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"Flee! Flee in terror pitiful earth-creatures!"
Downtown Tokyo was a scene of terror. The dark shape that blotted out the sky was merely the beginning. As the craft descended, mayhem and fiery destruction rained down on all that stood in it's way. Above the din, all that could be heard was the booming of ghastly, alien voices.
"Yes! You shall submit yourselves to our superior intelect and technology! Resistance is..."
*knock knock*
"Oh, darn it, who's that? Can't they see we're busy right now?"
"Open up please," said a voice at the door, "This is Inspector Sonoda, Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division."
"Oh man," exclaimed one invader, "It's the cops! What're we gonna do, what're we gonna..."
"Calm down, calm down and just let me do the talking, okay?" said another, as it turned to answer the knock on the UFO's entry hatch, "Um, may I help you with anything, Officer?"
Stepping into the airlock, Inspector Sonoda looked the alien straight in two of it's eyes and said "Are you aware, sir, that world domination is strictly prohibited by the Tokyo penal code, article 16036?"
"Gee, um, I'm sorry Officer," the alien stammered nervously, "We're new in town, you see, and, uh, we just didn't know that it..."
"Yeah," interjected it's companion, "We were just having a little fun, you see? We didn't mean any harm or anything..."
Sonoda shot the second alien an angry glance. "Didn't you ever stop to consider that maybe what seems like 'fun' now, might just cause the enslavement and torture of billions of innocent earthlings later? Hmm?"
"Well, we didn't really think of it THAT way Officer," mumbled the first, with what passed for a head turned meekly down toward the ground, "It's just that..."
"Never mind, because this is your first offense I'm going to let you off with just a warning this time," said Sonoda glancing back and forth between the two admonished extraterrestrials, raising his finger for emphasis, "but if you EVER get caught pulling this kind of stunt again, you'll end up with a fine of up to 20,000 Yen, do you understand me?"
"Yes Officer," both aliens responded in unison.
"I'm glad you understand. Now, remember," said Sonoda, as he turned back toward his squad car, "we take our world domination laws VERY seriously here in Tokyo. It's for your own safety. You wouldn't want some mecha team ruining this expensive starship with their Ultimate Sword Finishing Blow, now would you?"
As Inspector Sonoda watched the UFO pull away toward the outer edge of the ionoshphere, he thought to himself, "Well, now, that one wasn't so bad. Sometimes those alien conquerors can get pretty obnoxious. I'm glad it went smoothly today. Maybe I'll even be able to get home to see Meimi and the kids early for once."
He was pulled out of his reverie by signal from the retreating saucer saying "PIG!!!" followed by another saying "Heh, heh, yeah, I smell bacon! Oink, oink!"
"Darn it! You get back here you little punks or I'll..."
But his rage was interrupted by the radio in his squad car.
"-KKKKKK-Inspector Sonoda? It looks like we've got an 1013 brewing down by the Tokyo Tower again. We're going to need backup ASAP.-KKKKKK-"
"Great," he thought, "another 'magical girl' situation. When will those little delinquents ever realize that Evil Queens Of Darkness are just looking for attention? Those stupid little sailor-suit-stunts just encourage them..."
"-KKKKKK-Inspector Sonoda? Do you copy?-KKKKKK-"
He keyed his mike, "-KKKKKK-Yeah, let me guess, you want me to go talk to the parents before you slap their kids with 'indecent exposure' charges, right?-KKKKKK-"
"-KKKKKK-You're darned right! You should see some of those transformation sequences, Sonoda, it just isn't proper-KKKKKK-"
"Well this is just how I wanted to spend the rest of my day," Sonoda sighed, as he sat down in his car and turned the key in the ignition. "Those parents are almost as bad as their kids sometimes. 'But mom, I only want to be a regular girl, but this is my destiny,' indeed! They're just spoiling them, is all. I swear, if little Yuki ever falls in with that sort of crowd..."
And with that, Inspector Sonoda sped out through the streets of Megatokyo, intent on making tham safe for the few residents who weren't certifiably insane.
"Flee! Flee in terror pitiful earth-creatures!"
Downtown Tokyo was a scene of terror. The dark shape that blotted out the sky was merely the beginning. As the craft descended, mayhem and fiery destruction rained down on all that stood in it's way. Above the din, all that could be heard was the booming of ghastly, alien voices.
"Yes! You shall submit yourselves to our superior intellect and technology! Resistance is..."
*knock knock*
"Oh, drat, who's there? Can't they see we're busy right now?"
"Open up please," said a voice at the door, "This is Inspector Sonoda, Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division."
"Oh man," exclaimed one invader, "It's the cops! What're we gonna do, what're we gonna..."
"Calm down, calm down and just let me do the talking, okay?" said another, as it turned to answer the knock on the UFO's entry hatch, "Um, may I help you with anything, Officer?"
Stepping into the airlock, Inspector Sonoda looked the alien straight in two of it's eyes and said, "Are you aware, sir, that world domination is strictly prohibited by the Tokyo penal code, article 16036?"
"Gee, um, I'm sorry Officer," the alien stammered nervously, "We're new in town, you see, and, uh, we just didn't know that it..."
"Yeah," interjected it's companion, "We were just having a little fun, you see? We didn't mean any harm or anything..."
Sonoda shot the second alien an angry glance. "Didn't you ever stop to consider that maybe what seems like 'fun' now, might just cause the enslavement and torture of billions of innocent earthlings later? Hmm?"
"Well, we didn't really think of it THAT way Officer," mumbled the first, with what passed for a head turned meekly down toward the ground, "It's just that..."
"Never mind. Because this is your first offense I'm going to let you off with just a warning this time," said Sonoda glancing back and forth between the two admonished extraterrestrials, raising his finger for emphasis, "but if you EVER get caught pulling this kind of stunt again, you'll end up with a fine of up to 20,000 Yen on your hands, do you understand me?"
"Yes Officer," both aliens responded in unison.
"I'm glad we understand each other. Now, remember," said Sonoda, as he turned back toward his squad car, "we take our world domination laws VERY seriously here in Tokyo. It's for your own safety. You wouldn't want some mecha team ruining this expensive starship with their Ultimate Sword Finishing Blow, now would you?"
As Inspector Sonoda watched the UFO pull away toward the outer edge of the ionosphere, he thought to himself, "Well, now, that one wasn't so bad. Sometimes those alien conquerors can get pretty obnoxious. I'm glad it went smoothly today. Maybe I'll even be able to get home to see Meimi and the kids early for once."
He was pulled out of his reverie by signal from the retreating saucer saying "PIG!!!" followed by another saying "Heh, heh, yeah, I smell bacon! Oink, oink!"
"Darn it! You get back here you little punks or I'll..."
But his rage was interrupted by the radio in his squad car.
"-KKKKKK-Inspector Sonoda? It looks like we've got a 1013 brewing down by the Tokyo Tower again. We're going to need backup ASAP.-KKKKKK-"
"Great," he thought, "another 'magical girl' situation. When will those little delinquents ever realize that Evil Queens Of Darkness are just looking for attention? Those stupid little sailor-suit-stunts just encourage them..."
"-KKKKKK-Inspector Sonoda? Do you copy?-KKKKKK-"
He keyed his mike, "-KKKKKK-Yeah, let me guess, you want me to go talk to the parents before you slap their kids with 'indecent exposure' charges, right?-KKKKKK-"
"-KKKKKK-You're darned right! You should see some of those transformation sequences, Sonoda-san, it just isn't proper-KKKKKK-"
"Well this is just how I wanted to spend the rest of my day," Sonoda sighed, as he sat down in his car and turned the key in the ignition. "Those parents are almost as bad as their kids sometimes. 'But mom, I want to be a just regular girl, but this is my destiny,' indeed! They're just spoiling them, is all. I swear, if my little Yuki ever falls in with that sort of crowd..."
And with that, Inspector Sonoda sped down through the streets of Megatokyo, intent on making them safe for the few residents who weren't certifiably insane.
***
"...and then, while one of the little lunatics was shining that pink flashlight in my face, one of the others came up behind me and hit me over the head with a two foot long candy cane, or something."
At the moment, Inspector Sonoda was in his office, taking a statement from an employee of a nightclub recently assaulted by a group of self-styled magical girls. She was cute, in a dark sort of way, and possessed the kind of maturity that made Sonoda completely oblivious to the fact that she was only a few years older than his own daughter. A hint of fury was beginning to show through her veneer of cool, collected, calmness. It was only natural really, Sonoda thought, the intricacy of the ribbon tied throughout her hair showed she took great pride in it, and a candy shot to the head is not the easiest of things to wash out.
"I want to know what is going to be done about this," she continued, "it's as if people don't even have the right to be Evil in their own personal time anymore, without a thousand vapid little yuppie schoolgirls, who didn't get enough spankings when they were younger, vying to be the first to 'punish' them."
"I'm sorry Tohya-san, and I promise we'll do everything in our power to see that justice is done," Sonoda told her, "but you have to understand that since no real magic was ever used, as soon as these statements are taken we're going to have to transfer this case to the juvenile crimes division. All the girls in question were 14 or younger, and weren't repeat offenders. I'm sorry to have to say this to you, but honestly most of the disciplinary action in this case is going to have to come from the side of the parents."
"As well it should!" shouted Miho indignantly, "But don't you realize it's THEIR fault their little brats turned out the way they did in the first place?!?"
"Now, now," Sonoda said, trying to calm her down, "I understand how you feel, but at the very least you should be grateful that you weren't the victim of an actual magical assault. Those can get very dangerous, you know."
"Feh, real magic I can deal with," Miho scoffed, some of her earlier composure starting to find it's way back into her face, "At least it makes sense. I mean, a real magical girl could have just teleported in, or had probability altered for her so that the door happened to be open and unguarded at the time, or something like that. At least I know they wouldn't have had to break through the skylight like a bunch of damned ninja. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find glass to fit a skylight with just the proper tint, Officer? One thing the 'Cave of Evil' certainly does NOT need is sunlight pouring in. Absolutely terrible for the atmosphere, I tell you. What could have been going through their minds? There is nothing funny about some raving lunatics who can't tell fantasy from reality forcing their misguided excuse for 'justice' onto my world, thank you very much!"
Sonoda was about to respond, but was interrupted by his partner barging into the room, unannounced as usual.
"I've got that list of suspects in the 'Cave of Evil' case you were asking about, Sonoda-san."
That was one thing he didn't want to see with an irate witness sitting right in front of him, but he supposed he had to make the best of it. "Very good, just leave it here on my desk. I'll take care of it after I've finished with Tohya-san, here."
"Now then," he continued as his partner left the room. He was glad to be able get the first word in before the witness asked about the list, but that relief was short-lived. Instead of continuing the conversation he sat flabbergasted, with his mouth hanging wide open as he happened to glance at the third name down on the list in passing.
Meanwhile, Miho had taken advantage of his surprise to get up out of her seat and steal a peek at the list before Sonoda was able to notice.
"Well, well, well" she smirked, mere composure finally replaced in full by her usual amused arrogance, "I take back what I said before. I suppose maladjusted delinquents who can't separate fantasy from reality can be very, very amusing indeed. It's been fun, Officer..."
Sonoda didn't even bother to see her out as she left. The third name down on the list read: "Sonoda Yuki."
***
Once the first round of crying had ended, an awkward silence passed in the car between the father and daughter. It was past nine o'clock when Sonoda had finally gotten the situation squared away and was able to bring Yuki home from the station. After pulling in the driveway, Yuki immediately ran, crying, to her room and shut the door. Sonoda was relieved, at least, that Yuuji hadn't worsened the situation with some juvenile taunt directed at his sister, and was fairly certain he had the intervention of the lady sitting at the kitchen table, serenely awaiting their return, to thank for that.
"Well, shall we?" he asked her, motioning toward Yuki's room.
"No," she replied with a knowing smile lighting her calm features, his anchor as always, "I think it would be best if you talked to her. I'll be waiting for you in bed."
Not understanding Meimi's intentions, but knowing better than to second-guess her intuition, Sonoda braced himself and turned toward his daughter's bedroom.
Yuki was sitting on her bed, hugging her pillow and sobbing intermittently. Sonoda sat down beside her and said, "So tell me, honey, just what were you thinking, anyway?"
Tears welled to her downcast eyes as Yuki responded, "I... I just wanted to protect everyone, daddy..."
"Protect everyone?" Sonoda asked, "All you could have done pulling that kind of stunt is hurt people, not the least of which being yourself. Your mother and I couldn't bear it if something happened to you..."
Turning her wet, pleading eyes to her father, Yuki beseeched, "You just don't UNDERSTAND, daddy, that place was so full of Evil, and... and there were zombies everywhere, and..."
"Those were ravers, dear."
"Oh," said Yuki, despondently as she turned her crying eyes downward again. Aside from little sniffles from Yuki, silence held sway in the room for a few minutes, until Yuki regained the courage to say something again.
"But... -sniff- ...but the girl who works there even said she sucks out the life force of beautiful people. It... it was -sniff, sniff- so scary, daddy..."
"So what if she does?" Sonoda admonished, getting up from the bed and looking down at her, "What if they are Evil there? That doesn't make it wrong. Have they ever hurt anyone there? I don't think so. But let me tell you something, Yuki-chan, destroying property and assaulting people with candy-canes does hurt people. Do you have any idea how lucky you are that that poor little Tohya girl you attacked didn't get a serious concussion? Or how much we're going to have to pay for the repairs to the damage you did to that place? And you had better not believe that running around in a costume someone your age shouldn't be caught dead in, waving around pretty lights somehow makes it all okay! You need to take some responsibility, girl!"
At that, Yuki's sobbing became uncontrollable once more, and Sonoda let it go on for a little while before sitting down beside his daughter and putting his arm around her. "I understand how alluring the idea of vigilantism can be, honey. We all have to deal with those kinds of pressures at your age. But as long as you learn from it, that's what really matters right?"
As he saw she was regaining some composure, he continued, "So, who put you up to this, anyway?" He said, the investigator in him starting to bleed through, "It was Mami, wasn't it? I really ought to settle some things out with her parents..."
"No, daddy, no," Yuki pleaded, her voice becoming less and less intelligible through her tears, "She... d-didn't make me do -sniff- a-anything..."
"I see," he thought to himself, "Asako, then. I really should have guessed. It's almost always the silly, ditzy one, after all..."
But his attention was diverted to Yuki's finger, pointing out something in the corner of her room, her crying still to deep to allow any meaningful words to get through. Sonoda followed it, and noticed something he was surprised he hadn't seen before. Yuki's favorite Teddy Bear, the one she had had ever since infancy, was wearing a pair of strap-on wings and a costume horn. That's when it hit him. If his years investigating supernatural phenomena in and around Tokyo had taught him anything, it was this: The one with the cute little mascot was always the ringleader.
"You see daddy," Yuki moaned, "All I want is to just be a regular junior high school girl, but Teddy-chan told me it was my destiny to..."
"That's enough!" Sonoda scolded, the stereotypical magical girl excuse being a bit too much for him to bear right now, "I don't want to hear any more! You just think about what you did, young lady, and I'll speak with you again tomorrow! Good night!"
***
When he walked into his own room, his wife was waiting patiently for him on the bed. "How did it go?" she asked
"Not too well," Sonoda told her as he sat down beside her. "I just don't know where we could have gone wrong. I mean, I suppose I could understand if she was just folding under peer-pressure. All kids have to go through that. But this whole fool stunt was all her idea. I have to deal with enough of those lunatics at work. How could our own daughter actually be one of them?"
Meimi flashed her knowing smile at him, not seeming the least bit surprised. "Would it help, dear, if I told you that I went through a bit of a magical girl phase myself, when I was younger?"
Sonoda supposed he shouldn't be too surprised. Even he, himself, had felt the vague stirrings of becoming a mecha pilot in his youth. Fortunately for him his father wasn't a brilliant mad scientist, and the only crazy genius inventor in the neighborhood didn't have a beautiful daughter for him and the rest of the team to fight over, so he was spared that particular fate. But still, the revelation left him a little shocked. "I have a feeling you're about to tell me a story," he said.
"That's right. When I was younger there used to be this flying pink hippo that would hang around my school, trying to corner girls who walked home alone..."
"I didn't know you grew up in that kind of neighborhood..."
She chuckled at him, waving her hand as if to brush the idea off. "Yes, yes, yes, it's a testament to the resilience of the human spirit that a girl from such a seedy part of town could grow up to become the wife of a well-to-do police officer, but that's beside the point. He gave all the usual arguments; you know 'it's your destiny to fight evil,' 'everybody's doing it,' 'don't listen to those squares. It won't hurt you, just expand your consciousness,' and the like. I guess I just fell for it, But that's not all it was. Most of the girls were smart enough to give him a wide berth, and I'm sure I could have too, but you see, there was this man I was trying to impress..."
"Wait a second!" Sonoda stammered, "A... a man?!? Are... are you trying to say that Yuki is..."
"HA!" Meimi laughed at him, the smile on her face growing ever brighter, "Oh darling, you are simply so adorable when you do your 'jealous father' routine, but would you please just settle down and let me finish my story?"
"I'm sorry," he said with a blush, "go on dear."
"You see, this man was a member of the self-defense forces. He was constantly putting his life on the line, defending the country, fighting monsters, robots, and aliens before we all got so used to them, and just generally making sacrifices of his own happiness to make the lives of those around him all that much better. I admired this man with all my heart, and I just thought that if I could make the same kind of sacrifices he did, perhaps I could show him just how much I loved him."
"But wait a second," Sonoda asked, starting to feel confused, "If you were old enough to have a crush on an army man, wouldn't you and I have already..."
She gave him a light slap on the back and looked him in the eyes, "You silly, silly man," she chided, "You're a detective. Haven't you figured it out yet? I'm talking about my father."
"Oooooh," said Sonoda, as the reality of what she was saying finally sunk in.
"All she wants is to be like her papa, dear," Meimi said to him softly. "She just doesn't understand what that means yet."
***
He didn't say anything as he walked into Yuki's room and embraced his sobbing daughter. No words were really necessary.
"I love you, daddy," she said, after her tears began to subside.
"Me too, honey," Sonoda told her as he patted her hair, "Don't you ever forget that."
-The End-
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The next day:
"YUUUUUUJIII!!! WHY IS THERE A FIFTY FOOT TALL ROBOT PARKED IN MY DRIVEWAY?!?!?"
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