Author's Note: I don't own the song "War," and I don't own my friends (who are featured as demons). I own everything else, however!

The whole gang was crowded inside Ai's room celebrating something-or-other. They were doing the same thing they always did...

"ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!" Tara's shout raised a cheer like the first day of Spring Break on a Florida beach, and also a verse of "War."

Chikako started singing. "Peace, love, and understanding, tell me
"Is there no place for them today?
"They say we must fight, to keep our freedom,
"But Lord knows there's got to be a better way..."

Tara whacked her over the head, and she shut up.

"What's Florida?" asked Koan. Nobody knew.

"I feel like killing myself today!" remarked Kenji cheerily. "Anybody with me? Hmm?" Nobody was.

"What's Kenji so happy about?" asked Chikako of nobody.

Satoshi was used to being referred to as "nobody." Something about spite. "I think he just ran a five-yard marathon."

"No," disagreed Naomi, "that's stupid. Everybody knows that exercise makes you feel bad. It makes the chemicals that make you happy leak out when you sweat." Everybody agreed.

Ai was used to being referred to as "everybody." Something about having no clear personality. "Yep," she confirmed.

"What do you get spited for?" asked Makoto of nobody.

"What do YOU get spited for?" shot back Satoshi.

"I DON'T KNOW!!" Tara burst out crying.

"Aah!" Makoto collapsed on the ground. "I've been hit!"

"I have the dagger right here," continued Kenji. "I'm just not quite sure what to do with it."

"So I'm a balloon, you know," said Tara morosely. Nobody was sure what she meant by that, but fortunately, nobody cared.

"Me, too," lied a High-Quality Rat as it wandered by.

"Oh, aye," agreed a Low-Quality Podima, chasing it hungrily.

"Aah! It's a Podima!!" Naomi screamed and fainted. Somebody kicked her into a corner.

"Hey, that wasn't nice!" cried everybody.

Takashi was used to being called "somebody." Something about being more common than dirt. "Sorry." He paled.

"Should I cut my wrists? Stab my heart? Fall on it? Prop it up and jump on it?" Kenji waved his dagger around in demonstration of the many possibilities.

"Doesn't seem like that many to me," grumbled Tara. "What a lousy rip-off."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," responded Satoshi, annoyed by her whining.

"You're just jealous because you aren't beautiful!" shouted somebody. The room turned into a riot.

"Take that back!" demanded Kenji, trying to stab people with his dagger.

"Make me!" Takashi twirled a heavy sapphire necklace around like a mace.

"I'll be the most beautiful person here in a moment!" screeched Tara with a voice to shatter glass.

"Aah! My eyes! It burns!" screamed Koan when Takashi got too close.

"I'll get you, dirt boy!" Naomi failed to cry.

"Just you try, witch!" Makoto failed to respond.

"I will protect Chikako's honor!" shouted Ai, grabbing Tara's hair.

"No! I won't let you!" Chikako silently leapt through a window and fled, cackling madly and flying on a toadstool.

"Tara is mine! You cannot have her!" yelled Kenji to somebody.

"Your reverse-psychology won't work on me! You will never have my Ai!"

"I need a girl!" shouted Satoshi shrilly. Nobody cared.

Ai stole Takashi's ring and deafened Tara. "Now let's see how tough you are!"

"Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!" Tara's shriek turned the sand to dust.

"MINE! Gimme!" Satoshi leapt into the fray and tried to steal Kenji's dagger.

"No, you greedy son of a fisherman!" They started trading blows.

Takashi watched with some envy. "Wow, those are some really nice blows you got there. May I join?" He gave one to Kenji.

"Yeah, go ahead!" Kenji repaid it with one of his own.

"Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Alarm clock! Alarm clock! Ding-dong! Ding-don..."

Ai shut off her alarm clock. "Wow, I can't believe how time's flown. This was great, wasn't it? Gotta be getting back to work now, though."

"What a shame... but you're right," agreed somebody. A flood of farewells followed, sweeping away the dust.

"You can be sure of it!"

*************************************************************

The nine stood on a street at night, the yellow streetlights reflecting in their eyes and the wind blowing back their hair and clothing. They faced four formless demons who fortunately didn't have hair or clothing to worry about blowing in their faces. The drama of the scene was, sadly, ruined by said demons. They didn't even seem to notice their hunters.

A purple-ish demon with brown eyes was arguing with a black demon with green eyes. "i'M WORKING ON IT, i'M WORKING ON IT," she said, rolling her eyes like she'd said it often before.

The green demon with blue eyes glared at the black one and thwacked him. Or something. Hard to tell, with their constantly shifting shapes. "You leve Teeg alone, you hear me?"

"Hey! I was, I was!" The black one wafted away. "You think I'd be carousing her, Sue?" He saw the others blinking at him. "I meant 'hassling.'"

The green Spelling demon snickered. "Those words weren't even close to being relatted."

The fourth demon, a blue-eyed one dressed in pixi-stix-pink, snickered for a moment along with Sue before answering the Typo demon. "Yes. Yes, she does. Grssik!"

"Ha, ha, very funny, Mattie. ...oh, wait, she's right. Heh!" Sue grinned.

Shot Gun rolled his eyes. "Why do I bang with you three, anyway? ...OW!" The male had just been whacked by the three females. "I meant 'hang!' Geez! What do you think of me??"

"nOT MUCH."

The black demon looked saddened. "I'm just a lowly Typo demon... you expect to much of me."

"Yeah, like having your mistakes be mild to modderat in flaver?"

"Oh, come on..."

The green one shrugged. "Just reember that it's not our fault iF WE TAKE YOU WRONG! ...hey!"

Teeg was unabashed. "Yes?"

"Nevermind. Some things about you are ineffiable."

The hunters were watching the demons with shock. "Um..." Ai paused to find the best way to phrase her question. "Er, demons?" One or two of them turned to face the hunters. "So, are we... are you... um..."

Satoshi cut off her insipid rambling. "We're here to put an end to your rampage! The earth will no more be troubled by your... by your... er..." He too was stopped by the demons' bored expressions. They just looked at him as if he was ill-mannered brat that they weren't about to encourage with a response. They stayed that way for a few moments before returning to their conversation as if nothing had happened.

"So, how's your hanting going?"

"gREAT! i FOUND THIS ONE GIRL... been terrorizing her for months now. SHE KEEPS Me occupied most of the time... i THINK SHE'S STARTING TO CATCH ON, THOUGH."

"Aww! Has she been doing exorsisms?"

"no! i've been lucky."

"lkasdfelfkj... I found this one person, she has them done every other day! Just in case! Bjee jee jee!"

"You're kiding!"

"You know I'm noaut!"

"i GUESS IT'S LIKE THAT aPPLE-a-dAY THING." They all laughed at the stupidity of humans.

Chikako sweatdropped. "They aren't being very nice, are they?"

Kenji rolled his eyes. "They aren't trying to be mean to us, either. I'm not sure they even remember we're here."

There was a pause from the hunters. "...is this a problem?"

"...more of a wanderring demon, you uderstand." The demons nodded or went "kelb" depending on their personal preference, so the green one went on. "Personaly, I love it. You get to make lots of people mad, not just drive one pore one insane. To each there own, thoh."

"Shame here," said the black demon.

"Huh?"

"wHO'S A SHAME??"

"Wuffle!"

"'Same!' I meant 'same.' I was agreeing with Spelling." The females nodded and accepted that.

"So what's the best you've ever goten?"

"tHE GIRL I'm currently haunting keeps getting people telling her to learn how to type. It drives her batty!" They laughed. "yOU PROBABLY HAVE A GOOD ONE, sHOT gUN."

The black demon grinned. "One guy had his friend not talk to him for three days because she wouldn't believe it was just a typo. I think he ended up having to right her a sonnet."

"Eeeevvvvviiiiiiiillllllllll JRWWRWWRWWRWWRWW!!!"

"Yeah! Well, I just make people look like total fools. There was this one guy... I made him stick two errors in a single title for a story. It was histerical! He got flamed for that." They all laughed. "So what about you, Mattie?"

Random frowned for a moment. "Well, I've had people get really angry at my possessed, but... they never seem to mind. Weird, je?" The demons considered this seriously for a couple of seconds before bursting out laughing again.

"Stupid humANS!"

With the demons occupied by their own conversation, the nine talked among themselves.

"Those are the strangest colors... I mean, the black I understand. The black makes sense." The girl that looked like a demon herself paused to let the others nod. "The green... the green... a bit cheerful. Okay, a lot cheerful. But I could go with the green." The other eight gave rueful shrugs. "But the pink? Pink is not an evil color. Pink is NOT a demon color. Demons just don't come in pink."

Kenji rolled his eyes. "Ai? Weirdest thing. That demon over there IS pink. Huh. Maybe we oughta go tell it that it isn't really a demon. Whaddya think?"

"...fine, fine! Demons SHOULDN'T come in pink!"

"And purple?"

"Oh, don't get me started on the purple. Pink and purple! Purple and pink! What ARE nefarious beings THINKING these days, huh? PINK! PURPLE! GREEN?? Oh me oh my oh us!" Ai threw up her hands in despair.

"Humans are far too disqualified!"

Spelling nodded. "Yeah. I get no raspect from them at all. It's possitively irksom!"

"i KNOW! wE DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY Good expressions. 'The devil made me do it.' tHE DEVIL! oH, YES, GIVE ALL THE CREDIT TO THE DEVIL."

"Mef! Just because we aren't known about doesn't mean we should be ignored! SQID!"

"Sqid indeed, Mattie. Sqid indeed..."

Still sympathizing about disrespectful humans, the four demons slipped through a moonbeam and disappeared from the world.

The hunters stood looking at where their prey had been, the silence ringing in their ears.

"Well," said Ai cheerily, "I think that went well, don't you?"

Naomi laughed harshly. "Yeah, least damage yet."

"Not even a fence to repaint!" Kenji joined in.

There was another pause while Kenji and Naomi quieted down.

Koan shrugged. "See ya next time!"

The nine gave a chorused "goodnight," then paired off and separated -- Koan with Chikako, Tara with Kenji, Satoshi with Naomi, and Takashi and Ai. Soon Makoto was the last demon hunter, left standing in the middle of the night-darkened street.

"Guess it's just me and my rabid Takashi fangirl again!" He skipped off with SaturnActingChick by his side.