[The James bond theme plays as a small white circle moves from left to right across a black background. As is moves back it has turned into a gun sight tracking none other than Nakuru Akizuki in a tuxedo. She quickly turns and…]
BANG!
[Blood runs down the screen as the Bond theme reaches a dramatic crescendo and suddenly, the story begins…]
**
It was the opening of a brand new foreign embassy in Tokyo. No one remembered (or cared) which country actually owned the embassy. The whole point of opening it was an excuse for rich people to dress up and eat expensive food with French names while drinking champagne and talking about how wonderfully wealthy they all were.
At least, that was the perception of a shadowy figure watching the party through the skylight on the roof. The figure was clad in a copy of Utena's school shirt, pleated white miniskirt, knee high boots, gloves and a Sailor V style mask. That's right. It was Tomoeda's unofficial magical girl, Nakuru Akizuki. Nakuru had decided some time ago to give up being a simple genderless moon guardian and become a member of the wand wielding ranks of magical girls. She had come to the party for one reason alone: To hunt down one of her enemies. For at that party tonight was one of the most reviled and feared creatures in the universe.
Yes. It was a Mary Sue.
Ever since her battle with Charlotte LaFleur, Nakuru had started to get the feeling that the Mary Sues were stalking her. There were subtle hints, such as the letter she received that read: We are stalking you. –The Mary Sues. The Mary Sues were a rather large group who were very bad to cross. On the other hand, Nakuru had foiled their plans twice so far, and that was enough for them to think that maybe, just maybe, getting rid of Ruby Moon would be harder than they thought.
The host of the party tonight was Amelia DeLaRenquist of The United Sisterhood of Mary Sues, Local #534, who like all Mary Sues was blond haired and blue eyed with a remarkable ability to be almost perfect at anything. She was off discussing something with the security teams from "Anonymous Gruntz R' Us Inc." (motto: 'Proudly providing a chaff for gunfire since 1976').
Probably warning them to be one the look out for me, Nakuru thought with a smirk, like a bunch of anonymous grunts are a match for a talented magical girl like myself. Well, I think it's time for Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon to make her entrance.
With that Nakuru began to prepare her attack.
**
Amelia was very certain that Ruby Moon would be making her appearance soon. Never underestimate Mary Sue intuition, folks. In fact, the whole party was planned in hopes that she would crash it. Amelia was very aware of clichés, after all, Mary Sues were responsible for several of them. She glanced briefly at her watch. "Five… four… three… two…"
Suddenly, all the lights went out.
"At least she's got the timing down," Amelia muttered.
"Hold it right there, evil rich people!" called Nakuru, who was standing dramatically on one of the chandeliers, her hair blown about for added effect even though there was no possible source for the breeze that was causing it. The lights suddenly came on, illuminating her form.
"We're not evil!" called one of the guests. "We're misunderstood!"
"No one asked you, stupid!" Nakuru snapped, before continuing. "I am the defender of love, justice and pocky!" Nakuru struck a pose. "I am the Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon! And in the name of Clow, I will punish you!"
"Pocky?!" one of the guests called. Nakuru jumped down from her perch and landed on his head.
"I don't recall asking for your opinion," she growled. She raised her sword and pointed it towards Amelia. "I've got you cornered now, Mary Sue!"
"I thought her name was Amelia," said another one of the guests.
Nakuru hit him over the head. "Would you all just SHUT UP?!"
"Ohhohohohohoho!" Amelia laughed. "Foolish magical girl! You have fallen right into our trap! Get her!!" The security goons leapt into action shooting randomly at Nakuru and accidentally taking out the party guests. Nakuru just stood there, hands on her hips, as bullets whizzed past missing her completely. After a moment, the guards ran out of ammunition. Nakuru rolled her eyes an Amelia sweatdropped.
"You should know better!" said Nakuru. "Nameless goons have all the marksmanship qualities of shaky over-caffeinated blind men!"
Lousy clichés, Amelia thought. "Fine! I shall destroy you myself!" She summoned a sword using her Mary Sue contrivance powers™ and charged at Nakuru. Nakuru retaliated by hurling a series of red energy spheres at her attacker, all of which missed and ended up blowing up tables, smashing holes in the walls and hurling guests through the air. The nameless goons were naturally vaporized immediately in the chaos while the remaining guests ran away, desperate to save their own rich hides.
"This is ridiculous," said Nakuru. "The only damage we're doing is to the building."
Amelia shrugged. "Well, if there's no property damage, what the point?" she said before resuming her attack. Nakuru parried Amelia's attacks with her own sword. Amelia swung wide with a very dramatic slash, causing Nakuru to jump into the air to avoid it. After hovering in the air, Matrix-style for a moment she unleashed a powerful kick which sent Amelia crashing though a nearby wall. She walked over and observed the fallen Mary Sue for a moment before crouching down to take the Mary Sue ring off her hand.
"Looks like this one was just another brick in the wall," she said with a smile as she held up the ring. Amelia, lacking the source of her powers, quickly dissolved into dust. Nakuru wandered over to one of the few remaining tables and grabbed a glass of champagne.
"Cheers, darling," she said in her best snob voice before drinking down the champagne.
**
[The Bond music plays again and suddenly…]
CCST3K's Magical MSTery Tour Productions Presents
Nakuru Akizuki as CardCaptor Schlueter's Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon
In
From
Amazing Magical Girl
RUBY MOON
With Love
The 4th Amazing Magical Girl Ruby Moon Fic
By CardCaptor Schlueter (aka Syaoran-kun)
Disclaimer: 1) CCS does not belong to me. 2) It belongs to CLAMP. 3) Disclaimers are annoying. 4) But not as annoying as Tom Green. 5) Yes. The opening and title are ripped off from James Bond. 6) James Bond does not belong to me. 7) If you're still reading this disclaimer, you have too much time on your hands.
[Part 1: The Tokyo Fanservice Ryuu]
Somewhere in the darkened streets of Tokyo…
A shadowy figure in a long overcoat moved quickly and quietly through the empty streets. This was quite an accomplishment considering that Tokyo's streets are never empty and that no one ever notices long coat wearing shadowy types skulking all over the place. In his hand was a briefcase containing something very dangerous indeed. Something that could rend the fabric of time and space to pieces, or at least make life really, really miserable for a lot of people.
The man in question was not a normal human. He was something beyond that.
For those who are regular readers of this series, you will recall all the discussion of Mary Sues and their powers. And while Mary Sues could be annoying and destructive, the species we're dealing with this time was far more dangerous. The Selfinius Insertarian Authorus, or Self Insertion Author was a species that could be very powerful indeed. They defined their own powers and could contort the laws of physics and logic even more so than Mary Sues. The Self Inserts, or SIs were also a very rare species because angry fanpersons kept beating them to death with blunt objects, not that this was a bad thing. The legend goes that of the godlike beings that made up the civilization known as the "authorship". While many of the authors where kind and benevolent and guided their subjects to love and happiness, other turned their power to their out gratification and used their powers to pound on the heroes of various stories and otherwise show off how great they could be. In real life, many SI authors were, in fact, total weenies. Like that comes as a big surprise.
But even among the SIs there was a small sub-species that even normal SIs loathed. The Lemonitationis Writerian breed of SI. And it just so happened that this shadowy weirdo happened to be one of them.
Be afraid, folks. Be very afraid.
**
Meanwhile at Eriol's mansion, our heroine was busy teaching a very important lesson to a certain other Tomoeda magical girl.
"Okay," Nakuru began, adjusting Sakura's shoulders slightly. "You'll want to pick up a certain amount of velocity to make sure you hit your target before they have a chance to realize what's about to happen."
"All right," said Sakura, blushing slightly.
"Now remember," Nakuru continued. "You'll want to shift your weight forward. But not to far forward. You don't want to knock him down. Now keep your arms around his shoulders, not his neck. We don't want a Tamayo Kazuki thing to happen here."
"Right," Sakura replied, turning slightly redder.
"Okay," said Nakuru. "Give it a shot."
Sakura crouched down into starting position, as though she were about to begin a sprint.
"Annnnnd… Go!" Nakuru announced.
Sakura sprang into action. "Syaoran-kuuun!!" she cried out as she leapt towards the young Chinese boy, who had been looking rather nervous during the whole lesson, and wrapped her arms around him in an affectionate manner. Syaoran wobbled forward, waving his arms frantically to keep his balance. The young man blushed as Sakura snuggled up to him.
"Excellent!" Nakuru said, smiling brightly. "Wonderful form! It's not easy to pull off with a target who isn't taller than you."
Tomoyo, who had been watching the whole thing through the lens of her camcorder giggled. "I think I'll call this one 'Sakura-chan's Lessons In Glomping'. What do you think?"
"Daidouji…" Syaoran barely managed to begin to object. Sakura had chosen that moment to rub her cheek against his and Syaoran was forced to divert his attention to remaining conscious.
For those of you who are curious about the preceding scene, perhaps some explanation is in order.
Ever since Nakuru chose a sword as her magical girl weapon, she realized that she knew absolutely nothing about swords and that her survival using it up until this point had more or less been pure luck. Knowing full well that ignorance and sharp objects do not mix, Nakuru decided to get lessons on swordplay. However, the only person who could teach her happened to be Syaoran Li. For those of you who don't see how this could be a problem, the fact was that Syaoran did not like Eriol very much. In fact Syaoran hated Eriol to the point where he fantasized about acts of violence against him. Since Nakuru was one of Eriol's guardians it was Syaoran's instinct not to trust her. On the other hand, Nakuru also had a tendency to annoy the hell out of Sakura's brother, Touya, which amused Syaoran to no end. Plus when Touya was busy dealing with Nakuru, he wasn't out hunting Syaoran down for having the gall to date his sister. Based on these facts, Nakuru figured she had a fifty-fifty chance of Syaoran agreeing to teach her. So she decided to improve her odds by asking him while he was with Sakura, since he wouldn't want to look hard-hearted in front of her.
As it happened, no sooner had Nakuru asked than Sakura mentioned she had always been curious as to how Nakuru managed to always take Touya by surprise with her glomping. So, Nakuru offered to teach Sakura the ancient secrets of glomping™ in exchange for Syaoran giving her some pointers (so to speak) on swordplay. Sakura loved the idea, which meant that Syaoran couldn't object without facing Sakura's big sad puppy eyes™.
And so everything worked out for the best. At least as far as Nakuru thought. Eriol, who had been watching the whole proceeding with a certain curious detachment, was still not sure if humoring Nakuru when she announced she wanted to be a magical girl was such a good idea.
"Nice to see you've decided to corrupt the next generation as well," said Spinel Sun with more than a hint of sarcasm.
"Nobody asked you, Suppi!" Nakuru hissed.
"I am NOT Suppi!!"
"Personally, I think it's cute," said Tomoyo, still taping away.
"You would," muttered Spinel Sun.
"I don't fancy what Touya will think of all this," said Eriol.
"Who says he's going to know?" Nakuru asked with a small pout.
"Do you know of anyone else who could or would teach her something like this?" inquired Eriol, one eyebrow raised.
"Ummm… Akizuki-san…" called Sakura. "I think I've done something wrong." She gave a worried glance to the comatose swirly-eyed Syaoran in her arms.
The others sweatdropped. "Okay," said Nakuru. "Next time let go of him a little sooner."
**
As all this was happening, the evil SI author had already set up his base in central Tokyo, where he owned a giant mega corporation complete with giant monolithic skyscrapers, helicopters, anonymous flunkies and technicians who never ever question whether or not the boss is actually a fruitcake and a large, particularly stupid personal henchman, He managed all this despite not having any actual money when he arrived, but that's the way SI authors work.
Oscar Shakari was his name. Like a great many members of the authorship, he occasionally had fantasies about seducing certain members of the worlds he watched. Unlike most of the authorship however, he actually acted on such bizarre impulses. As you might have guessed, Mr. Shakari has way too much free time on his hands, but good luck convincing him.
He watched out the window of his office at the top floor of a cold impersonal skyscraper at his overnight empire. He then laughed maniacally for no reason whatsoever.
Not only is this guy a walking cliché, but a thoroughly nutty one as well.
**
"What you need," Syaoran began. "is not so much true sword skills as elaborately staged sword skills."
Nakuru scratched her head. "Huh?"
"You see," Syaoran continued. "True sword skills are for fighting. But there is a school of sword fighting strictly dedicated to impressive showing off. It's called the Tokyo Fanservice Ryuu."
"Tokyo Fanservice Ryuu?" Nakuru said scratching her head again.
"I'll demonstrate," Syaoran replied as Tomoyo and Sakura set up several straw training dummies. "Normally, when you attack with a sword you would probably keep it simple." Syaoran drew his sword and with a single stroke chopped one of the dummies in half. The dummy's severed torso crashed immediately to the floor.
"However," Syaoran continued. "In the Tokyo Fanservice Ryuu, sword techniques are used for maximum showmanship. For example the Delayed Reaction Slash." Syaoran sheathed his sword and took up a stance which he held for several seconds. Suddenly, in one smooth movement, he drew his sword, slashed at another dummy and returned the blade to its scabbard. For several seconds it seemed as if nothing had happened, but then the top half of the dummy fell over, revealing that Syaoran had indeed managed to chop the second dummy in two as well.
Sakura, Nakuru and even Tomoyo stared, clearly impressed.
"That was amazing!" Nakuru said finally.
"One of the more elaborate maneuvers is the Fanservice Defense," Syaoran continued.
"Fanservice Defense?" inquired Sakura.
"It's a defense in which all destructive assaults of all opponent are absorbed by one's costume," Syaoran explained. "Granted, this results in your clothes being shredded easily but no blade will cut you, nor can you be severely burned or maimed."
Tomoyo semed a bit irked at the idea of sacrificing elaborate costumes that way but remained silent.
"It's perfect!" Nakuru said, her enthusiasm building. This was a skill that would help her immensely in her magical girl missions.
**
Meanwhile in the dark and ominous boardroom of the Mary Sues…
"There has been a great disturbance in the force," said one of them.
"It's one of them," replied another. "A perverted SI has entered the continuum."
"This cannot stand," said a third. "What shall we do?"
"SIs have a tendency to seduce heroines and beat the living daylights out of heroes," said the first. "Even we are not immune to their powers."
The second Mary Sue paused thoughtfully. "Then we need someone who is neither hero nor heroine," she said "And I think I know just who we need for this task."
TO BE CONTINUED…