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  Terry's eyes glazed over. He didn't think he'd ever master the game. Still, there was a chance he could find one of those ultra-rares that created holographic monsters, and try to keep it a secret from the Student Council. Then they'd hunt him down and he'd end up somehow engaged to a girl who was also a sword, or something weird like that. It'd be cool. "You know what? Let's try it. Can we go card-hunting, and play a few games along the way?"

  * * *

  They boarded the subway, flashing their student IDs to pay only a token "land" card that you got several of in every Element Masters pack. To go card-hunting meant going to the newsstands that sold cards, then sneaking a peek at the nearby garbage bins. Along the way to the nearest suitable station, Terry and friends grabbed the big table in the center of their subway car, so they could play while zooming across the city. The speed made the trip and the game itself seem to go faster. Terry tried to play by instinct, laying out lands and dragons and elemental bursts wherever they'd fit on the board. He got whipped.

  Terry groaned. "Is there actually strategy to this game?"

  They left the train car to reach a newsstand that was part of Glowing Blue Pearl Station. Around them the walls were glass, showing them the bay. Mako turned invisible and kept watch while Terry and Himura raided the trash bins for over a dozen card packs, and then they retreated to a cafe table.

  "All right!" said Terry, rifling through their harvest. As usual, a lot of customers bought cards, checked for ultra-rares, then threw away the rest without checking them thoroughly. As often happened, somebody had overlooked a rare mixed in with the commons. Terry could now add a Rampaging Naked Giant to his deck along with some ordinary cards he didn't have before.

  He rebuilt his main deck (since like most students he carried his in a holster everywhere he went) on the ride to Ultimate Tower Station, which was a mostly vertical trip. The train's gravity generators were a little unreliable, so everyone kept to their seats. The students got out carefully and raided the trash, two hundred stories up. They didn't find anything except a few lame cards and some discarded power crystals from a wrecked spaceship; nobody even collected those anymore. What a boring side trip.

  He got back to the school dorm without incident, and spent hours practicing Element Masters. "Don't worry," said Ray the pilot. "You'll get heroically good at it eventually."

  Terry wasn't so sure even with his upgraded deck.

  * * *

  The next month, he muttered curses all the way back from the museum trip. He'd been so close to the Mirror of Amaterasu when it picked the teacher right next to him as its chosen bearer! "Why not me?" he said to Mako.

  Mako shook her head, motors whirring faintly. "Have you ever thought that maybe your destiny is to avoid all the stuff we go through? If a meteor ever crushes Japan, you'll somehow end up right under one of the craters on it and you'll survive."

  "A lot of good that'll do if I'm the only one!" Terry said, sulking atop the "hump seat" on their bus.

  "But then you'll find some secret government bunker that lets you rebuild civilization. Look, anything can happen. Have you had any strange dreams lately, maybe?"

  Terry groaned and slumped lower in his seat. "Yeah, a dream about being behind the counter making sandwiches at a sub shop."

  "Then if the card game thing isn't working, maybe what you need is something more personal. Maybe you can take a day off and just wander the city. Say you're hunting for battle monsters and the school will let you go, no questions asked."

  * * *

  Terry sat in the principal's office, red-faced. He'd blushed with guilt when he tried lying about having a dream that he was fated to catch a legendary monster.

  The principal sighed and folded his hands, staring at Terry over his intimidating shiny glasses. "All right, you can go. Not that I believe you, but the Student Council has firm rules about allowing time off for quests. Just don't make a habit of it, unless you really do manage to tame a dragon or something. Oh, and if you can find me a mutagen canister or a legend flower, let me know; the school labs need both."

  A quest! Terry said, "Sure, I'll keep an eye out for them. Uh... is it okay if I end up not finding them, though?"

  The principal smiled in sympathy. "In that case, bring me a tuna sandwich for dinner and we'll call it a successful day."

  Terry nodded and slinked away, thinking of his sandwich-shop dream. Anything would be better than that.

  * * *

  He wandered off the school grounds without a real plan. He tried the downtown shopping district first, and was a little breathless as he rounded each corner hoping to find one of those mysterious curio shops run by a wizened old man from a far-off land like Kentucky. Some robots were brawling in the electronics market but none of them asked for his help, or anything like that.

  How about the botanical gardens? Terry rode out there and tried challenging the ticket salesman to an Element Masters game to get in for free, but he lost. Grudgingly Terry paid double for admission.

  It was a calming trip, anyway. There was a huge set of glass domes and multi-story greenhouses roomy enough to support the occasional kung fu brawl, and productive enough that the farming section fed a good part of the underground district of Tokyo. A nice wolfsbane display and some fragrant garlic grew in the anti-monster section. Still, nothing unique stood out to him.

  He wandered through the indoor gardens, then out to the park area where some college varsity teams were having a tennis tournament. It looked pretty serious. The Nippon Industrial Institute Unicorns were fighting a heavily cyborged team sponsored by an evil mad scientist. The Unicorns' captain was caught up in some kind of love triangle with the cyborgs' fur-bikini-clad cavewoman coach/mechanic. There were more harsh looks, slow dramatic poses, and one-liners getting launched back and forth then actual serves and volleys.

  After a while the game got even slower; the players were just standing there shouting and powering up their battle auras. Bits of green grit levitated up from the tennis court around them. Terry started to turn aside and leave. Just then, a stark white helicopter landed right next to the tennis courts, scattering papers in its wind. A dozen men jumped out, wearing scary theater masks with white sweaters and shorts, and brandished tennis rackets at the players.

  Terry backed away from the commotion in spite of his vague hope that they'd start flinging magic around or something. The cyborg players and the college guys alike confronted the newcomers, saying, "Shoo! What's the big idea? Who dares challenge us?"

  The masked men charged at them, swinging ferociously. A brawl broke out while the few onlookers stared or ran away. One of the watchers tried instead to steal the helicopter, but a tennis-playing goon whacked him so hard he flew into the sky and twinkled in the upper atmosphere. The mighty player said, "You got served!"

  Terry shook his head. In another minute the masked men had claimed the area. Their leader, who had the preppiest sweater of all, shouted, "Listen up! We are the new masters of tennis across the land: the invincible gang of Noh Love! First the tennis courts, then the law courts. Does anyone else dare stand in our way?"

  Terry wasn't entirely sure how you could take over the legal system through tennis. Something like that had only ever happened with bowling's Final Strike Tournament, and only for a month or so until the Emperor loaned someone the Imperial Jade Ball of Heaven to save Japan. Still... Terry was decent at tennis. Maybe now, he could at least be involved in something important, even if only in a minor role, and not get smashed into the sky so long as he played fairly.

  He stepped forward, took a deep breath, and said, "I challenge you! Against me, I'll teach you to Love-All!"

  The leader was masked and he still managed to look unimpressed. "You know that only means being tied 0-0, right?"

  "Whatever!" Around Terry, the crowd parted. It was awesome. He hadn't even noticed there was a crowd at his sides. "Somebody lend me a racket."

  The evil tennis gang sent forth a huge guy called Astynax to face Terr
y across the court. Bits of greenish clay crunched under their feet as all else went quiet. Terry waggled a borrowed racket in his hands and gave the foe his best intimidating stare.

  Astynax's serve actually caught fire on the way to Terry's side. Terry swung wildly but was more concerned about not getting hit with it.

  "How about I serve?" said Terry.

  "Alternating games only!" The rules were sacred on that point. Astynax's next serve made a little crater.

  That game ended quickly, but the Noh Love gang declared best out of three. Terry's cheeks burned with humiliation. He launched the ball this time with his best slicing serve. There were no special effects, but it hit the dirt and bounced with a wicked spin. Astynax lumbered over to it but misjudged the angle. All right! Terry's honor was satisfied; this wouldn't be a shutout.

  Terry shifted position and fired off a fast serve that slashed right past the big guy, then another perfect spin. The game's announcer and one of the Noh Love guys kept up a running commentary. "I can't read his technique," the newscaster said of Terry.

  Being three points up or at Forty-Love was dangerous, since it made the other guy look like the underdog despite being two feet taller and having a racket made from a shimmering meteor. Terry served cautiously this time. The foe bellowed through his mask and leaped into the air to counter it. Terry charged the net and volleyed — and won the second game. He could actually save the day!

  Unfortunately, the tiebreaker game put Astynax back on offense. Terry couldn't just stand there, so he worked up what courage he could and ran to meet the serve. He managed to nick the ball the first time, bounce it back the second time enough to stave off defeat for a few seconds, then the third time get into a cool rapid-fire volley sequence where he could swear dramatic music had kicked in. For him.

  But then Astynax did a super serve that involved spinning around three times and shouting half a dozen words of power in the tongue of dragons, and it burned Terry's racket to ashes.

  "How can that be legal?" said Terry, dropping what remained before it could do more than singe his hands.

  The masked leader strode onto the court; a choir began chanting faintly in Latin somewhere. "All things are legal under the reign of Noh Love." He lifted his arms to the suddenly stormy heavens. "From this day forth, the only laws are our whims! We shall begin with a demonstration: the death of all who dare face us in court. Seize this upstart!"

  Terry stood surrounded by the evil tennis gang. With no powers to call on, no secret techniques to deploy, he did the most sensible thing: dive between the nearest players and run away.

  He dashed off of the tennis court, kicking up bits of clay as he ran. They were trying to cut him off from the subway station. He'd have to lose them in the greenhouses. He charged at the nearest entrance, where a helpful and stoic butler opened a door for him.

  The greenhouse was big enough that Terry had a chance to run or hide. He racked his brain for the best route to the second-closest subway station. If he was lucky the loony gang members would set off an alarm or one of the — wait a minute. Why hadn't the butler done anything to help?

  Well, that was obvious. Unlike Terry, the man knew better than to get directly involved with anything weird.

  Terry heard sneakers squeaking along glass floors on the upper level. They were chasing him from above! Then something roared. He looked anxiously upward in time to see the bad guys getting attacked by a big carnivorous plant from the supposedly mythical Isle of Jardin. Good, but one monster wouldn't be enough to stop them all. Terry fled through rows of alien flowers and past the robots guarding the Peaches of Immortality.

  An owl hooted as it leaped from a tree and swooped toward him. It said, "You there! Take this!" It clutched something in its talons and dropped it deftly on the edge of a fountain, right in Terry's path. Terry skidded to a stop and froze, though the gangsters were no more than a minute behind.

  The owl had put a wand there. An elaborate shiny wooden rod wreathed in stylized green vines and tipped with a strawberry design.

  "Well?" said the owl, peering at him.

  Terry looked back over one shoulder and saw masked men approaching from across a little maze of corn. He could just run and be done with this nonsense, going back to his friends' sympathy.

  Instead he snagged the wand and waved it as dramatically as he could, saying, "I'll take what I can get!"

  A whirlwind spun him into the air and everything around him got drowned out by sparkles and a cool violin theme. Some kind of magic, finally! He could be a druid or wizard gardener or tree-golem, and finally fit in! The Noh Love gang reached him but paused at a respectful distance, staring up. No doubt they were intimidated by the wind and the scent of... musk?

  Terry stopped twirling for a moment, and felt something long, fuzzy and heavy stretch out from the base of his spine. Then his torso pulled longer, too, and he flailed in the air with his hands. No, wait. The limbs in front of him weren't his hands or feet, but a set of black-furred extra legs in between with white fuzzy paws! It was about then that his clothes disintegrated into a mass of colorful ribbons, exposing lots of dark fur spreading across his skin. The ribbons reformed as a green thing that barely came down past his waist, not reaching the new paws. He grabbed at the fabric and at the same time spotted the white fur and claws on his actual hands, and the cute pleated pattern on the new outfit.

  A stray ribbon wound itself through his hair and another along the mass of fur behind him, tickling him and making the big thing flick into view. He now had a tail with black fur and white stripes. His nose seemed to be sticking too far out in front of his eyes. He tried to focus on it and realized he was staring at an animal-like muzzle on his face. Then he glanced down. The top of his new vine-decorated blouse pulled tight as his chest swelled out to fill it.

  Terry yelped and flailed in midair. The wind set him down on four fuzzy paws, so that he was bent like an L with a long quadruped body under his surprisingly busty torso.

  "A centaur... skunk?" said the nearest gangster, stepping forward like he expected a vicious volley.

  The leader yanked him back, saying, "You fool, that's a magical girl! If we attack now she'll crush us like an easy lob. Fall back!"

  Terry stumbled on his new paws, shocked. He was still holding the wand. He told himself not to worry about exactly what had happened; the gangsters were getting away. He jabbed the wand in their direction and staggered forward. In a too-high voice he shouted the first mystical attack phrase that came to mind. "Strawberry... Smite!"

  Curls of red and green energy swirled around him and lanced toward the fleeing tennis guys, becoming a hail of thousands of strawberries that pelted them and knocked them down on the now-slippery glass floor. Red juice oozed in pools under them.

  "We'll have to work on your attacks," said the owl, perching on a nearby statue. "Do something entangling."

  "How?" said Terry.

  "Same way."

  Terry advanced on the gang, walking on four feet without thinking too hard about it, and lifted the wand skyward. "Vines, seize my enemies! Entangling, uh, Justice Strike!"

  Obligingly, phantom vines of light erupted from the floor and grabbed the gangsters. It worked for several seconds before the glass floor shattered, cracked by magic roots.

  Terry shrieked as he crashed along with the whole crowd into the first floor's giant indoor rice paddy. He stood up and felt heavy, weighed down by a whole lot of soaked monochrome fur. The vines had vanished but the whole tennis crew moaned and struggled to stand.

  It was about then that the cops showed up. Not just the regular ones, but a team from the Special Police. There was also a registered B-Rank Vigilante who looked like a samurai pro wrestler, and an agent from the Section 8 Law Division of Underdressed Cyborgs. Terry put his hands up, accidentally raised his new forepaws too, and splashed face-first back into water that tasted like rice and frogs.

  The Special Police cop (they had snazzier uniforms than the poor regular kind) t
ook the lead by pulling Terry out of the muck. "Ma'am, did you capture these criminals? There's no record of you."

  A helicopter whirred in the distance. "Somebody's getting away!" Terry shouted, seeing a flash of its white blades rising past the greenhouse. The other police were busy handcuffing people.

  The cop said, "Tanaka, get them!" The vigilante ran off and out of sight. Presumably he could jump onto the helicopter and take it down. "Have we got witnesses?"

  The butler said, "I saw a lot of it, sir. It was an origin story."

  "Ah, one of those," said the cop. To Terry he added, "If you're a new magical girl and not just some random idiot, that'd help explain why you're the only one not gashed by broken glass. This must be your animal companion. Has it got a name?"

  Terry looked around and spotted the owl. "You! You did this to me!" He wasn't sure whether to be furious or grateful for turning him into this weird fuzzy shape.

  The owl flew down to perch on Terry's shoulder. "Nice to meet you. The name is Kayda, and no, I didn't do this."

  "No?" Terry's new tail lashed back and forth, stirring the swampy water. "Do you know how hard I wished for a giant robot, a spellbook, a mystical guitar? Anything? Now you're going to tell me 'the power was in me all along'?"

  The owl shrugged his wings. "Well, no, it was mostly the Wand of Mephit. Partly you, though. These things almost never happen to someone who doesn't try."

  The cop said, "Are you two just going to stand there hooting and making chirpy skunk noises at each other?"

  Terry blushed. "Uh, Officer, he says his name is Kayda. Am I under arrest? This is... I'm kind of in shock right now."

  "Understandable. We'll have to take you to the station for processing and some initial testing of your powers, but then you're free to go."

  The owl shifted on his talons and turned his head around to stare along Terry's new lower back. "I must say this isn't quite what I expected the wand to do."

  Terry stamped the pond, splashing everywhere. "Why me? Am I stuck like this? Why a skunk?!"