What Kind of Bumbling Villains Are You?!

Count Franz and his evil henchmen from the Third Coven seemed to have chosen Matsuyama as their totally random city to destroy. And I just so happened to be here when they chose this city as their target? All of this while I was dealing with an invasion of cat Hollows? Who's been coming up with these villainous plots, anyways?

I raised my non-staff hand into the air. With a couple of twirls, I said, “I'm the cute defender of justice! Magical Intern Ayame!” Completing my pose, I twirled my staff a couple of times, did one more spin, and said, “For the sake of all that is cute and fluffy, stop this evil at once! Please?” That please was accompanied by me cupping my hands together and attempting to do a pleading puppy face.

"So, magical intern," Count Franz said, "how do you like my latest master plan?"

“Can we make this quick?” I asked the Count. “I'm kinda in the middle of figuring out what to do with all of these cats!”

“No,” the Count answered. “We're going to make you spend the rest of the day hunting down a magical explosive that you have to dispose of before it explodes, destroying the entire city in the process!”

“Magical explosive, you say?” I wondered… “Can you tell me what said explosive is made of?”

“Why, child, it's a spell ball that we've been building up with magical energy,” the Count explained.

That gave me an idea. If it worked with Marie, sure it would have worked with the Count. Just let the villain talk their way into getting defeated. I gave Aichi a wink, which was my signal to him to go looking for the magical explosive. In the meantime, my plan was to allow Count Franz to go into an exposition-dumping monologue. I put my hands behind my back and acted like a child who saw their very first school.

“Oh wow,” I pretended to be shocked, horrified even, at the prospect of their plan actually somehow succeeding. In order for the plan to succeed, I needed to act helpless. I needed to act cute. “It must have taken a genius such as yourself a long time to put this plan into action!”

“About a week, yes, child,” the Count continued. The admission. So that must have been where the city's magic went. All that magical energy going into a giant explosive would have definitely been sufficient to force the Hollows to go crazy from hunger. It would have been foolproof if there wasn't, say, a magical hero who just so happened to be in town for the whole thing to unfold.

“Wow, that's so viciously evil,” I pretended to compliment the Count on his evil scheme. I twirled one of my twin tails for a bit. It took everything I had to keep my eyes from rolling even slightly. “What led you down such a dark and twisted path that you would blow up an entire city because of sheer petty rivalries?”

“Well, child, since you'll be defeated fairly shortly, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to explain to you my entire villainous backstory,” the Count said. So he went into the unnecessarily convoluted details about how he was but a wee lad in the hill country of Transylvania. Neither of his parents showed up for his birth. He was forced to wear hand-me-downs that were three sizes too big for him. He was forced to be the statue at the entrance of his village after his brother broke the old one. After his entire family moved to America without him, he was raised by Hollows who taught him magic… Zzz…

Zzz…

Ugh! I couldn't believe I fell asleep during another villain’s monologue!

“Ayame ~woof!” Aichi shook me awake with the sound of his voice. “I found the magic bomb!” The giant ball of magical energy was probably one hundred times his size, glowing in a vibrant and constantly shifting rainbow of colors.

“No!!!” the Count screamed. “You've tricked me into going into my needlessly complicated villainous backstory so your Hollow mascot could go looking for the bomb!”

“That's right!” I told him triumphantly. “Tricked you!”

“Now watch, ~woof, as I, the Amazing Aichi, make this ball of magic disappear!” Aichi howled his deepest, loudest howling possible. “Awooooooooooo!” This was enough to draw the attention of every single cat Hollow in the city of Matsuyama, hundreds and hundreds of them. Like moths to a flame, the cat Hollows flew up to the ball of magic and began to eat it. Even Aichi couldn't resist taking a few bites out of the magic ball.

But instead of being shocked, surprised, or even so much as vowing revenge, Count Franz instead began to laugh maniacally.

“What's so funny?” I asked him.

“You're may have saved the city from destruction, child,” the Count explained, “but at what cost? When the magic is set to explode, all of your precious Hollows will be blown to pieces!”

“Coming from someone who was raised by Hollows?” I asked in shock. “That's low, dude.”

“10… 9… 8…” the Count began to count down the seconds remaining to the explosion. By now, the entire ball of magic had been consumed by the Hollows.

“Wait, I thought you said the magic bomb would explode at the end of the day!” I shouted.

“Yeah…” the Count replied, “I lied. 3… 2… 1…”

All at once, every single Hollow in the city, including Aichi, let out a very loud belch. Magic filled the air, giving the air a very strange smoked fish smell. Hollows could survive explosions; that was good to know.

“Sorry, Ayame…” Aichi told me.

“What?!” The Count could not believe what he just saw. “Who? How?”

“Where? When? Why?!” I mocked the Count by asking the other questions. “You didn't know Hollows could withstand explosions? I sure didn't until just now.”

The Count groaned in agony. He knew he had been beaten. “Survive this explosion! Bomb Arrow!!” I wasn't even sure what kind of dance he was trying to do in order to cast the Bomb Arrow spell. Whatever it was, it didn't quite work as a giant explosion suddenly appeared between his floating chair… thing… and me!

I screamed as I tried to get out of the way of the explosion. They always said cool people never looked at explosions. I was not a very cool person, apparently… The Count, meanwhile, was launched clear past the horizon in defeat.

“I swear, Magical Intern Ayame,” the Count screamed as his chair was thrown across the sky, “I swear I will have my revenge… as soon as I stop blasting off again!”

Yet another villain defeated by their own hubris.

•

With Count Franz defeated once again, and the magical energy returned, the Hollows in the city were very grateful for our help.

“~woof, the Hollows wanted to apologize for the trouble they caused,” Aichi told me, serving as the translator between me and them.

“Tell them it's no problem,” I said to Aichi. “But next time someone starves them of magic, let us know before they start attacking people.”

“Woof! Arf-arf! Bow!” Aichi told the Hollows, who responded with a single meow in unison. He then turned to me and said, “The Hollows understand.”

There was still the issue of the power being out across the entire city, but that was a very easy problem for the residents to solve. At least… it was easy compared to us needing to fight a magical neko-chan and the Third Coven.

“Hey, Ayame,” Sakamoto said as he walked up to me. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

“Yeah…” I told him. “I still owe you that interview, right?”

“I mean, it would help me out a lot with this new headline I'm working on,” Sakamoto answered. “Mystery Witch No Longer Mystery.”

“Are you sure you want to name it that?” I asked him.

“I'm working on the title,” Sakamoto told me. “These things take time to cook.”