be kidnapped by zealous fans or pursued by tabloid scum, eager to write a story about how she's anorexic for preferring juice over fattening mother's milk?"
'Nutcase,' was what Ban's grandmother thought. Instead she said, "Of course, I already assured Baby Ginji and Baby Himiko's caretakers that they'd be fine. You have my guarantee that she'll be protected."
Baby HEVN was reluctantly turned over to Ban's grandmother, who put her in with the other babies.
"She pretty!" Baby Ginji cooed.
Baby Ban found himself drooling more spittle than usual. "When I stop think girls have cootie, that be first girl I like!"
Ban's grandmother frowned. "Amarante is late. She said she was going to bring her little boy by, and I haven't seen him yet. One can only hope he'll be as skilled in the dark arts as his mo- oh, there you are. Making a dramatic late entrance as usual?"
The pale, petite woman in the business suit pulled down the brim of her sun hat, holding her similarly hat-wearing son in her arms. Baby Akabane, however, was sound asleep with his thumb held tightly in his little mouth.
"He was fussing on the way over," she said, sounding more like one of the dead than the living. "So I had no choice but to use my power of anesthetics to make him sleep."
Ban's grandmother sighed. She'd thought of using the Jagan to make Ban do what she wanted, but had managed to resist the urge. Well, managed to resist… for the most part. That counted for something, didn't it? "I'll put him in with the other babies. Please try to be on time to pick him up, I have to run my store tonight."
The other babies gathered around sleeping Baby Akabane. "Is it boy or girl?" Baby Emishi asked.
"Wearing hat. It a girl," Baby Ban said, nodding to indicate he meant it.
"Not wearing dress. It a boy," Baby HEVN argued.
"Hey, I no wear dress!" Baby Himiko cried.
Baby HEVN blinked her big eyes, lined in baby brand eyeliner. "You a girl?!"
Baby Ginji leaned in closer. "Hello, wakey wakey?"
Baby Akabane raised a fist full of glowing blue crayons up into his face. "You interrupt my fun sleepy. Now you die!" Before Baby Ginji could do anything, Baby Akabane scribbled all over his face, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
"What just happen?" Baby Ginji asked, looking around. None of the other babies had an answer.
Later that day as the babies were sitting around eating crackers and drinking juice, they began to discuss their relative powers. "I strongest baby in world!" Baby Ban proclaimed, lifting Baby Ginji into the air to prove his point.
"I make static electricity!" Baby Ginji proudly proclaimed, rubbing a balloon against his head and sticking it to the wall to prove it. "My socks always crackly!"
"Smell of my diaper make grown-ups do what I want," Baby Himiko proclaimed, proud of herself.
"I so cute, I make grown-up brain go mushy," Baby HEVN proclaimed. "I super-smart, too."
"I have whip of crackly doom!" Baby Emishi proclaimed, waving around what actually looked like a bunch of yarn glued to a stick. "I tickle you to tears with!"
Baby Shido looked up from his juice. "I make baby animals do whatever I want."
"I got needles, hurty or no more boo boo needles!" Baby Jubei proclaimed, showing off a nice set of incredibly dull stumpy needles. In fact, they looked more like black crayons than needles, but as Baby Jubei seemed somewhat insane no one wanted to tell him that.
"I have magic yarn in my jingly bells, I use it to get at cookie jar," threw in Baby Kazuki, demonstrating by looping it around his plastic sippy cup and drawing it closer to him.
Baby Akabane yawned. "I got magic crayons," he said, popping three glowing blue crayons out of his tiny fist. "Beware my scribbles!"
As long as these other babies stay away from my toys, I think this is the start of something… exciting, Baby Ban thought to himself as he watched his new best friend Baby Ginji eat crackers with a happy smile on his face, his tiny hands crackling with static.