~One~

Chocolat's garrote whipped around the sorceror's neck, like a choker from Hell, and she gleefully started to strangle him. "You'll never mess around with popular commercial mascots again, you sicko!" she crowed. "After what you did to Colonel Sanders, you frickin' deserve to die!!"

She started to say something else, but Pound-cake was apparently tougher than she'd estimated. The muscles on his arms bulged in thick cords as he clawed at the wire around his neck--then grabbed it--then broke it. She gaped as he threw bits of wire on the ground in front of him, and flashed her an evil grin. "Did you really think that something with the thickness of tinsel paper would keep me for long? Ha! I laugh in your snooty but so-attractive face! My strength is far beyond your mortal ken!"

"Blah, blah, blah," Gāteau, who'd been sneaking up behind Pound-cake, grumbled, like the world bored him. He casually stuck out a hand, like he was greeting a friend, and snapped the sorceror's neck. It sounded like a fistful of firecrackers going off all at once, and Pound-cake dropped like the sack of shit he was. "Blah, blah, beg, kill, murder, death, blah."

"Thanks for saving my bacon there, Gāteau," Chocolat said, picking up the shattered remains of her weapon. "We'd better find the others and tell 'em that he's dead."

>Not to mention the fact that Tira's probably tried to get in good with my darling,< she thought heatedly. >Well, I'll put a stop to that!<

"Right." The two hunters darted out of the dungeon chamber and headed up a winding set of stone stairs, to where Marron, Tira and Carrot were taking care of Pound-cake's lackeys.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what?"

"Who the hell builds all these underground dungeons for these sorcerors? It'd make everybody's life easier if everything was above ground. Down here, it's so dank and nasty, and there's moss growing on the walls--"

"Chocolat, let the record show that you're an empty-headed bitch."

She screeched in anger, but before she could come up with a witty rebuttal, they were out of the dungeon. The two brothers and Tira were already done with the flunkies; the hunters casually stood in the center of the battle-marred dancing hall, as if waiting for the bus. The room was littered with the corpses of young men and women who looked like they'd been mummified alive. "What the fuck--" Gāteau said in disgust at the dried-up corpses. "Marron, how'd you do that?"

The delicate magician shrugged. "I didn't. It's possible that, in his death throes, Pound-cake drew back all the power he'd given to his servants in order to save himself."

"He broke my garrote," Chocolat said, half-whining and half-serious. She held up the snapped wire pieces for proof.

"Don't worry, sis," Tira said, "it can be fixed." She was breathless after whipping the lard out of Carrot.

Poor, innocent Carrot lay twitching on the ground, his whole body raked with whip-marks. "Dark..." he was rasping. "Can't...see...Whoa, look at the wings on that angel! Never seen tits like that! Maa-maa!" He made sucking noises.

"HENTAI!!!" The Misu sisters started mercilessly beating the snot out of Carrot with the blunt end of their respective weapons.

"Amusing as this might be," Marron said softly, "we should be getting back home now..."

*~*~*

"Ok, will that do you for this evening?" the waitress, a blonde boin with legs up to her face asked.

Carrot and Gāteau stared at her and drooled, their saliva soaking their shirts, their eyes wide and glazed.

"Yes, thank you," Marron said for them.

"All right then," she said. She grinned and dropped Marron a wink as her delectable behind went off to fetch their food.

"You pervs!" Tira snapped, smacking Carrot upside the head. His head collided with Gāteau's, and their skulls made a terrific porcelain noise.

"Hey Marron, I think she liked you!" Chocolat teased.

"No, she didn't," he said, flushing.

"I think so too!" Carrot added. "I saw that wink she gave you, man! She wants your body bad!"

"Don't be ridiculous. Nothing's going to happen."

"Only because you're determined that nothing will happen!" Gāteau pointed out.

"No, wait, I'm sorry, I forgot!" Carrot said. "Marron's gay!"

Marron sighed and didn't respond.

The subject was dropped until they recieved the check. Tira snagged it from the waitress and appraised it through her glasses. Then a pleased smile plastered itself on her face. "Oh, Maaaa-rrooon," she said in a singsong tone. "Guess who left her phoooone nuuuumber on the cheeeeeck?"

"No way! Lemme see--" Carrot nicked the bill and stared at it with comical shock. "Oh, my God! My little brother's gonna SCORE, baby!" He grabbed Marron and gave his brother a noogie.

"Ack! Let me go!" Marron cried, wriggling. "I'm not doing anything!"

"You *must* be gay," Gāteau said, "or blind--if you'd see the tits on the chick we're discussing, then you'd have tears in your eyes!"

Back in the car (the village was so close to Big Momma's place, they hadn't done their usual teleporting job to get there), Chocolat was the one who brought the subject up again. "She looked like a nice girl, that waitress," she said. "Why weren't you interested, Marron?"

"Leave me alone," Marron said tiredly from the shotgun seat. How to explain...?

"Crazy, frickin' crazy," Carrot (sitting behind his brother) lamented. "She had flawless skin and legs that go all the way up! You could have drowned in her hair, and her breasts would have put Tifa Lockheart out of business! And you REJECT her? Absolutely crazy."

"Or gay," Gāteau piped in hopefully.

Nothing, Marron said.

"It's none of our business!" Tira, the driver, admonished. She blindly reached back and tried to whallop one of the men. "Whether Marron's gay or straight means nothing!"

"Yes, it does!" Chocolat declared. "He's our friend, and we deserve to know for sure!"

"Exactly!" Gāteau cried. "I wanna know if I have a chance or not!"

"NO!"

The other four turned and looked at Marron in dumb surprise, as though they had forgotten that he was there. There was an angry blush riding high in his pale face, and his yellow eyes were burning with a furious golden fire. "I'M NOT GAY!" he bellowed. "I'M PERFECTLY STRAIGHT! I HAVE NO INTEREST IN GATEAU WHATSOEVER! I'M MARRIED, FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

There was a popping noise as everyone's jaw dropped. Tira stared at him for so long that the car started to drift into the other lane of traffic. Carrot and Gāteau looked like they had just found out that they were brothers. Chocolat was numb with shock, but had the presence of mind to tap her sister on the shoulder and draw her attention back to the road before she killed them all.

Marron stared out of the window. The angry flush was gone, leaving him extraordinary pale, and his hands were tightly clasped in his lap. Oh, well. It would have come out some time or other.

"Brother," Carrot said slowly. "Let me get this straight, so there's no confusion. You're... married? As in to have and to hold, to love and honor and all that pretty stuff no one listens to anymore? As in rings and kisses and big, sugary cakes? As in ministers clapping you on the back and mothers weeping and cars with shit written all over them in soap and honeymoons in Tahiti? M-A-R-R-I-A-G-E?!?"

"Yes," he replied, keeping his eyes on the window.

"Marron," Tira breathed. "Why didn't you--"

Gāteau had fainted dead away.

***

~Two

"I first met Sorbet a year ago. I know, that's kind of young, but people were having children younger than that a hundred years ago. She was 19, a lot older than I was, but if it ever mattered to her, then she didn't show it. She had this saying, whenever her friends would ask her if she wasn't crazy for dating a 15-year-old: 'Marron is an old soul'. As if that settled everything. After these friends met me for the first time, she claimed, they stopped harrassing her about my age and started harrassing her about where she'd gotten such a find.

"I won't bore you with stories of our courtship, but I will tell you how we met. You're all dying to know that much, I can see that. I was staying in her village, and I was in their park. I don't remember the name of the village...but that's the only thing I'll ever forget about that day. The townspeople loved their park, and it showed. The grass was as green as Ireland, and in the summer the flowers must have been fantastic. But it was fall when I was there, and the only blooms were the bouquets of fallen leaves that scuttled around on the breezes, like bugs made of paper-thin ruby. There were plenty of trees, naked but beautiful, and the area was peppered with mirror-pools that caught the setting sun perfectly. The sun was settling down in the horizon, and the mirror-pools were red, like bowls of blood.

"I was next to one of these pools--there were no benches, and I was reclined out on the grass, feeling the evening. And she stepped out from a clump of trees, and there she was. She had this pale, pale blonde hair that was not quite ash and not quite silver, in a plait halfway down her back. She held a little girl by the hand, the girl was yanking her around and talking about the ducks--there were no ducks, but you know kids and water. She was red-faced from running. I couldn't see the color of her eyes from where I was, but it didn't seem to matter at all. She was the most exquisite human being I had ever seen.

"She spotted me and let her sister go. The little girl went running off; I remember thinking at first that they had to be mother and daughter, because they looked so much alike. The younger even had a little blonde plait just like her sister's. Sorbet walked slowly over to me, and said: 'You're not from around here, are you?'

"'No, just passing through,' I replied, and it was as simple as that. It wasn't love at first sight; it took me a good thirty minutes or so to fall in love with her. There were no fireworks, angels didn't trumpet the news from on high, and there was no Cupid with a golden arrow, shooting into my heart. It was as clear and natural as spring water, that I should love her so suddenly. Even her younger sibling--the chunky little girl was named Connola--struck me as endearing, and her love of Shakespeare...and I knew.

"I wanted to keep it a secret because...I wanted something that was just mine. I mean, my entire life, I've had to share everything. I didn't own a new pair of clothes until I started working for Big Momma. All my clothes were stuff that Carrot had either worn out or never worn at all. Ditto for books, toys, everything. I wanted to be *selfish* for once, to have something that I could hold forever in my heart and know for certain that it was mine. I can't explain it anymore than that, but that's the way it is.

"We got married five months after that evening in the park, in the town hall. I still have my wedding band--here it is. I don't wear it anymore, but I used to keep it on a chain around my neck all the time. The carving's a line from Shakespeare: 'I love you all the more, the hearers may cry Amen'. Hers had the same inscription, as well as a pathetic chip of diamond which kept me from having a full meal for a month. We didn't live together, but I visited her whenever I could manage it, and I sent her money and letters as often as I could afford. She sent me letters every four days, whether I could afford the stamp to write her back or not, just as faithful as clockwork.

"It got harder once I became a sorceror hunter. I couldn't visit her at all after that, not even on my vacations, because all of you were with me. But my salary was better than my old job, and I could send her letters more frequently, and more money to help support her and Connola. Sorbet knew that if the secret came out, then nothing would keep me from visiting her and her sister. At the end of every letter, she asked if I had told 'the others' about her existence yet. And even though it hurt to keep having to answer her 'No...', I was determined to wait. Wait until the war was over. Once there was no chance of my getting killed on the job, once I was free to do what I wanted with my life, I would let the whole bloody world know all about this marvelous woman I loved.

"You've probably noticed that I continually refer to her in the past tense. I almost never knew what became of her. You see, three weeks went by, and I didn't recieve a single letter from her, so I knew something was the matter. But I would never have known if they hadn't gone through her things, and found a mailbox stuffed full of letters from her husband. I don't recall which mission we were returning from, but I remember coming in here, and all those letters I had written her were in a bundle on my bed. Dota had put them there--she always handled my mail, and never asked a single question about who I was writing to. I stared at the bundle in horror. I thought she was filing for divorce, but it was so much simpler than that. There was a note paper-clipped to the top letter--where is it? Here. The long and the short of it is that my wife went on a nature hike. Connola was with her. They went into the mountains and never returned. The bodies were recovered by a search party two weeks later. Identification had to be made by their teeth, and their extraordinary hair color--no one else in the village had hair like that. They had fallen somehow off a ledge together, died of exposure, and then wound up feeding the local forest animals for a while.

"I remember reading that note, so dry and bureaucratic an end to such a vivacious, astoundingly beautiful woman...and the next thing I knew, I was in my bathroom, in the tub, with the hot water slopping over the edge and soaking the rug, and a razor in my hand. I came within four inches of taking my own life and I didn't even know I was doing it. A melodramatic end to a stereotypical story.

"So technically, I'm not married, but...yeah, you're right, Gāteau. I still feel like I'm married. I can't believe--*won't* believe that she's dead, that she could possibly die at the hands of the mother Nature she loved so well. Until I see the corpses with my own eyes, I won't believe that she could be dead. I..."

***

~Three~

Tira quietly got up and left the room after Marron started to cry. She was tempted to just go back to her room, but she lingered outsid the door, waiting. Her sister and Carrot both followed her out, then went in opposite directions to their respective rooms. They weren't who she was waiting for, though. They would be all right. They didn't worry her.

Gāteau left the bedroom in a daze. He moved past her stiffly, like his joints were made of rusted metal, not acknowledging her existence. He walked towards the living room area, and she quietly followed him, wondering what he would do.

She and Chocolat considered Marron to be a friend, and Carrot was his brother, but wasn't it Gāteau who was forever professing feelings for the boy?

When he reached the living room, he flopped down on the couch with a WHUMP and put his head in his hands. Every muscle in his "amazing" body was tensed and bunched up, and for a second Tira thought he was furious; then his shaky breath and tremoring shoulders betrayed a sob.

"Gāteau..." she said softly.

"Pretty weird," he replied, his voice unstable. "I didn't know...that his pull on me was this strong. I...I've never been in love before, so I don't have a reference point, but if it's not love, then it's something pretty damn close."

Tira desperately wanted to comfort him, but had no idea how to go about it. She remembered one time, when Gāteau and Chocolat were sent to help them kill the Crystal Magicians. Her sister had been slithering all over Carrot, and she had been feeling rather crappy about her looks, herself, and life in general. And Gāteau had come into the room, singled her out, and went to her. He eased the thick glasses off her face, looking straight into her ruby-colored eyes, and said one word: "Beautiful...!"

She didn't love him, but the memory filled her with an overwhelming gratitude. Even though he was a narcissistic, slightly psychotic bodybuilder, he had singled *her* out, had deemed *her* beauty greater than her sister's, had decided *she* was worth immediate attention and examination. She therefore determined to try and stop him from crying...but how?

She decided on the old fallback, and got stupid.

"You need a laugh."

"I don't feel like laughing."

Tira rubbed her index finger against the thumb on the same hand. It looked like a cricket's legs playing a tune. "Guess what this is."

He looked at her fingers, a question mark stamped on his forehead. "What is it."

"The world's smallest violin playing 'My Heart Pumps Purple Piss For You.'"

"How do you know that?"

"Well, I read it in a book."

He stared, then started laughing until he cried again.

*~*~*

The expression on Big Momma's face was one of wrathful benevolence--as though she had decided not to spit the five individuals before her and roast them in TFTBBNC*. *Well done, Sorceror Hunters,* she said in her otherworldly voice. *You'll be happy to know that Colonel Sanders is undergoing therapy, and the Taco Bell Chihuahua and Mayor McCheese were released from the hospital this morning.*

"That's our job, Big Momma," Gāteau said cockily, his gamin grin tacked onto his face. "Protecting beloved pop-culture Americana icons from evil sorcerors." If he had stayed up all night and wept (he had), he was good at not showing it.

"Bring on the next one!" Carrot bellowed, doing a little victory dance. If he had lain awake for several hours and thought harder than he'd ever thought before (he had), he was peppy this morning.

Dota, at Big Momma's feet, said: "Funny you should say that, Carrot, 'cuz we already have another job for you!"

"Aw man! And I was only joking, too!"

"This is your fault!" Tira whined, bopping her crush on the head. "You jinxed the whole thing!" If she had paced her room for half the night in thought (she had), she was able to put up a very frisky face.

*Behold,* Big Momma said.

Dota called up a sphere of viewing between her hands. The hunters all looked into it, and made various noises of disgust.

All the women in the village were mutated. Some had multiple limbs, and some had too many eyes, or none at all--just fleshly lumps over their sockets. Some had diseased splotches all over their skin, in a variety of colors, from black to red to rot-green, and some had thick humps and lopsided heads. Some had big knobs of bone jutting out of their skins, like a congealed and barely contained cancer, and some had cloven hands and feet. Some had their ears growing out of their armpits and their noses jutting out from the napes of their necks and half-formed hands crawling out of their breast, like they had swallowed a person and the person died trying to get back out.

Curiouser, the men--though depressed--were untouched.

"That," Gāteau said wisely, "is not beautiful."

"Where would we be without you, Gāteau?" Marron said dryly. If he had lain until the butt-crack of dawn in his bed, cradling his dead wife's letters and his wedding band (he had), he was none the worse for wear. "I never would have noticed something was wrong."

"Dude, what happened to all the beautiful sex mommas?!" Carrot lamented.

"DARLING!" Chocolat admonished. "Don't make me discipline you!" If she had spent the night weeping and tearing her hair, she was looking fresh as a daisy. (She hadn't; she was the only hunter who'd been asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.)

*This soceror has used a very dangerous variation of mutation magic. She has drained all the beauty out of the women in the village, and used it to enhance her own looks and those of her servants.*

"That's IT?!?"

"Hardly worth dying for," Marron observed. "What kind of woman would risk death and use forbidden magic just for beauty?"

*Not everyone is as fortunate as you, Marron, and born with natural beauty. There are many women who ruin themselves and others around them in the search for beauty. It doesn't end there, however. If her spell continues, she will drain the life-force out of every woman in the village, and they will all die. Not only will this grant her near-immortality, but it will force her to pick up stakes and move on to another village full of fresh young women.*

"I see. We have to stop her before she spreads like a cancer all over the blessed Continent."

"Don't care why or how, bro'!" Carrot interrupted, smacking Marron on the shoulder and making him cough. "As the Spoonler Continent's resident love machine, it is my sacred duty to rescue those bishojo from the crazy chick's influence! Point me in her general direction, Big Momma!"

"Good luck, Sorceror Hunters! Bye-bye!" Dota said cheerily. She waved; the world dissolved as they were teleported to the village, then melded back together around them to form a park.

"Nice place," Tira said, adjusting her glasses on her nose. She was queen of the understatement. It was a crappy park. Worse, it looked like it had once been a stunningly beautiful park but had become crappy over the years. The grasses were thick with weeds, up to their knees, and yellow and dying. The trees were gnarled and twisted with disease and neglect, and the landscape was pockmarked with patches of clay which had once been mirror-pools.

"Wow, this sucks ass," Carrot commented sagely. "Come on, let's head over to the big mansion on the other side of town! The sorceror's sure to be there!"

"What would we do if we didn't have Captain No-Shit-Sherlock here with us," Gāteau said rhetorically as four of the hunters started through the tangled grasses to the village proper.

Marron stayed behind. He knelt down beside the patch of red clay that could have been a pool at one point in its life, touching the tips of his slender fingers to the wet earth. No, it couldn't be. That would defy all laws of averages. But he felt it, down in his heart.

It was.

"Hey Marron, you gonna help us kill a sorceror, or just kick back in the tall weeds and jerk your jerkins?" Carrot bawled. This struck the others as deliciously funny, and they nearly collapsed with their gales of laughter.

Marron grinned good-humoredly and started fighting the high grass, which groped at his feet and threatened to trip him over. "Coming!" he hollered, which wasn't the smartest thing to say, considering his brother's comment. The other four started laughing fit to die, and his smile remained on his face.

It couldn't be--

***

~Four~

The big obsidian doors to the mansion hesitated, then slowly creaked open. A tall, thin woman with striking beauty poked her head out the door. She had this pale, pale blonde hair that was not quite ash and not quite silver, in a plait halfway down her back, and Marron's tongue glued itself to the top of his mouth.

No, it couldn't be--

And it wasn't. *Her* eyes were green, and this girl's were only hazel.

"Yes, my name is Zwieback, can I help you folks?" the woman asked.

"We're travelers," Tira said, "coming to pay our respects to the sorceror who lives here."

Gāteau snickered at that.

"I'm afraid you can't come in," Zwieback said briskly. "The mistress only allows people who are moving into town to visit her and 'pay respects'." Her eyes fell to Marron, and something strange ghosted her face. "What's the matter, sir? Are you going to be sick?"

"No," he forced himself to respond, in as calm a voice as he could manage. "You just...look like someone I used to know."

She laughed, and the laughter was a carbon copy of Sorbet's. It made him shiver. "That's not surprising. The mistress has shared her beauty with her more faithful servants, and I guess I qualify as her right-hand woman. But regardless, I can't let you folks inside. Only the young women who choose to live here can come see her..to undergo...'orientation'." She laughed again, but the sound was cold.

"All right then, thanks a bunch," Tira said, grinning gamely as the big obsidian doors slammed in their faces. The smile quickly inverted into a scowl. "What a treefucker! How are we going to get in there?"

"I could punch through the walls--" Gāteau started, then stopped when they noticed that Marron was on the edge of fainting.

"Sorbet," he whispered, like the oath of a dying man. "Oh, God, Sorbet, what happened to you?", and he did faint, dead away.

*~*~*

"I need to speak to Mistress Sorbet."

"My sister's busy, whadaya want?"

"A group of travelers just showed up at the door."

"Did you save the women?"

"No, they weren't moving in."

"Did you sent them away?"

"Yeeee-es..."

"Then why are you bothering me?"

"Forgive me, Mistress Connola, but...there was a man in the group. He looked like that picture that Mistress Sorbet keeps on her night table--average height, young, pale, long black hair and yellow eyes...very handsome. She once ordered me to inform her if I ever--"

"You did right, dear. Don't worry, he'll be back. I'll tell her. You're dismissed."

The clacking noise of high heels on stone floors. Then, the pattering noise of tiny child's feet on said floors. A door opens and shuts.

"Sister. It's Marron. He has returned."

"Excellent. Then he will get what he deserves."

*~*~*

"This sucks!" Carrot, in his typically STOOPID fashion, understated. He was sitting Indian-style on the hotel room's single bed. The fleabag they were staying in was at the polar opposite side of town from the mansion. It was a rather depressing situation.

"So this sorceror just so happens to be Marron's wife," Gāteau grumbled. He was horrendously pissed off at the whole thing. He was leaning up against the wall next to the bedside table, and trying to look pouty and sexy all at once.

"Kind of convenient, isn't it?" Chocolat said. She was situated right next to Carrot on the bed. Every ten seconds, she would slither a hand under his shirt or his pants, and he would routinely slap it away. "I mean, just as we find out about this woman's existence, she pops up as our adversary. Kind of cheap, don't you think?"

Suddenly, the roof cracked open. The conscious hunters (Marron was curled up on the bed, still lin a faint) gaped in horror as a gigantic ballpoint pen jutted through the lifted roof and poked Chocolat in the belly. She shrieked. "Hey!" a rough female voice cried. "You wanna write this @#%&ing story?!? This is the second @#%&ing time I've had to write this *)$^^ thing, and you *)$^^ well better $^#*ing appreciate it, you ignorant #@^)(!!!"

"I'm sorry, Allmighty Creator! I'm sorry!" Chocolat groveled.

"That's right!" The pen disappeared, and the roof was replaced back where it belonged.**

"Hey, keep it down up there!" the guy staying below them bellowed. "Damn kids and their keggers..."

"This is getting disturbing," Tira (sitting on the floor next to the bed) commented quietly.

"Anyhow...what're we going to do?" Gāteau said. "We have to be careful with this one, and kill the bitch as gently as possible, or it'll break Marron's heart."

"Which means no busting down walls. We have to be stealthy. Sneak in, sneak out."

"But we can't even get in! They only let girls in there!"

An unhealthily large grin spread over Tira's face. It reminded Gāteau of the Grinch, when it got its terrible, horrible, awful idea. It was not a comforting analogy. She stood, went to him, and grabbed him by the chin. She dragged his face down to her level, considered, then said: "I think he needs a darker base, since he's so tan, don't you sis?"

"Oh, hell no. I ain't dressing up as no woman!" he frothed at the mouth.

"What?" Marron said, coming up from unconcsiousness.

"Thanks for volunteering!" Tira crowed. The two sisters, getting a perverse pleasure from the very idea of dressing up their men as women, grabbed Marron by the hair and dragged him kicking and screaming into the bathroom.

"We could sneak out while they're distracted by the others," Carrot said quickly, and the two men tried, but Tira thought ahead of them and called the cops to be on the lookout.

*~*~*

Four hours later, the gruesome job was done. The three men and two women were in costumes vastly different from their usual temperments (although, to be fair, the sisters' outfits looked sort-of like their dominatrix costumes). Gāteau had been squeezed into a black leather dress which had belonged to Chocolat. The dress halted abruptly below his underwear, and his legs were freshly shaved; the poor sisters had had to sedate him mildly to get him to accept THAT bitter pill. His lipstick and makeup were the sort normally reserved for five-and-dime whores, and his hair had been wet and slicked back. "I look like Jamie Lee Curtis from 'True Lies' on frickin' steroids!" he lamented.

Carrot was dressed as a hippy girl. His hair, full of spikes and cowlicks as it was, had been heavily washed and rinsed, then braided and dried. This left his hair full of kinky but endearing curls that were smoothed with a little mousse. His lipstick was pale pink, and the girls had put lots of glittery stuff around his eyes. His dress was a long, loose blue thing from Tira's closet; it required him to wear a stuffed bra (Gāteau hadn't needed a bra, the dress had mashed up his pecs for that capacity). "How am I supposed to get laid in this getup?" he had whined. "Only the lezbos will see me as the sexy animal I am!"

Marron was dolled up as--what else?--a geisha girl. His hair had taken a full hour to brush through, braid, and pin up into a thick bun with a tourtoiseshell clip and other hair decorations. His face was powdered only slightly, as he was so pale naturally, and they did heavy red lipstick and eyebrow makeup. His dress was a loose, kimono-style robe with flowers dyed all over it, and his obi was knotted neatly in the back. The only time he spoke was when the Misus approached him with a sock-filled bra; he had looked at the two women and said: "If you get within three feet of my person with that garment, then I will chew off your heads and bathe in the arterial spray." He went without a bra, and was--of course--the most singularly beautiful of all the Sorceror Hunters, despite the flat chest.

This time, when Zwieback answered the door, her hazel eyes were full of questioning hunger. "Hello, my name is Zwieback, how can I help you ladies?"

"Hi!" Tira--whose gold-sequined outfit, top hat and nasal accent were remniscent of Columbia from 'Rocky Horror Picture Show'--was the official spokesperson. "My name is Kakkoii. This is my sister Mierda--" she indicated Chocolat, who was in a--what else?--French maid outfit "--and these three are Mocha, Latte and Espresso." She pointed at Gāteau, Carrot and Marron. "We just moved in on the outskirts, and heard that you guys want all o' us chicks to check in with the sorceror. So here we are!"

The servant-woman looked at them all with a weird glint in her eyes. "Do I know you people?"

"Don't think so."

"Do you have any relatives, then? A group of people popped by here today, and you guys remind me of them exactly. Three guys and two girls, sound familiar?"

"Non," 'Mierda' said peppily in a thick French accent. "We 'ave no fam-i-ly in zees area. Kakkoii and I are zeesters, and zees three are all couzinz. Unfortunately, zey were all born mute."

"Oh, what a shame," Zwieback said distractedly. She was staring at 'Kakkoii's' breasts in a very intense way that made the girl uncomfortable. "Don't take this the wrong way, will you?" With that, she grabbed one of 'Kakkoii's' boobs in each hand and gave them a healthy squeeze.

"OH SHIT THAT HURT!!!!!!!!!" 'Kakkoii' shrieked, smacking the groping hands away, losing her nasal accent for a minute. Once she got a hold of herself, it came back: "What's the big idea, carpet-muncher?!"

"I *told* you not to take it the wrong way!" the other woman cried, offended. "I'm not a lesbian. I was just checking to see if they were real. Normally they aren't when they're that humongous."

"I can assure you," Chocolat said quickly, "zeez are my own boobies!"

"Yes. Amazing." She stepped back. "Won't you come in?"

*~*~*

"A new group has come for 'orientation', Mistress."

"Beautiful. Bring in the prettiest, and you and yours can kill the others."

"It's not that simple, ma'am. You see, while there is one gem who outshines them all, there are two others whom I would bring in as well. Not nearly as gorgeous, but they have something the other lacks."

"What's that?"

"Breasts."

"Very well, bring in all three of them. And see that some harm comes to the other two."

"Very good, Mistress."

***

~Five~

The five sorceror hunters were all seated in chairs in a waiting area. The poor men were vastly uncomfortable. Every few seconds, either 'Mierda' or 'Kakkoii' would admonish them: "Mocha, cross your legs! Do you want the whole world to see what you've got under your skirt?" "Latte, if you keep leaning your head back, you're going to crush all your hair!" "Don't DO that, Espresso, you smeared your lipstick and now I've got to fix it up for you!" "Hold still, you've got a blob of mascera fixing to fall into your eye...there!" "Quit picking at your skirt, or people will think you have fleas!" "Great! Now what am I going to do with you?"

One can imagine, therefore, the immense relief the "boys" felt to see Zwieback emerge from the door she'd disappeared into ten thousand eternities ago. They all stood up as she looked at them in turn. "Kakkoii...Mierda...and Espresso," she said, unsure about the names, pointing at each one. "You three are to go with me. Latte, Mocha, I'm afraid you'll have to wait your turn."

'Mocha' nodded and smiled as he and his 'cousin' sat back down again. The other three women mildly followed the pale-blonde woman's lead to the sorceror's lair. Once the two men were alone, they reverted: Gāteau flopped back in his chair with his knees at right angles, and Carrot leaned on back and let his curls get crushed.

"This is a fine kettle of shit we're in!" Carrot bitched. "Sitting here in the Temple of the Identical Dykes, dressed as a hooker and a hippie!"

"Be glad that I broke Tira's camera before she got any bright ideas," Gāteau responded.

"Miss?!?"

Both men immediately straightened up into their formerly prissy positions at the child's voice. "Who's asking?" Carrot said in an unbelievably good falsetto.

"Me, ma'am," said the little girl that slipped into the room. The two men--not in their typical hentai fashions--marveled at the child's beauty. She could have been no more than six, but her face was that of a full-grown woman. In fact, her face was exactly identical to Zwieback's, except that her facial shape and short body were rather chunky. Her hair was that pale, pale blonde which they were familiar with, and bound in the familiar plait halfway down her spine. Her eyes, dark and cold as emeralds, were the eyes of an extremely intelligent adult. Something was creepy--something was *wrong*--with those eyes. Looking into them gave Carrot and Gāteau the shivers, like snakes were crawling up and down their spinal chords, but it was somehow intriguing. The eyes, the face...they held you firmly and didn't let you go, and you didn't want to be released. You would fight to stay in their grip.

She had the triangle symbol on her forehead. Neither man noticed.

The little child moved across the room, and sat down between the two men, who were gawking at her like she was Marilyn Monroe. "My name is Connola," she said sweetly. "And before I snap your necks like pretzel sticks, maybe you should tell me your real names...boys."

*~*~*

When 'Espresso' followed the two sisters and Zwieback into the sorceror's throne room, he nearly stopped and wept at what he saw. The place was a temple to silver--everything appeared to be made out of the metal, save the marbled floors, walls and ceiling. A thin sheet of argentum had been pressed into the floor as a walkway to the throne itself. About thirty women limned the walkway; like any good priestess, they were all dressed in chifons: one-layer, knee-length togas with only one strap, clasped at the shoulder with a silver clip. The women's bodies were of different builds and heights; in fact, everyone was different from the neck down. From that point on up--vocal chords, facial structure, and that pale, pale blonde hair--everyone was identical...save the eyes. The room's empty air was filled with distended Dali-style sculptures of women: bloated, horribly wretched female bodies, missing genitals and organs, all wrought in finest silver. It reminded Marron of the female monstrosities that populated the village, and he wondered why on earth Sorbet would want something that hideous in her private chambers.

But none of that was why 'Espresso' got the urge to collapse on the silver walkway and cry until 'she' retched. It was what 'she' saw with Marron's eyes at the end of same walkway. The throne that Sorbet sat on was carefully carved to look like it had been made of bundles of wires, and had an antique finish. She perched there like a vulture that had gained a gorgeous female skin. Her hair was that same pale blonde--not quite ash and not quite silver--but the plait went down to the waist of her plain white shift. Her skin was paler than the cloth she wore, making her seem a ghost. She calmly twisted a few strands of hair around her long, sure fingers as she appraised this new catch.

Her eyes were the same oak-green, but they were the eyes of a monster.

She bore the triangle mark on her forehead.

"The new women, mistress," Zwieback said, kneeling down on the argentum walkway and touching her head to the cold metal.

"I am grateful to you," Sorbet said quietly. "Ladies, leave me. I will deal with these alone."

'Espresso' and 'Mierda' exchanged worried looks. The toga'd women who were exiting through a back door looked confused, as though their mistress had never kicked them out when she conducted business before.

That meant that the sorceror smelt a rat.

Did she know--?

*~*~*

Connola tightened her chubby fist around Gāteau's neck, nearly crushing his vocal chords.

This was nice, very nice indeedy.

"Tell me--!" she hissed, her eyes expressing things that no child should know. Murder was dancing in those green gems. "Who are you and who sent you? Tell me right know, you filthy faggot, or I'll snap your throat and watch you drown in your own blood! Tell me! Tell--"

Carrot blinked. There was something wrong with this picture. It was supposed to be the other way around, wasn't it? He couldn't quite remember. Then he looked back at the little girl's pretty eyes, and he forgot what he thought was the matter. They were eyes you could look at until the cows came home. Mmm, cows. Burgers. Cheese. Come to think of it, he was getting kind of hungry, and a big block of cheddar would hit the spot. And maybe some pork rinds to go with it. Pork. Pigs. Pigs in shit were silly. Shit was a useful word. Shitheels.

*Carrot, you shitheels, if you don't snap out of it right now, you'd better not come home when that bitch kills Gāteau!!*

He was amazed to hear Big Momma's voice out of nowhere. He was particularly surprised to hear her say those nasty words. He didn't think he'd ever heard her talk like that before.

Suddenly, the thought occured to him:

>What the hell am I doing here?<

Carrot blinked a few times, clearing the cobwebs out of his smooth mind, and looked at the situation before him. Gāteau was being strangled by that little girl Connola. The blonde's face was going out of the blue and into the black beneath the pancake makeup. He made no move to resist her choking efforts. Connola was shrieking: "Tell me right now, you stupid fuck! Who's your employer?!? Tell me, or I swear I'll--"

Carrot made the most intelligent move of his young, muddled life. He reached over and clubbed the young sorceror upside the head. The little girl's teeth rattled inside her head from the force of it, and she sat down hard, dazed. Those green eyes were pained and confused, and had no more magic in them than an empty bubble gum wrapper.

Gāteau sucked in a long, whooping breath between his cherry-vinyl lips. His face immediately returned to normal color, and he looked at Carrot with dumb gratitute. "What just happened?" he asked huskily in his damaged voice.

"Never mind that, figure out what we're gonna do now!" Carrot cried in panic, because the little girl had stood up, and her face was crimson-purple from anger. Connola glared at them with impotent child's fury, the air around her crackling and making her pale-blonde hair dance with electricity. You could smell the magic around her.

"You shouldn't have done that," Connola said. It wasn't right that such a deep, rasping voice should come from such a pretty young girl's throat. "Now I'm going to have to kill you the hard way!"

"Come here, pale one," Sorbet said. "Let me have a look at you up close."

To approach her was death, Marron knew that as well as he knew this was his wife. But he also knew that Espresso would be dumb as any lamb, so he smiled, made a small bow and clacked up the silver walkway to the carefully carved throne. He knelt down before the sorceror and smiled again, hoping she didn't see the thick torrent of emotions brewing in his mind.

Or the blade-like ward he had clenched in one of his fists.

Sorbet gently took his chin in one hand, and appraised his beauty with an expert eye. There was no way she couldn't recognize him this close. He might look radically different with all his hair pulled back into the ridiculous clip, but one look into his eyes and--

She let go of his chin, and instead reached and touched his fantastic black hair. She rolled a few strands between her fingers, testing the softness and thickness of it, then deftly pulled out the clip. It tumbled down his back in the thick braid 'Mierda' and 'Kakkoii' had been forced to put it in. Then she grabbed the braid itself, yanked off the rubber band, and watched silently as the hair unwove itself.

"You bastard," she said in her silken voice, and viciously smacked him across the face.

Then they were all distracted when they heard Connola bellowing from the other room, but Sorbet more than the others, who were used to that sort of thing.

Marron, not seeing a more perfect chance anytime soon, swallowed his heart and threw the ward at his only love, hoping she would die quickly.

***

~Six

Gāteau swore virulently and dodged a ball of lightning pitched by Connola. It missed him by inches, but singed the hair on his arm, and instead burned into the wall behind him. "I can't MOVE in this damn dress!" he bellowed. "How Tira and Chocolat do it, I'll never know!"

"Shut up and fight!" Carrot, who was having similar troubles, whined. He was hiding underneath a chair and shaking in his high heels. His skirt had been torn in the back to mid-thigh.

Connola, chuckling thickly, launched another lightning-ball at Gāteau. She seemed to have lightning sweating out of her pores. Snaps of electricity surrounded her chunky body in a deadly aura, and her pale-blonde hair was no longer plaited, but standing straight up from her head, like she'd washed it in starch. Her ball-lightning attack was shot not out of her hands, but her eyes. It was a terrifying thing to witness.

Gāteau dodged this lightning-ball as well, but more slowly. The dress was constricting his breath and crushing his jewels. "Time out!" he shouted, then yanked the dress off like it was a T-shirt, turning it inside-out. He felt sweet relief as his "amazing" body was released from the damn leather prison, and grinned at Connola coyly. She gaped despite herself. He was now only wearing a very small pair of briefs.

"Try me now, bitch!" he declared, then launched himself at her with a rebel yell.

*~*~*

When he turned back to look and see if Sorbet was dead, he saw no such development. She was clenching her left wrist with the opposite hand and cussing. The ward had stuck halfway through the palm of her left hand, and the blood was terrific. When she looked at him with those big green eyes, he couldn't squelch the guilt that started pounding away at his head. "Marron," she said, as though the name were a poison. "You abandon me. You torment me. And then you try to murder me? Why?"

"Because you're sick," he replied honestly.

>Don't lose your cool. Keep your emotions in check.<

"I'm not sick. I took what jagged pills I had to. You would have done the same if you were me."

"I sincerely doubt that."

She eased the ward out of her hand. It clattered to the floor. Little blots of blood marred the silver walkway. "What would you have done then, Marron? Would you have sat at home like a good little wife and waited for an endless war to end? Satisfy yourself with nothing but pictures and letters from the man who should have been lying beside you every night?"

"Do you think I wasn't living with it? I suffered just as much as you. But I accepted it. Maybe I was naļve. I assumed that my love for you would make any price worth paying, even fighting in a cursed war that would probably kill me in the end. If I could do anything to make the world safe for you..."

"You were ashamed of me."

"I..." And he knew that there could never be an answer to that question she would accept.

"I refused to see that at first. Then I had my great awakening. And I see that now. You were ashamed of me, of any evidence that you ever loved anything other than your brother and your magic.

"I didn't see it at first," she continued, gesturing grandly. Her wounded hand splattered blood through the air. A single drop struck his cheek, and it was like ice water. "Then came my nature walk. I wanted to stay home that day, I was expecting your letter, but Connola insisted. She was always drawn to those mountains just three miles out of town. So we went, and while we were hiking, there was a terrific thunderstorm. We hunkered down in a cave to wait it out, and I fell asleep. Connola went out exploring and got struck by lightning; it killed her instantly. When I woke up, I went looking for her...and there she was, not fifty feet from where I'd been dozing, her necklaces and bracelets fused to her skin, the ground scorched black. I hadn't even woken at the noise it must have made.

"I was overcome with grief. I...I couldn't accept that this young, beautiful life could have possibly been snuffed out so cruelly. I wandered for hours in that goddam storm, clutching her deep-fried corpse, weeping and freezing in the torrential rain. My end was kinder than my sister's, though. I tripped, hit my head, went unconscious, and drowned in a mud puddle."

Marron hadn't known that his situation was that desperate. A corpse...how could she be killed?

Pretending to listen to her story, he slowly started to reach for another ward.

"No one was more surprised than I when I woke up again. I knew I had died, but how had I been resurrected?" She carefully stood. The air around him started to chill. "There was a forbidden magic sealed by your Great Mother in that mountain. That was what had been calling to Connola. While it filled her as well, it required an adult to serve it fully, so it chose me. It gave me the power of parasitic mutation, and--as an afterthought--it gave my sister and I secondary powers. As my sister died by lightning, she now lives by it...and as I died by water, so shall you!"

"Not likely!" Marron threw his second ward, but it never hit its target. A sudden shield popped up in front of Sorbet, a living wall of water. The ward sunk harmlessly into the wall and was dissolved. The shield then disappeared--

And Marron's world was strangled in blue.

*~*~*

"MARRON!" Tira shrieked. She and her sister quickly reverted to their other forms--their costumes were, of course, tear-away--and with whip and garrote in hand, they charged the witch and her throne.

Then both women cried out in surprised pain as another wall appeared in front of them--a thick wall of ice--and they crashed straight into it. "Shit! Break it, sister!" Chocolat cried, ignoring the pain in her shoulder, and attacked the ice.

"It's three feet thick!" they heard the sorceror's magical voice declare. "And it tightly seals myself and Marron from you! He'll drown before you ever break through!"

Tira, whip cracking futilely at the ice, glanced through its sheer surface. It bent light and distorted everything behind it, but she could see Marron clearly. His body had been encased in a thin envelope of water, like a form-fitting bubble. His face--now devoid of makeup--was silently screaming as he clawed at nothing.

"Hang on," she breathed, "just hang on, please hang on."

*~*~*

Carrot, still hiding under his chair and shaking all over, gaped as Gāteau's body lit up like a neon sign. The blonde had grabbed Connola, probably intending to break her over his knee like a twig, but she just looked at him and sent about 11 million volts through him. Gāteau jittered and jived and screamed, then collapsed to the ground in a dead faint, his hair and eyebrows smoking.

"It's just magic," Carrot said in a quaking voice. He had sweated off all his makeup a while ago, and his hair was in frazzled curls all akimbo over his head. He got up from underneath the chair, and faced the electrified little girl, looking for all the world like a peacenik's vision of Jesus. "Just magic."

"I'll show you 'just magic'!" the girl-thing bellowed. She shot another wad of lightning from her eyes with a victorious shriek.

Carrot made no move to dodge the ball-lightning. It struck him straight on, in the chest, and burnt his dress away. His curled hair stood straight on end, and did he ever scream--!

Connola, expecting her job to be done, slowly relaxed as the scrawny boy collapsed on the ground. Zwieback ran into the room, with a "Are you all right?!" on her lips.

"Quite," the little girl said sweetly, a little girl once again. "Get rid of the bodies, will you?"

Suddenly, both women froze as Carrot stood up again, clad in nothing but heart-covered boxers. There was an unnatural red light shining in his eyes, and a feral grin on his face--

And was he growing hair?!?

"Just magic," he said. "And whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, babes!!"

*~*~*

"Carrot!" the two women cried when they heard his voice bellowing in the other room. If he turned into beast-form, but wasn't controlled, he would likely kill Gāteau and bring the whole building down on them.

If they left Marron, then he would die, but they could save themselves and their love.

"Marron, forgive me," Tira decided, and ran after Carrot.

***

~Seven~

"They have abandoned you, my love," Sorbet said sweetly to Marron. "Now that we are alone, let us talk as lovers do. Do you remember what you said to me, before you kissed me for the first time?"

Marron gurgled.

"You said, 'I would you did not like me.' And I said, 'So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities'. You put a disbelieving look on your face, and said: 'Which is one?' 'I say my prayers aloud.' 'I love you the better, the hearers may cry Amen', and you kissed me. Then you said, 'No more words; the clerk is answered,' and I forgot everything else but your arms." She shrugged. "You did skip a bit there, I checked later, but the gist of it remains. I died with that on my mind. And I hope you do as well."

He fought the urge to breathe in this element he couldn't hope to break.

And slowly, slowly, he fought to reach a ward.

*~*~*

Carrot, true to character, panicked when he saw the dominatrix sisters. All the thick hair on his brutish body stood straight up, and his orange eyes bugged to saucer size. He shrieked like a schoolgirl as they started whipping away, cawing gleefully at the task.

Gāteau woke up feeling like his brains had been crisped. He took in the situation in an instant--Zwieback, with the top half of her head missing; Connola, unconscious but probably not dead; the Misus beating all hell out of Carrot.

But where was Marron?

Not thinking, he ran into the sorceror's room, and cried out. It was freezing, and no wonder; there was a thick wall of ice spanning the throneroom, and he only wearing a brief pair of briefs. Still, he glimpsed through the ice what was going on, and his fury boiled over his chill.

"MARRON, HANG ON!!" he screamed, and punched the ice wall. Garrote and whip hadn't been able to crack it, but Gāteau's oversized fist put a thick web of shatters in its glossy surface.

*~*~*

The sorceror glanced at the noise in surprise, and it was all Marron needed.

He twitched his right wrist, and one of his wards slipped down his sleeve and into his waiting hand. The blade-like card popped the envelope of water, and there the Eastern magician stood, soaked to the bone and winded, but alive.

"Now, mistress," he said hoarsely, "will you fight without such paltry tricks?"

Sorbet's oak-green eyes flashed fire. "I will fight you until your Grand Mother is dust on the wind!" she yelled, and ice-bullets were drawn out of the air and sent zipping towards him, like frozen bees.

*~*~*

Tira, Chocolat, and a restored Carrot ran into the room then, and saw Gāteau punching blindly at the ice wall. They saw also that Marron was freed and attacking Sorbet. "Stop it, Gāteau!" Tira cried. She awkwardly grabbed him by the elbow as he drew his arm back to punch again. "This is Marron's fight! You can't do anything but distract him and make it worse!"

The big man looked at his fist, which was filled with splinters of ice and blood. "All right," he hissed, "all right."

*~*~*

Marron dodged the ice-bullets deftly, then summoned up a ball of fire and pitched it at Sorbet. She didn't dodge it; another water-shield materialized, and the magic fire sizzled into nothingness. Then the water changed its shape, from a wall to a spear, and she took it up and heaved it at him.

He dodged that as he had the bullets, but only just; it whizzed past him and nicked him on the arm, drawing a little blood before it thunked into the wall behind him and disappeared. He stupidly glanced at the hole the spear-head had made, then felt hands claw at his neck. He instinctively threw her over his shoulder, and she flew across the room with a shriek, straight into a ring of fire he'd set.

Her shriek turned into a keen, and she changed the fire to water. Their half of the room was starting to fill with smoke. It was pinching at his eyes and nose. He blinked past it and blindly threw a handful of wards in her general direction, but she had already dodged behind a Dali-woman and the statue took the brunt of it. Then he understood why she wanted the twisted statues with her: they were part of her arsenal.

The statue he'd attacked was surrounded by an envelope of water, and Sorbet used the envelope to launch the thousand-pound mass of metal at her husband.

*~*~*

Chocolat was so absorbed in watching the fight, she didn't even notice something was wrong until she heard her sister screech in pain. She turned and saw a tiny version of Sorbet, the blonde hair sticking straight out like wires, snaps of electricity surrounding her in a static aura. This tiny sorceror was electrocuting her sister, and this was all she needed to know.

With a battle cry, she launched her garrote at this new threat. The wire zipped through the air, impossibly fast, and got caught on the child's aura. Chocolat screamed as currents of lightning passed up her weapon and into her arm, and she would have screamed until her brains were fried into hash-browns (?hash greys?). Then something clubbed her in the head, and she reflexively dropped the garrote, something that saved her life.

It was Carrot, making his second intelligent move of the night. He had whalloped her with the big rubber mallet that she and Tira usually bonked him with when his hentai ways were too much. "She can't be fought like that!" he hollered, then ran to go whallop Tira and make her drop her whip.

"Oh, DARLING, you saved my life!" she crooned. "I'll have to repay you later tonight!!"

"OWCHIE!!" he responded as Connola (not one to learn lessons) zapped him with ball-lightning. "Some people never learn!"

*~*~*

The statue clipped him on the head, and he saw big, bloody nebula and tiny black dots. He sat down, dazed, as the pain rippled from his head down to his shoulders.

When he cleared all the nebulae and spots from his vision, he saw another tormented statue soaring towards him in an envelope of water. He throatily screamed and made a desperate roll that saved his delicate body from being crushed like a grape. He pitched a few more wards at her, hoping more to deter her than hit her, and dashed for cover behind the wirey throne.

He heard her high-pitched laughter, coming from behind a statue to his right. "The mighty Marron Glace, master of Eastern Majiks, cowering before his own wife!" she chortled. "Cowering and waiting to die! Come, coward, I will end your wait!"

A statue slammed into the throne, crushing Marron up against the wall and soaking him again in water. He couldn't move to save his life, and his breathing space was too little. He screamed in pure agony as flares of torment rippled from his head, his chest (?broken ribs?), and his foot (?crushed under the throne?). He screamed as heavy blood pulsed in his brain and brought throbs of pain with it, as coppery liquid flooded his mouth from where he'd bit his tongue. But he still was coherent enough to hear her footsteps, sweeping up the argentum walkway, to gloat over him and drown him.

If he could unpin his arm from the wall--

--then--

*~*~*

Connola keened and shot waves of lightning from her eyes, but Carrot--in his new beast-form--was either immune or unknowing. He crossed the distance between them in scant seconds, bellowing and howling, and brought his fists up high over his head, claws bared.

The shell of a little girl froze in terror, then her voice was glutted on her own blood, then she was missing the lower half of her body.

"Take care of him again, will you?" Gāteau hissed to the sisters. He was watching through the ice intently. Indeed, he'd hardly moved since Tira had talked him out of punching out the ice, and if he was chilled from standing so close to the wall a thread from bareass, he didn't notice it at all.

"Please, Marron," he whispered as the sorceror approached her ruined throne, with the magician behind it. "Don't make me have to kill for revenge, I was shut of that once Opera's killers were brought to my justice. I don't want to have enough hate for revenge, ever. Don't die, Marron. Please..."

*~*~*

Sorbet wrapped throne and statue in water, and shoved them aside. Nearly a ton of silver toppled and hit the marble floor, shaking the room to its foundations and shattering the floor. She didn't note the destruction to her throne room, though. Her oak-green eyes were filled with Marron, his broken body crunched up against the wall, his ragged breath and fraying screams. And above all, his blood.

This is what she had sold her soul for.

Her smile was loving as she prepared to drown him once and for all.

*~*~*

Marron threw the ward.

***

~Eight~

Sorbet was filled with surprise. How had he dared--

She looked down, and saw the blade-like card jutting out of her chest, close enough to the heart to count for keepsies. "How," she started, then stopped as pain started chewing on her chest like a rat, and she lost her footing and collapsed on the walkway. Still, she was in too much shock to react to the pain. She clenched at the ward sticking into her breast, feeling the blood start to boil out of the wound, and didn't dare to yank it out. No point; it was fatal. Oh, yes, there was no doubt there, darlings. Quite fatal.

Things started to fall apart in her vision, and she started to let everything go.

In the next room, her attendants--thirty in all--were listening at the doorway. They now moved to open the door and rescue their mistress (what mistress, what a joke, she's nothing but worm-food now, ha!), but a scream from their ranks stopped that. All the serpentine women looked to the screamer, a short and hefty girl who was somewhere in her teens. She fell, flopped on the ground, spit blood, and died. At the instant of death, her face reverted from that of Sorbet's to her own--a pimply, sad face framed with Brillo-pad hair and containing black eyes and thick lips. By the time she was dead, half of the other priestesses to the Temple of Identical Dykes were screaming, and when they were dead, the other half was spitting blood.

In the waiting room, Zwieback's face turned into a rather lovely thing with cornsilk hair and dead grey eyes. Connola's face was much the same as before, only it was the face of a child and not a monster, and her hair was a darker, coarser blonde.

In the village, a bright glow blinded everyone for a solid instant, and when vision returned, the women were back to normal. The women looked at their hands in wonder, touched their faces and hair, felt for extra body parts and found none. A delighted yell came from everybody's lips; the men were just as glad to have their pretty girls back as the girls were glad to be pretty again. Celebration commenced in 39 seconds. (Nine months later, the village would experience a baby boom.)

In the throne room, the ice wall dissapated slowly. First it was ice, then it was like water, then steam, then nothing but clean air. The other four hunters slowly, cautiously stepped forward, like they expected it to re-form around their bodies.

But all Sorbet saw was Marron. Though his wounds were serious, he managed to crawl to where she lay on the steps, and eased down next to her. There was so much sadness in his voice as he said: "It had to be done, my love."

"I know," she said.

"You were mad."

"I know."

"Are you well now?"

"Better than I've been in months," she said, and laughed. There was no more pain; she was beyond pain. "I actually don't feel a thing, after that first jolt...funny, huh? I had a hell of a menstrual cramp until about thirty seconds ago. The cure isn't Midol, but a magical ward in the heart." She laughed again.

It was killing him just as surely as it killed her. "Sorbet--"

"You were too pure for me," she said. Her voice was getting fainter to her own ears. Hell, everything was getting fainter. "You know that as well as I do. I said you'd of done the same. Not true. You'd of died before ever letting the filthy magic possess you. And don't try to martyr me and say it wasn't my fault...I...I wanted it just as badly as I wanted you..."

She felt like she was traveling down a tunnel, and there was no light at the end.

She groped at something familiar. "'I beseech your grace...pardon me, I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.'"

Something shone in his golden eyes. "'Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.'"

"'No, sure, my lord...my mother...she cried...but then there was...a star...that danced...and under that...was I born...I cry your mercy...'"

And then, everything was gone, except for his eyes and his voice, saying: "'By my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.'" And it didn't take long before that was gone as well.

*~*~*

"Lord," Tira swore softly. There was a thickness in her throat, and her eyes were burning brightly with tears. Her voice made a croaking noise.

"I feel like I did when Carrot was with Lake," Chocolat whispered, her voice rough as her sister's with sadness.

"Why're we getting all soppy over a sorceror?" Carrot asked, not affected by the scene in the least. "She was going to kill the villagers! She'd have killed us without any sleep loss! And--"

"Shut the fuck up, you pissant," Gāteau growled. "Your brother is weeping over his wife."

Carrot's mouth clapped back shut, more out of surprise than anything else.

Marron was sobbing. He was soaking wet already, and his tears only added to it. His sobs were loaded down with anguish and betrayal. He hovered over the sorceror's body, afraid to touch her, and his tears pattered onto her pale face and reflected off the walkway. He was shaking all over, like the fact that he was dripping with water had only just caught up with him. And Gāteau was more than a little stunned. The blonde tried to think of a time when he'd seen Marron this vunerable, this tormented, and drew a blank.

He carefully started towards the broken man, and after a second, the other hunters followed his lead. He didn't know how Marron would react to his comfort, had no frickin' clue, to be blunt, but he had to try, or he'd kill himself with guilt. When he reached the stairs leading to the vacant throne area, he knelt down next to the sobbing man, and gently touched him on the shoulder. "Marron," he started. "You have no idea how sorry I am."

Marron looked at him, those elegant eyes spilling tears and filled with pain. "She was...she was...different," he struggled.

"We know that. It wasn't your fault."

"I--" Another sob wrenched away his voice, and he clung to Gāteau, his body shaking from the force of his grief. The bodybuilder knew for a fact that it wasn't a romantic thing, that Marron was clutching him around the neck like he would clutch a lifesaver, but Gāteau couldn't stop the hot rush of hope that set his heart at 150 plus. He gently put his arms around those frail shoulders, like he was afraid Marron would break, and held him.

Suddenly, the world melted around them as Big Momma brought them home.

*~*~*

*I have never seen you in such a bedraggled condition, Sorceror Hunters,* Le Gran Maedre said in mild surprise. She'd been watching them the entire time, of course, but seeing them before her was another thing entirely. For one thing, Carrot and Gāteau were stripped down to their underwear. For another, Tira and Chocolat were both looking frazzled, like they'd stuck their fingers in an outlet. For yet another, Marron was soaked to the bone, he was wearing a kimono-looking thing, he was weeping fit to die, and Gāteau was cradling him.

The deity didn't think her assertion was exaggerated.

*You have done well,* she said quietly. *Marron?*

He looked at her carefully. "Y-y-yes, Big M-momma?"

*If you ever keep something like marriage a secret from me again, you won't have to worry about dying in the war. I'll kill you myself.*

His smile was wan and forced.

*I'm sorry. I truly am. I can tell you that I sympathize with your loss--which I do--but I know you won't belive me. Just try to understand this, Marron: she wasn't the woman you were wedded to. Only a sliver of that person remained inside that corpse's shell, and you had to free her.* She paused. *And Carrot, be more wary of soceror children from now on. I can't shock you out of a charm spell every time.*

"Hey!" Carrot blurted, blushing.

*In any case, I don't think I'm overstepping my authority when I say you need a vacation desperately. Take a month off. Partial pay. Give yourselves a chance to heal and enjoy yourselves after this rough time. I'm thinking some place tropical. Illinois? Boston? It's cold there this time of year. Or the cornfields of North Dakota?* She laughed at their identical expressions of shock. *No? I suppose I'll just have to send you to Puerto Rico, then. Have fun.*

"Bye-bye, and have fun, you guys!" Dota chirped as Big Momma teleported the hunters away. "I dunno, Big Momma. Do you think it was wise to send them without their clothes?"

*They will find themselves fully dressed when they land. Don't doubt the power of God, Dota.*

***

(After.)

The Sorceror Hunters spent the first week of their vacation in recuperating from the draining battle. The Misus were up on their feet in three days, Carrot in five, and Gāteau in seven, but Marron refused to get out of bed. His injuries were graver--a badly crushed foot, bruised ribs and a big lump on his head were the worst of them--but these were healed over within ten days. He lay in bed and only ate when Gāteau or one of the sisters forced him. Carrot was too busy chasing Puerto Rican girls to worry too much about his brother's condition.

Marron stayed in his bed for two full weeks. On the two-week anniversary of the fight with his wife, Gāteau went into his room to feed him dinner and didn't come out. No one was sure what went on behind that bedroom door, but Marron left his room the next day. He was bathed, smiling, and wearing a Hawaiian shirt at Chocolat's behest. He started to join in on their vacation, and after another week of crying himself to sleep, he started to enjoy it. No one asked what had gone between him and Gāteau, and so he told no lies, but the bodybuilder no longer made any efforts to molest the magician.

When they returned to Big Momma and Dota to recieve their new orders, no one thought they had ever seen Marron so alive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer

The Sorceror Hunters and anything pertaining to that anime/manga belongs to its creators, not to me, no matter how hard I wish. They are being used without permission for fun, not profit. If you don't know this, then you are a sad sack of shit. Go crawl under a rock and wither up and die. Like I said, I probably got plenty of stuff wrong, but I like this one. The lines Marron and Sorbet quote are from Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", Act 2, scene 1. Used without permission unless you can ressurect old Shakes for me.

In contrast with the characters I've borrowed, Sorbet, Connola, Zwieback, and any characters/places not belonging to Sorceror Hunters are mine, and may not be used without my permission (God only knows why anyone would want to use them, since they're all dead, but...). You never know, after all.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

"TFTBBNC" stands for "the flames that burn but not consume". It's way too long to write that out every time.

About the pen suddenly appearing through the ceiling and "almighty creator"... I had to rewrite the entire story, from Carrot's comment on angels to the second time they try to get in good with Sorbet, after it was inexplicably lost. It was very frustrating to redo the entire thing, as you can imagine.