[AMS][UY] "Urusei Megamisama!" (4/?) Chapter Four: "Rituals" By Henry J. Cobb $Id: urusei_megamisama4.txt,v 1.2 1997/11/29 22:30:38 hcobb Exp $ The Ah! Megamisama! characters and situations are the creation of Kosuke Fujishima. The Urusei Yatsura characters and situations are the creation of Rumiko Takahashi. No infringement of their copyrights is intended. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday afternoon, Skuld read the latest issue of Cyborg Zero Zero None. "They call that an F-14? The flaps are all wrong!" Ataru looked down from his desk to where Skuld was lying on the floor of his room. "If you don't like it, why don't you read your own manga?" "Can't. Peorth swiped mine. Maybe I should introduce you to auntie-Peorth. I think she'd like you." Ataru didn't like the way she smiled at that. "Then go buy some new ones. You keep saying how loaded you are." "I'm also frugal. It's a habit you should take up. Say, who's this Bernice who gets killed in the crossfire?" "What! I haven't read that yet!" Ataru reached for the manga. "Just kidding." Skuld held it out of his reach. "Don't you have homework too?" Ataru sat back down at his desk. "Already finished it." "Even the history?" "I'll handle that later." "Do you have to read that here?" "Yes. I need to keep an eye on you and make sure you finish your homework." "Lucky me." Ataru looked at the physics problem again. He considered asking Skuld for help, but she'd be so damn smug when she pointed out the obvious answer. The goddess flipped another page in the manga. "You are you know. Very few mortals have goddesses assigned to personally watch over them." "Were they asked if they wanted it?" Skuld raised one eyebrow at Ataru. "You were." "This isn't what I asked for." "No, but it's what you need." Skuld went back to the manga. "What! They call that a AK-47?!?" Ataru turned back to his books and tried to ignore Skuld's giggles. The doorbell rang and a minute later Ataru's mom called upstairs. "Ataru, you have a visitor." Ataru hopped over Skuld and sprinted out his door. She got up and followed him. Ataru's mother was talking to somebody at the door. "I'm terribly sorry about whatever my idiot son did, but we're broke." "Oh he didn't do anything Mrs Moroboshi." Miss Sakura was wearing a red dress. "I'm here to ask him out to the disco." "Y-you're asking my son out?" Mrs Moroboshi swooned. Skuld caught her and helped her into a chair. "Let's go!" Ataru jumped into his shoes. "What about your homework?" Skuld asked. "Oh, I'll handle that later." Ataru grabbed at Miss Sakura's arm, but she shrugged him off. "Skuld, could you come along also?" The Priestess asked the young goddess. "Yes, I must keep an eye on this fool." Skuld summoned her shoes out of hyperspace. "See you mom!" Ataru waved at his mother, who just sat there slack jawed. Skuld followed behind Ataru as he walked alongside Miss Sakura. They turned a corner and Ataru attempted to double back but Skuld caught his arm. "Ataru!" Shinobu was carrying two bags of groceries. "Where are you going with Skuld and that woman?" "Uh, I'm going to the disco with Miss Sakura." "You what?" Tension bunched in Shinobu's shoulders. "Are you a friend of Ataru's?" Sakura asked Shinobu. "You might say that!" Shinobu glared at Ataru. "Good, why don't you come along with us then?" "Huh, OK I guess. I need to put my groceries away first." "No problem, I have a few minutes to spare." Sakura glanced at her diver's wristwatch. Shinobu rushed out of her house and they set off again. "You have to be at the disco at a certain time?" Skuld asked. "Yes, I'm meeting some people there." A man in a black suit with a cape jumped out from behind a telephone pole and threw himself at Skuld's feet. "Master!" "I'm over here Tsubame." Sakura sighed. "Master, I pledge from this day forth to turn over a new leaf!" Tsubame groveled. "Please forgive me master!" "Tsubame!" Sakura complained, while Skuld backed off a step. "She's the one!" Tsubame pointed at Skuld. "The Lord of Death!" Sakura yanked Tsubame to his feet. "You are mistaken. Look closer." Skuld shook her head. "No, I'm Skuld, the goddess of the future." "Well, in the long run we're all dead, right? Pleased to meet you Skuld." He shook her hand. "Who is this bozo?" Ataru asked Sakura. "This is my fiancee, Tsubame Ozuno. He's been studying Voodoo Economics in the west." "Fu-fu-fu-fiancee? No, I won't let him have you!" Ataru latched onto the priestess. "Let go of her you!" Shinobu pried Ataru off of Sakura while Skuld bonked him on the head with her hammer, returning it to hyperspace in one fluid motion. "Master!" Tsubame stared at Skuld's hands. "You do have the power!" "Give it a rest!" Sakura grabbed Tsubame's arm. When they reached the disco, Tsubame insisted on covering everybody's cover fees. "Sakura!" Cherry appeared right in front of Skuld. "Why did you bring this creature?" The priestess stepped forwards. "Skuld is my friend." "This is highly irregular, but you may proceed with the demonstration." "Demonstration?" Shinobu asked. "Yes, I can only give my consent to my niece's engagement if Mr Ozuno can demonstrate a high level of mystical powers." The deranged monk looked Sakura's fiancee over. "You're going to demonstrate black magic in this uncontrolled environment?" Skuld looked around the packed disco. "No, I won't allow it!" Cherry evaded her hammer strike and circled around behind Tsubame. "To prove yourself in my eyes, simply defeat this creature." "Forgive me master." Tsubame bowed to Skuld then began his enchantment. "Central planning, state control, I call upon the powers of Stalin!" He gestured at Ataru. Ataru expanded, he sprouted a mustache and his clothing flowed into a grey military uniform with matching cap but then the cap turned red and grew longer with a white ball at the end. The rest of his outfit turned red with white trim as his mustache grew long white and curly with matching beard and hair. "Ho ho ho, have you been a good girl?" The now overweight Ataru asked Shinobu. "And what would you like for Christmas?" "For you to stop being so weird." "Now, now, just sit in my lap and tell me all about it!" Ataru had a lecherous glint in his eyes. "Stop it! Ataru is messed up enough, without you turning him into a capitalistic icon!" Skuld tried to hammer Tsubame. Tsubame backpedled away through the crowd. "Power comes from a barrel of Pork! Let the Russian bear be superseded by the Chinese dragon of Mao!" Ataru's form shifted again. His cap shortened and his trim disappeared as his outfit faded to gray in a simple style, but then this suit spread over his entire body and grew pointed ears with long whiskers with goofy looking eyes that bounced around independently. "Meow!" Ataru in the cat suit leapt up and perched on top of Skuld's head. Skuld span around but failed to dislodge Ataru. She brought her hammer up but only beaned herself as Ataru jumped away. "Ow!" "Meow!" Ataru rubbed against Skuld's legs. Tsubame walked up with his hands in a mystic guard position. "Do you yield?" "No. Look, there's Catwoman!" "Meow!" Ataru happily bounded off in the direction Skuld pointed. Tsubame also looked in that direction and so didn't see Skuld's hammerstrike. Sakura lifted him up from the floor. "Very well, you are the victor." Cherry announced to Skuld. "You have my agreement to your engagement." Skuld KOed him and they left him in the crowd and moved to the wall where Sakura placed Tsubame on a couch. "But what about Ataru?" Shinobu asked. "Don't worry, my hammer has special effect against magical spells. I'm sure he's back to his old self by now." They spotted Ataru standing upright again in the distance and dancing with a woman in a much less concealing cat costume than his own. "Ataru!" Shinobu stalked over towards the couple. "Ow!" Tsubame came to with his head cradled in Sakura's lap. "I'm sorry, I have failed you, my love." "Don't worry about it." "I shall go back to the west to study again!" Tsubame sat up. "I hear that Chairman Greenmail has a staff opening. I shall return and the victory will be mine! Be seeing you Skuld." Tsubame circled his fingers around his eye, tipped his hand towards the goddess, then turned and walked away. "Damn!" Sakura muttered. "I had hoped to get married this decade." Skuld saw that even though Ataru was dancing next to Shinobu, his gaze tended to drift elsewhere, but it was hard to tell with the bouncing eyes on his cat costume. "If you will excuse me. I need to go look after Ataru." The next weekend the school had a trip, Skuld got Ataru's mother to sign her release form. Skuld was tempted to submit it to her own father, if just for the humourous effect, but he was several millennia behind in paperwork as it was. She had offered to computerize the process of sorting out the dead, but he preferred a direct hand in the matter. After all, they weren't going anywhere. Friday evening, the class had gathered around a campfire in a campsite at the base of a mountain. "Skuld," Shinobu asked the girl sitting on the other side of Ataru. "Is it true that if you make a wish three times before a shooting star fades, it'll come true?" "Well, it can't hurt. Do you want to try it together on the next one?" "Sure." Just then a light appeared in the sky. "We wish that Ataru would behave himself!" Shinobu and Skuld shouted in unison. "We wish that Ataru would behave himself! We wish that Ataru would..." "Hit the dirt!" Skuld warned as the light grew brighter and passed right overhead. "Ha, I did it!" Ataru stood up and was knocked over by the slipstream. The light went over a hill and landed with a loud crash. "There where intelligent creatures on that craft!" Skuld announced. "It was an airplane?" Shinobu asked. "No, they weren't human." "What?" Kumiko asked. "How can you joke like that at a time like this?" "Let's go check it out!" Ataru lit a torch in the fire and set out. "Where are you going?" Their teacher, Onsen-Mark, asked. "There's probably people hurt on that plane. We need to go help." Skuld didn't need to read his mind to tell that Ataru really meant that there might be beautiful women who would be grateful for a rescue. If the self-images she had glimpsed were correct, he was going to be very disappointed. Henry J. Cobb hcobb@slip.net http://www.io.com/~hcobb next time: "Vanity and Prophecy."