Empire Arrest

The Magician Arc

Across Tokyo, far away from the raging battle between Tama and Starplus, Magical Girls continue their duties like on any other night. One after another they transform into their magically enhanced bodies, sneak out of various homes, and begin their nightly patrols. Each one with a designated district to oversee and protect. These Magical Girls were the Operators, and according to the hierarchy of Magical Society, they were very much the equivalent of interns, the lowest element who do the grunt work no-one with authority wants.

Supervising the Operators was the job of the Inspectors, although they were rarely directly confrontational. Inspectors went where Operators had screwed something up, usually things like being seen by outsiders, mishandling a situation, or on rare occasions, deliberate abuse of power. The Magical realm took that last one very seriously, magical powers were awoken to help the people, not do whatever they want.

Among the Inspectors were different corps, and Tokyo was home to one of the most famous, run by the enigmatic Queen. Queen-Side Rook numbered among them, the magical girl clad in armor like a knight over her vibrant green skirts, hair tied back in a perfect ponytail, with ribbon, nail polish, and lipstick matching.

Rook had been key to the defeat and purification of the Maniacal, and had gone from a second-class Inspector to a propositional first-class. That is, if she could keep her cool. Unfortunately, despite her newfound fame, many of the people who were directly in charge of the Inspection bureau were among those who despised the idea of upward movement.

Rook remained on patrol duty despite all that had happened. But she didn't care too much, she liked the alone time. And she was definitely happy to not have to deal with anyone else. Working with others had just been a burden, and she certainly wasn't secretly hoping for a call. Nope. That wasn't her style.

Rook was used to spending her time alone. She ate alone, she lived alone, and she worked alone.

At this moment, dispelling the notion of her inner loneliness, Rook was on her way to a trouble spot across Tokyo, heading to the electric district.

♖ Queen-Side Rook ♖

I jump through the air. It’s nice weather out for some, but it’s a pain in a set of armor like this. Even magical armor still has some real weight to it.

“Ugh… Boshi, how much further?” I ask. My little fairy friend pops out of seemingly-nowhere and into my field of vision, fluttering her wings as if stretching from a nap.

“Not far now! Only three city blocks.” She replies. I give a nod and continue to jump along the rooftops. I hopped between rooftops until the subtle night lights of the smaller residential town became the brighter lights of the electronics district, and I kept paused atop a large building near a train station, looking down at the main street.

Somewhere… Somewhere…

“Boshi, any sign?” My little fairy swung around me, squinting close. Since the incident with the Fool Maniacal, I’d been given special privileges, and Boshi’s powers had been upgraded to include more specific pursuit abilities.

And this one, for example, detected the activation of a Resonance.

“There!” Boshi says, pointing at one of the Pachinko parlors that dotted this district. Pachinko. Great.

I wave my hand across and begin casting a freeze spell, Boshi augmenting it.

At once, the parlor seems to be covered in a large bubble where time slows down. I jump down into it, and begin my investigation.

*            *            *

Pachinko parlors are loud. They’re chaotic, there’s the slamming and whirring of a hundred types of games, the clacking of money and the receiving of trade-in tokens. Time-stopped, the eerie silence was disturbing, but the smell of cigarettes wouldn’t go away.

I walk around the room slowly, studying intently the faces of all of the people. Nothing sticks out as screaming “Magical Girl”, no bright colours or shining tiaras. Magical Girls who catch my attention regularly tend to learn to camouflage the more flashy elements of their costumes.

I’d need to find some other clues. Of course, I could wait until she starts moving again, that’s an option I have, but Magical Girls have impressive stamina, and chances are good she could stay fake-frozen until time resumes. Instead, I search around for clues until I notice a pair of staff near the main desk. Both of them are staring in the same direction with suspicion. I follow the trail of their eyes, and…

I stare at one of the frozen guests. Short but curly blonde hair, a large grey overcoat and over-large 1950s movie star sunglasses. She’s holding a cigarette in one hand in an attempt to look mature, but it’s clear that the lines of her face are young. It’s hard to tell if the staff are just professionals questioning her age, or creeps staring at the prettiest girl in the room. Either way, I place a hand on her shoulder.

“EMP-Ire.” I address her. Her shoulder sags under my hand.
“...It was an accident?” Her hand goes to rest on the machine, I grab it and twist it behind her before she touches the metal box, and walk her out of the parlor.
“At least let me grab my winnings! Ow, ow!” Once we get into the street, we jump up onto a nearby roof and I grab the coat, ripping it off her.

The Magical Girl beneath the shaggy grey coat was wearing a beautiful costume- a one-piece swimsuit like design, with a transparent light blue skirt flaring out like a tutu. One side had a long glove up to the elbow, the other was bare. Her boots travelled all the way up to mid-thigh-level, and the heels raised her a couple of inches. Her hair, a golden mop of curls, was topped with a tiara with a light blue gem set within it.

“It’s a fair cop.” If anyone can aggressively put their hands up to surrender, it was her. I groan and pinch the bridge of my nose, staring at her.
“How many times is this now?” I say, she gives a small shrug.
“Who’s counting?”
“The Magical Bureau of Investigation. And it’s nineteen.” I reply, gritting my teeth.
“See, I knew that was a trick question! Also, with the statute of limitations, it should re’lly be closer to a five.”
“There is no statute of limitations to Magical Crime!” I say, hotly.
“And that’s the problem! Really, the system’s failed me.” She pokes out her tongue, and I click my tongue in annoyance.

“...You’re under arrest. Again.” I summon my magical circle and begin casting a binding spell.
“Take me away, copper!” She puts her wrists together and waits while the magical ropes appear to tie them together. She knows she’ll be out after a harsh lecture, and I know it too.

Normally, the Magical realm works on a three strike policy for abuse of powers, but EMP-Ire passed that limit before I even became an Inspector. She’s kept around because of how rare her powers are. Magical Girls most commonly have a combat-oriented Resonance, such as my Gungnir, or something more gentle, like calming hearts and detecting evil intent. Magic doesn’t play nice with technology, so having a machine-based Resonance gets you far too much freedom for my taste.

EMP-Ire is one of those girls. When she touches her bare skin to a machine, she can possess it like a poltergeist and manipulate it to her will, within the limitations of its form. She can make a poorly-functional robotics kit dance like it’s walking on the moon, make cars drive to any destination she desires, or even that one time she made a row of Pachinko machines fire out coins like bullets. I had welts for weeks.

With this power, a generous and kind hearted Magical Girl could help a lot of people. She could reorganize traffic systems to flow perfectly, slow down fast cars, expose the fraud going on in billion-dollar multinational businesses. EMP-Ire is not generous. EMP-Ire is not kind. If she were to reorganize traffic systems, it would be so that her Uher-eats gets to her faster. If she took control of a speeding car, she’d make it speed to two hundred miles an hour to laugh at the driver’s expression. If she hacked into a billion-dollar multinational, it’d only be to skim the cream off the top of their cashpot.

Lately, she’d been having too much fun in Pachinko parlors, fixing games so that at random everyone would win, or no-one would win. Really, it depended on what would be funniest to her. I don’t approve of funny. Bishop says that I had my sense of humor surgically removed, but Bishop says a lot of things. I grit my teeth, annoyed at how fast my monologue turned back to her.

I grab EMP-Ire under the arm and lift her to her feet.
“Wa, wa, I promise never to do it again. Pinky promise?” She holds up her bare pinky, and I scowl and knock her arm down. She’s a bad actor in every sense of the word, a disgrace to magical girls, and she’ll be let out in a week because someone up high will have need of her powers, and they’ll decide that her crimes aren’t severe enough to keep her under lock and key.
“Still sore about the Pachinko bullets, Rooky? No need to act so… butthurt… about it.” She cackles, and I wince. The welts had taken a while to go down even with magical medicine.

“You’re coming in for questioning. Again.” I grunt, dragging her away.
“It’s not my fault, officer, if the Magical Realm paid us a fair wage, I wouldn’t hafta turn to crime!” On that, at least, we agree.

*            *            *

I arrive home late. I always arrive home late. I drop form in an alleyway nearby and stroll up to the large multi-story apartment, climbing the stairs up to my place two or three at a time. I like to say that it’s good exercise, but to be honest, I just hate the elevator. Something’s unnatural about being trapped in a small metal box to go up and down. And no, I’m not scared of it, I’m just uncomfortably aware of it.

I enter my apartment, fling my magical compact onto the bedside, and look around to check everything’s alright. Honestly, the place looks like it belongs to a teen boy, between the piles of clothing, assorted snacks left half-eaten all over, and posters of various athletes and sports teams. I don’t invite people here for a reason, Rinrin would act all nice about it, Tama would probably innocently mention the mess, and Bishop would-

I head into the bathroom to wash my face. Splashing cold water to get the thoughts of her out of my mind. Something in me wants to forgive her for dragging me into her bullshit again, and I have to keep reminding myself I’m still mad, and she still hasn’t apologized.

Last month, during the Maniacal takedown, she’d manipulated us so that the two newbies would be the ones to finish the beast. She’d filled their heads with her crackpot theories about ‘Purification’, and made sure I wasn’t there to keep them focussed on their duty.

Sure, it had turned out. We were being praised and applauded, but it all felt hollow. It would’ve gone wrong so easily, those girls could’ve died, or the convention guests. That thing could’ve massacred dozens before a team got in to take it down.

…It also hurts that she didn’t let me in on her plan. Maybe I would’ve gone along with it if she’d just asked nicely.

I hear a knock at the door, and sigh, drying my face with a towel and placing it around my shoulders sportsman-like. I walk the short distance and open it.

Staring outside wide-eyed, I see what appears to be a terrified, mud-covered, middle school girl, with an even more disheveled elementary school girl carried in piggy back style, limp.

“Rook… you’ve got to help me! Please!”