Fifteen -
Disgaea, Etna and Flonne plot against Laharl
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"Short?" suggested Etna.

"Little," sighed Flonne.

"Half-naked."

"Underdressed!"

"Scrawny."

"Underfed, Etna-san, be fair!"

"I'm a demon. I'm not supposed to be fair. And Laharl is short, scrawny, badly and barely dressed, and scraggly."

"Etna-san!" Flonne clapped both hands over her mouth, shocked and appalled. "You shouldn't talk about poor Laharl-sama that way! He can't help it that he's... he's..."

"A prepubescent fashion victim."

"No!... ah. Yes." Flonne hung her head.

Etna tucked both hands behind her head and twirled her tail absently. "You should have met his father! Now there was a man who knew how to dress. But you're right, Laharl needs help."

"Ah! Etna-san! I know!" Flonne clapped her hands together, beaming. "We could give Laharl-sama a makeover!"

"Huh?" Etna quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at Flonne. "What for? Sounds like work."

"Because!" Flonne stomped her foot. "Because... ah... well, because no one in the demon world dresses as well as Etna-san! And I've been doing some research--" Flonne popped out of the room in a flurry of wings, reappeared, and dumped a huge pile of manga at Etna's feet. "--and I bet that together we could make Laharl properly impressive!"

"Ehhh..." But Etna sat up and picked up one of the books, idly flipping through it. "Can't hurt to think about it, I suppose."

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"A trenchcoat, Etna-san! All the best villains have trenchcoats!"

"Lots of demons wear capes, too. We could get him one with those big shoulder-guards."

"And, and, and, platform boots! I bet if they were all black no one would notice that Laharl-sama was wearing them, and they would make him taller!"

"Got to do something about that hair. Suppose he could grow it long, or slick it all back, like this guy does."

"Ohh, and he needs a mask or something!"

"And leather pants. Definitely."

"Etna-san! You're awful! ...do you really think so?"

"Definitely. They'll hide those scrawny little legs."

"Um. Okay. So, should he have a mask, or should we get him little glasses instead?"

"Ehh, get him both and we can decide later. Just add everything to the list."

"Oh, oh, oh, or we could get him an eyepatch instead! That would look very scary."

"Wings. Definitely wings. Big black ones."

"And big scary claws!"

"Huh. This guy has a lot of bandages on. I didn't know that was scary. Look..."

"KYAAAAAA!"

"... right, adding bandages to the list."

"Don't do that, Etna-san! ... AAA put that one down! Please don't look at that!!"

"What, this? ... heh. Heh heh heh. Aah, Flonne. It's always the quiet ones."

"Oh, I'm so embarrassed... but I suppose that is scary..."

"Right! Leather harness and lots of chains! On the list!"

"Oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing..."

"Eh? What does your goodness have to do with anything? Especially with a book like this..."

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Etna shoved her way up to Laharl's throne and stood in front of it, crossing her arms over her chest and thoroughly disrupting his view of his minions. "Hey. Laharl."

Laharl scowled up at her. "Eh? What?"

"C'mere." Not really waiting for an answer, Etna grabbed Laharl's ear and dragged him off in the general direction of his bedroom. Laharl snarled and spat and fought right up until the moment when Etna dragged him out of sight of the demons clustered in the throne room, at which point there was a loud 'clonk' (such as might be produced by an angelic frying pan hitting a demon overlord very hard in the head) and Laharl, abruptly, was silent.

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"Okay! He's cooperative! So what do we try on him first, Etna-san?"

"Eh, I dunno. Let's just put it all on him and then take off whatever doesn't look right."

"Aah, Etna-san, you're so smart."