Magical March 6: Pet Circus

Magical March 6

Pet Circus

Mark A Davis

Evil charms oozed up from between cobblestone cracks, inky shadowy creatures in the shape of hearts, diamonds, stars, crescent moons, spades, and three-leaf clovers.  They had angry red eyes and mouths full of sharp teeth, and they screamed and chittered and buzzed like swarming bees.  They swarmed over the ground, climbing anything they met, knocking things over, tearing or breaking anything they could get their hands on.  All the while they laughed like malicious children.

"Smash!  Bash!  Crash!" one exclaimed.

"Cowabunga!" another yelled.

Although they could apparently talk, they didn't seem interested in communicating anything.

A massive black wolf snarled and snapped, biting the creatures in two and flinging them aside before snatching another.  A ghostly white tiger pounced on a handful of the creatures, slashing and tearing with its teeth.

"Ew!  What the Hades are these creepy things?" asked a young magical girl known as Pet Summoner Pretty Chantelle.  "Lucky Charms gone bad?"  She batted one away.  She was a girl of fourteen with skin the color of mocha and cornrow braids ending with turquoise beads.  She wore a blue-green silk dress with leather sandals, leather shin guards and leather bracers, and carried a wooden staff with a large white crystal ball at one end.

Nearby sat a cat that was the spitting image of Grumpy Cat, the famed feline of many memes.  Its name was Azelle.  "You're asking the wrong person," the cat said.

They were in downtown Boston.  The sky was overcast.  Shoppers were screaming and running from the weird little shadow charm creatures.

Chantelle frowned.  "Aren't you my magical girl guide?" she asked.

"Yes," said the cat, "but it's my first day on the job.  I'd tell you that I was excited about it, but given what I look like, I should probably tell you that I hate it and I want you to die.  Not that I do!  Not really.  I mean, it would be in the spirit of a Grumpy Cat meme, which I love, but ... I may have chosen the wrong form for this particular job...."

"You think?"  Chantelle replied.  Well, tell me this... is it safe for Lucky and Mittens to eat them?"

The cat scowled at the girl.  "We give you the ability to summon a massive albino Siberian tiger," it said, "and you named it Mittens?"

"Just answer the question!" the magical girl exclaimed.

"Sorry!  Sorry!  Seemed like a perfect moment to get in character, you know," the cat said.  "My best guess is that these creatures are negative shadow... um, bad emotion... thingys... from a land of negative emotions?  In the shape of charms and playing card suites, I guess?  Or something?  Look," he said, furiously scrolling through pages on his computer pad, "I really got no idea, but it's probably safe for your pets to eat 'em.  Just don't eat too many of them.  I Guess."

"Well you're no help at all," said Chantelle.  "But I feel like I should be doing something.  Is summoning my pets my only job?"

"Aside from the ability to summon three pets, you can empower them and heal them," said the guide.

"Healer/buffer, eh?" she said.  "Well, I've played that role in online games before.  Oh, snap!  Did you say I could summon three pets?  Who's the third one?"

"You may summon a spirit bear," said the cat.  "Didn't I say?"

The girl thrust her staff towards the sky.  "Oh spirits of the skies, heed my call!  Bring forth for me the spirit of a bear to fight beside me!  Pet Summoner Pretty Chantelle Magical Summons!"

Energy shot from the heavens and struck the ground beside Chantelle, and then there was a humongous pink bear awaiting orders.

"It's... pink?" Chantelle said in surprise.  Recovering quickly, she tapped it on the head with her staff.  "My thanks, bear spirit.  I give you the name -- Pinky!  Now go forth and slay these shadow charm creatures!"

The bear bellowed and charged forward into the fray.  Chantelle chanted another spell that strengthened and toughened her pets, then she sat back to watch.

"What happened to the others?" she asked.  "The bunny and the bat?  They seemed to know what was what."

"Octava and Daesdamona are already working on the next magical girl," said Azelle.  "We're behind schedule, so they don't have a lot of time to train new magical girls.  Unfortunately, that means they don't have time to train new magical girl guides either, and I was only just promoted."

"Is that so?" she asked.  "Promoted from what?"

"Do you know how in the cartoons," the cat said, "Elmer Fudd for example has a good Elmer on his left shoulder and a bad Elmer on his right, and they try to tell him what to do?  That was me -- the good angel, I mean.  Not literally that angel -- I mean I didn't look like Elmer Fudd, he's not even a real person you know...."

"Yes, I get the picture," said Chantelle.

"But I was a shoulder angel, for about seven hundred years," said Azelle.  "And you know what?  They always listen to the demon.  That was how people died -- I'd tell them to go back to the dorms and study for the test tomorrow, but the devil would say, we know the material well enough already, it's not gonna hurt to stay at this party and get drunk.  Next thing you know they're dead in a ditch and I'm off on a new assignment.

"There was only one time when they died because of my advice.  It was this Irish monk named Brother Alby.  Vikings were pillaging his abbey and the shoulder devil told him to get the heck out of there -- only he didn't say heck if you know what I mean, he said H - E - Double Toothpicks -- and I said you can't leave your friend Brother John to die at a viking's hand, you have to go back and save him!  That was the altruistic thing to do too, but as it turned out not a very good choice if you wanted to keep your head on your shoulders.  Which Brother Alby failed to do."

Chantelle watched as one of the strange shadow charm creatures leaped onto the back of a fleeing man.  It disappeared -- almost as if it had melted into him.  The man immediately fell to his knees.

"Sir!" she exclaimed, running up to him.  "There's a magical invasion going on.  Please get out of the area!"

"What's the use?" the man said.  "I can never escape.  They're just going to kill me anyway...."

Chantelle stared at the man.  She raised an eyebrow.  "I haven't seen them kill anyone," she said.  "However...."

Her pets continued to tear the tiny creatures apart, but more continued to form, crawling up from the depths of the earth.  She returned to the cat who was still talking.

"For five hundred years I worked with the same demon too," he said.  "His name was Chloe, which sounds like a girl's name if you ask me.  I mean maybe he was a girl, we didn't talk much and we'd always look like whoever we were the shoulder angel and demon for, so sometimes that was a woman and so we'd both look like her.  I never liked that -- I mean technically shoulder angels and demons don't breed so there's no point in having two genders but anyway I'm a guy, I don't like looking like a girl.  Say, I wonder if magical girl guides get to breed?  Now there's a thing."

"Are you quite finished?" Chantelle asked.  "Because I think I know what these things...."

"Oh, hey!" the cat exclaimed.  "I found them!  They're called Negative Nanicharms, and they really do come from a realm of negative emotions!   I'd pat myself on the back for getting that one right, but it was an easy guess, magical girls are all about fighting creatures on an emotional level...."

"Let me guess," said Pet Summoner Pretty Chantelle.  "They fuse with normal people and transform their emotions into negative ones."

"Exactly!" the cat said.  "Sort of like having a massive downer, I guess."

"Then the way to get rid of them," said Chantelle, "is with positive emotions.  What we need is a carnival!"



Five minutes later, when Magical Solider Savitha, Sailor Sunburst and Serene Moon Sally arrived, they found a giant pink bear balancing on a ball, a ghostly white tiger leaping through hoops, and a black wolf balancing a magical girl on its nose.  Balloons rose into the air  Fireworks lit up the night sky.  People clapped and cheered.

There were no shadow creatures to be seen.  A familiar cat sat on the sidewalk nearby, scowling.

"We heard you needed help?" Savitha said.

"I had fun once," the cat said.  "It was awful."  It paused, then added, "but that's what drives those creatures away so... grab a balloon and join in the fun?"

FINI