“Who, me? I’m a Champion of Justice. And you are the Supreme Ruler of Evil, right?”
“Indeed I am! …Wait a minute, did you just say ‘a Champion of Justice’?!” Mia quickly hurled the bag of trash to the side and darted away, trying to put some distance between her and the man. Then she took a shaky breath. “Who on Earth are you?!” she pointed an accusing finger at him.
The man simply stood there calmly, with his hands stuffed in his trouser pockets. “I just told you that I’m a Champion of Justice, duh. Were you even listening?”
“Wrong! In a situation like this, you should be saying something like, ‘I cannot let such an evil deed go unpunished!’”
“Huh… But you were just picking up garbage, yeah? It just didn’t look all that evil to me, ya know.”
“Your timing is off! I was inflicting harm upon the ordinary citizens to achieve my ambition just mere minutes ago. If you had been here at that time, you would have seen a solid evil deed!”
“Whoops, sorry, my bad, had to drop by the convenience store real quick.”
Mia was thoroughly exasperated by his lackadaisical attitude.
This was all wrong. Her enemy, the ‘Champion of Justice’, was supposed to be different.
“Hey, scoundrel, do you have any passion for your job at all? You’re supposed to be a Champion of Justice here!”
“Uh, well, yeah, I guess… So, you really are the Supreme Ruler of Evil?”
“Mwahahaha, I’m glad you asked!” Mia pushed her cape behind her with a sharp flick of her wrist.
Try as she did with all her might, the hem of her too-long cape stayed glued to the ground. It looked a bit lame, but she refused to let that get to her.
“I am the Supreme Ruler of the evil organization known as Gealach, the Sorceress of Darkness, Oonari Mia!” Mia introduced herself loud and proud, not forgetting to take her signature pose, naturally.
The man, seemingly impressed, rewarded her performance with light applause. “Whoa, I can see you’ve practiced a lot, very impressive! But hey, I’ve heard some things about Supreme Rulers of Evil, and apparently they usually go by some sort of codename or alias. Is Oonari Mia your real name by any chance?”
“Drat! Damnation!” She actually had thought up a codename for herself, but she had ended up blurting out her real name on the spur of the moment. “No, no, I made a mistake! I do have a codename! Err… Oh, right! It’s ‘Draiocht’!”
“Huh, I see. Well, nice meeting you, Mia!”
“Don’t you dare call me Mia! You have to properly address me as ‘Draiocht’!” She shouted at the top of her lungs, and promptly ran out of breath.
Ever since she had met the man, she’d been getting worked up, and it had finally worn her down. World domination was no piece of cake.
“Run out of steam, have ya? Well, no wonder you’re tired after yelling that much! I’ve got coffee if you want some?”
“As if I would accept charity from my enemy! How about you introduce yourself instead?”
“Well, while I’m dying to do just that, I kinda have to wait for the others before I do.”
At the man’s words, Mia was hit by a sudden terrible realization. That’s right, a ‘Champion of Justice’ was never alone. According to her father, Champions of Justice tended to flock together and form groups. Like turtles…or maybe worms—yes just like worms do when they gather together on the sidewalks after it rains. She didn’t know how many of them there were, but—
As she was remembering her father’s words, a group of people walked up from behind to join her enemy.
“So sorry, Ren! We stopped by this cell phone shop for a bit…”
“Ugh, I really wish they would cut it out with having us work on holidays.”
“Whoa, look, there really is a girl matching the description! Hey, why didn’t you contact us sooner?”
“Sorry. I was off duty, so I was sleeping.”
Three men, one woman. If she counted the man she was talking to, that made for four men, one woman—five people in total.
Just as Mia braced her wand, ready for battle, one of the men who had appeared took a step in front, blocking her way.
“I haven’t personally seen your evil deeds to be honest, but let’s say that you were indeed up to no good here. Anyway, I can’t let you go unpunished. We are the Champions of Justice, Crow Rangers! Red Ranger, reporting for duty!”
Mia involuntarily let out a small “oh” of admiration towards the man introducing himself as the Red Ranger. This was it—this was the kind of passion she was looking for!
However, no one else appeared to even try to match Red’s zeal. The rest of the members went on with their introductions in a very mundane manner.
“Ugh, would you please stop saying ‘Crow Rangers’? Oh, I’m Pink, by the way. But being called Pink at this age is really embarrassing, so call me Aya, okay?”
“Nice to meet you! I’m Yellow. See this yellow plate I have on my jacket? If you’re ever confused, you can tell us apart by looking at the plates. I’d like it if you called me Shou.”
“What color was I again? …Oh right, I’m Blue! You can call me Subaru.”
Mia was flustered by this influx of introductions. “W-Wait a minute! It’s too sudden! So it was, uh, Red, Aya, Shou, and Subaru?”
“Bingo. By the way, Red’s name is Misaki. And I’m Ren. My plate’s green, see?” The man who had called out to her first grinned broadly, walking up to her to show her the plate.
“I see, just like Shou said, I can identify which color you are just by looking at your plates.” Mia inadvertently moved closer to Ren, intently studying his plate. “Ah, so ‘Crow Rangers’ is actually written on your plates.”
“Yep. That’s something our Chief came up with. He says he likes the youthful enthusiasm it exudes. Sucks for us though,” Ren explained.
“His naming sense is just the worst,” Aya grimaced in agreement.
“Hey! That’s enough fooling around! We’ve got a job to do here. We’ll be receiving a bonus for working on a holiday, so get to it!” Misaki, the proud owner of the red plate, scolded his colleagues.
However, the four others remained thoroughly uninterested, which made Mia feel bad for Misaki. Ren leisurely stroked his chin, muttering, “And what do you want me to do anyway?” Then he looked up, “Oh, I almost forgot! She said her name’s Mia Oonari!”
“Quit calling me Mia! It’s ‘Draiocht’ for you! And don’t go introducing me without my permission!” Mia bristled instantly, but Ren was completely unaffected and casually shrugged his shoulders.
“Like it matters. So, what are we gonna do? Wanna fight?”
“Er, I’m fine with fighting, but can you wait a bit?”
Normally, as the Supreme Ruler of Evil, she should’ve been jumping at the chance to fight, but Mia still had unfinished business. Ren stared at her, clearly puzzled, so she pointed at the garbage bag she had thrown to the side earlier.
“Those insolent pests I had to deal with bolted before picking up their trash, so could we please wait until after I am done cleaning up?”
“I don’t mind. What happened here exactly?” Shou, the young man with the yellow plate, asked, so Mia decided to explain what had transpired thus far.
“There were some people making a racket here, blasting music from their speakers at full volume early in the morning. They were also scattering their litter about. This irritated me so much that I taught them a lesson, but they ran away without cleaning up after themselves.”
“Ah, that sounds troublesome. So you gave them an earful, huh,” Shou summarized.
“I don’t ‘give an earful’. I simply cannot let slide behavior that ruins the natural beauty of or endangers the peaceful life of the residents of this territory I am in charge of. That is why I sacrificed them upon the cornerstone of my glory!”
“Ah, I see! How noble of you, Mia!” Aya chimed in, smiling, and patted Mia on the head.
“Hey, stop touching me!” Mia furiously shook her head free from Aya’s hand, then turned and tried to lift the huge speakers, but they were so large that she couldn’t get them to budge.
Noticing her struggle, Ren approached her. “Want some help?”
“That will not be necessary! To me, this is supposed to be a springboard towards world domination. I cannot accept help from a Champion of Justice.”
“What are you gonna do then? No matter how you look at it, they’re way too big and heavy for you to lift.”
Indeed, the speakers were of considerable size, about Mia’s height. Yet, Mia proceeded to laugh evilly with her hands on her hips before climbing atop the speakers. “Hehehe! You’re naïve to think a trifle like this would hold me back, the Great Dark Sorceress, Mia Oonari!”
“You just keep adding to your title, huh? Also, you just used your real name again.”
“Gahh! I meant ‘Draiocht’!”
“I’m already used to calling you Mia. It’s easier to say, too. Mia-mia!”
“Don’t call me Mia-mia! Anyway, all of you can sit back, relax, and watch as I come closer to enforcing my dictatorship!” She waved her wand from her position atop the speakers, and chanted her spell, pouring intent into her words. “Fly with me into the skies!”
The moment the words left her lips, a gust of wind softly blew by. Mia, the speakers, and also Ren, who was standing right next to her, all floated into the air.
“Wh-Whoa!” he exclaimed.
“Wowie! Ren’s levitating!” Shou cheered, evidently amused by the sight of Ren struggling to keep his balance.
“This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this. So this is the ‘magic’ she was talking about,” Subaru whispered with awe.
“When I heard about it from our Chief, I thought it was just the ramblings of a crazy old man, but it was true, huh?” Aya stared on in wonder.
“Do you guys have any sense of urgency at all?! Let’s fight it out and get this over with already!” Misaki raged alone. No one on his team listened to him.
However, Mia flew up to him, looking embarrassed. “Do you think if I gathered their belongings and left them together around here somewhere, the police would treat it as lost property?”
“…Yeah, you do that. We’re police officers too. We’ll let the Traffic Division know about it on your behalf, so get moving already!”