Story: Magical Christmas Cake Yumiko

The Eternal Night Empire had been patient, cunning, underhanded and above all else, thoroughly evil. Wickedness dripped from their every action, maliciousness followed in their wake, within their footsteps pettiness and spite lingered and -

"Yay! These cookies will be the best ever! Mmm hmmm only the best ingredients for my special teats!”

And Dione, one of the Moons following one of their highest Ranked Leaders in the Eternal Night Empire, was wearing a flowery apron with frolicking bunnies on it while flitting about a brightly lit kitchen adorned with adorable animal faces on seemingly every surface. Even evil needs a hobby.

Alas, the wait for her oven to finish baking the new cookie ingredients she was trying out would have to go on the backburner, for the Night Daemon disguised as a Clerk barged into the room looking like she'd lost a fight with a lawn sprinkler.

"Boss!"

"Sorry sweetie, the cookies aren't done yet!" Dione chirped and patted the Clerk on the head like one might their pet dog. "You're gonna have to wait a little longer, teehee!"

"No, boss! This is more important than - " the Clerk said, then sniffed the air and started to hungrily pant for a few seconds before remembering herself. "S-Someone blew up one of  my familiars! Waaaaah!" Tears began streaming down their face, “One of my cute little Hell Puppies!”

"Shush now, there there, you big silly," Dione said, pulling her into a hug and letting the poor thing slobber all over her apron. She always did find it adorable when one of these guys got like this. "It's okay! It did what it had to do, and has lured out the enemy! Teehee! Think about how happy it would be knowing it, like, got exploded in service of the Eternal Night Empire! It'll be wagging its little tail in the great farm beyond."

Familiars don’t have souls and will thus not go to any afterlife. But Dione was pretty sure Night Daemons didn’t know that. Heck, Night Daemons don’t have souls.

It did seem to work, at least, and the Clerk let out a long disgusting sniff that sounded like someone had the bright idea to play Beethoven's Fifth on a series of clogged toilets.

"That does make me feel better," the Clerk said. "I can see him now, rushing around in the bright daylight, jumping around all excitedly, terrorising the chickens..."

"Yeppers, that's just what it would do!" Dione said. "Now we need to make sure their sacrifice wasn't to waste. We'll set a trap at the store for a girl between the ages of, like, 16 and 18, and then we'll do to them what they did to your little puppers."

"And then some!" the Clerk tittered, a manic light flitting into her eyes before becoming briefly pitch black.

What, you thought the start of this scene was kidding about how evil they are? You can be peppy and evil.

“I did get a signal from my dear pupper-wupper that it had picked up several girls of that age range before being… being…” The Clerk shook her head, “So they must be coming for me now!”

"Yay, that makes things super easy peasy!" Dione said. "Let's head to the store right now and make mincemeat out of 'em."

<hr>

Finding a pet store that stays open late isn't exactly easy, which sort of makes sense if you think about it. I mean, the animals do need to sleep sometime right? Well, it was a good thing for one girl that this store hadn't closed, because she was all out of kitty litter and - oh boy, was her kitty being naughty tonight!

So in she went, young and sweet Himari only nineteen years old, to pick up some litter for her cute little kitty -

"She's the one!"

Only to find herself, upon stepping into the store, trapped running within a giant hamster wheel, while a collar and leash wrapped around her neck. Wah! This was not what she was into! It had happened out of nowhere! The leash had dropped down from the ceiling whilel the floor beneath her feet had sort of folded up and started to move like a conveyor belt, leaving her wit hthe distinct impression that if she stopped running or tried to get off the wheel she'd be suffocated, or maybe have her neck snapped by the rope.

"That's right girl, shed those pounds, while you're running round and round!" a pair of psychopathic pep squad girls cheered right there in front of her. The one in the business suit/bunny apron combo stalked around the wheel for a bit  doing the occasional funky stretch, glaring at her like the cat that caught the canary. Which she knew very well after that incident last week at her cousin's. Her kitty was very bad.

"How disappointing. I expected more from the Sparkling Lovers." She snapped her finger, and the other girl rushed up in a manner not unlike a dog starved for attention from its master. "I'll be, like, taking her somewhere to extract energy from her, maybe play some games to get her to tell us about all her cute little friends! That way, we'll be able to <i>play</i> together."

"Don't wanna play!"Himari said. If this wheel was their idea of funtime, she didn't want another sample thanks!

"Aw, how cute! She thinks she has a choice."

Thus began a very long night for an innocent young lass, whose bed was at that very moment getting completely and thoroughly ruined by a very bad kitty.

<hr>

Watching her boss leave like that left a smile on the Clerk's face. Ah! How nice. The bitch that had, er maybe that wasn't the best word to use? I mean, she was technically a bitch herself so using it as an insult was kinda tasteless.

While she mused on that the door flew open yet again. Aha! She reflexively turned to smile at the late night customer, another sap she could push one of her familiars onto -

<b>”Sparkling Fucking Love Star!</b>

- Only to get her human shaped head smashed into the floor by a ball of magical energy shaped like a star.”

"Ugh! What a stupid villain plot!" said a voice by the door. The Clerk was a bit too dizzy after that attack to properly “Hypnotizing people with <b>demon things</b> shaped like cute puppies to what? Drain their soul? Attack teenage girls? What exactly were you aiming for!?" Another blast of magic, and the Clerk was blasted back past several empty rat cages.

"I've rejected better plots for morning cartoons! What fucking demographic were you even aiming for with this?"

Oh that was <b>it</b> the Clerk stood up. How dare this oddly old sounding girl insult Lady Dione’s brilliant plan! “You tell me? It seemed to have lured you here like I wanted!”

And then the Clerk revealed her true form. A creature with a massive red and black wolf body, however instead of a wolf head there was a humanoid body, also covered with red and black fur, except for her face. Which looked the same, and her head was topped with dog ears and horns. “You stupid Sparkling Lover!”

Then when she finished transforming the staff fell right on her mouth, pointy end down. Then for good measure it was stuck up her nose and used to slam her into the floor, where she got her first real look at - Wait, that couldn't be right.

"Woah," she said, staring up in disbelief at the woman who was struggling to keep her clothes on. "Uh, you've sure put on a bit of weight, haven'tcha? Have you thought about joining our exercise cla-"

The staff became a blur. The Sparkling Lover's eyes seemed to turn into stars. Not as in star shapes, but more like actual burning spheres of hydrogen, except instead of burning they projected the urge to completely destroy the Clerk's stomach.

"For the sake of justice- God, what am I, an isekai author?"

Right, so this was about as much as she was willing to take, here. The Clerk grabbed the staff mid-swing, then used frankly monstrous strength to toss the bitch... see, there she goes again, using that word. Maybe... maybe she should try to reclaim it? Make it so that bitch isn't a bad thing to be? Ah, never mind.

The Clerk whistled and her familiars were around her in the blink of an eye. She didn't actually, like, need to do that or anything but it looked totally cool to do it that way. The flaming black, orange, and blue  hounds circled their prey, who suddenly seemed keenly aware of the danger she was in.

"So, like, I know you want to rip her to shreds and everything, but... Leave some for me!" the Clerk tittered, and snapped her fingers.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit!" the Sparkling Lover's... Mother! Yes, that made sense! This wasn't the real Sparkling Lover, it was their mom doing some cosplaying, maybe trying to cover for their daughter. Which was kinda sweet, but was gonna get her totally fucking murdered. Whatever pitiful magic she had been loaned or conjured up could not compare to the Incarnation of the Stars, let alone a Night Daemon like herself

"Oh, to hell with this!" the Sparkling Lover yelled into the gaping maw of a familiar, whose mouth she was barely keeping open by using her feet to pin its jaw open. Then she aimed her staff directly at it - And another two Night Daemon's grabbed onto it with their mouths to yank it out of her grip. "Shit! You can't do that, I'm meant to use my special move to finish you off!"

“Really? You think I’m just going to stand there and let you blast me with whatever dumb magic you borrowed?”

“Ponpon! What other spells can I cast!?” Who was Ponpon? Was that her daughter’s name. Man, human names are weird. “OK… got it!” She said after a moment. <i>“Sparkling Flash!”</i> She shouted


"Sparkling what?" the Clerk asked. Then she suddenly was blinded by having the entire store filled with a burning pink light, and she heard the sound of several familiars getting disintegrated by said light.

"Ow, ow, ow, no fair, that's cheating!"

Then, as her vision cleared, she felt something pressed against the back of her head.

"Ultimate Fucking Technique," a far too cheerful voice said from right behind her. "Starlight Purification Beam..."

A point blank blast of energy with the power of the Stars behind it utterly annihilated the Clerk right there and then.

"Or as I like to call it, the Bitch Annihilator."

Unfortunate the Clerk was wiped out there, she could have had a really good debate with her about the use of the word 'bitch' there.

<hr>

This was the part that Sparkling Lover Moon    hated the most. Knowing they were heading into a fight. She almost preferred the not known in advance bit, because then instincts took over, but here you had to have a plan. Plans went wrong.  It was like you’d spend hours drafting a manga and then when you get to drawing it you discover your panel layout Does Not Work.

"Alright, so when we go in there we dispel any traps they have, clear out the minions and then focus our energy on the big -"

Sparkling Lover Sun rolled her eyes and tugged on Moon's sleeve, then silently pointed down the street, where they found... A girl in a hamster wheel with a leash on her, being led down the street by a skipping woman in a business suit and a bunny apron.

“Is that a Night Daemon? It doesn’t look like one. They usually don’t… dress weirdly like that.” Sparkling Lover Sun asked.

"It's either the Eternal Night Empire, or it's someone's kinkplay," Moon said. She tilted her head a bit. "Yep, they got a glamour on them. As far as anybody else can tell they’re just two girls walking home. Time to move in."

Now this was a bit more like it! The two Sparkling Lovers rushed forward as silently as they could, neither wanting to give the enemy a chance to use that civilian as a hostage. Their attack would come from the left and right simultaneously, and then -

That’s when the pair stopped, and the woman in the apron turned to look at them both. “Oh fiddlesticks. There’s two of them.” She sighed, “Let’s see… do I fight? Don’t want to risk this cutie being injured so no hostage… hm… oh darn it. My cookies are going to burn if I don’t get back in time.” She clapped her hands and the hamster wheel vanished, and the girl collapsed to the ground. “OK! You Sparkling Lovers win this time! But I’ll be back!” She said cheerfully, before vanishing in a burst of… plants? Roses, leaves, and ivy fell to the ground.

Before they could process that there was a bright, brilliant light from the pet store that, you know what, on all things being considered really needed investigation right now. With the hamster wheel and leash gone, the girl was looking exhausted but otherwise fine so - yeah, checking that out now thanks!

The two of them kicked the door open ready for anything and found... a pet store. With a few holes in the walls. The animals inside seemed perfectly fine, though there was that distinct aroma in the air of a freshly killed Night Daemon. (Which smelled like a weird mix of woodsmoke, a random herb in this case rosemary, and melting iron.)

Oh. And there was a sign sitting in the middle of the floor as well. "All animals and products are currently free on account of management being demons and dumber than the kids cartoon demo."

“...well the sign has a point.” Moon said, and Sun groaned.

1. The next day at work Yumiko tries to be professional. Tries.
2. Were Dione's cookies alright? Did she burn them?
3. Yumiko reluctantly starts to search for her allies.
4. Akari comes over to try and see if Yumiko has read her manga.
5. Something else