Everyone is a Villain (Patreon)

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Hector P.O.V.

It is not over even after defeating the Blue Dragon Keeper.

I put the Divine Artifact I got from my victory in my inventory because it is still not the time to test it. I have one more enemy to deal with before calling it a day.

“This is what I gain from not sneaking on my opponents while they are killing themselves.” I sigh while deactivating and reactivating my Red Dragon keeper suit to repair the damage.

Motes of light cover my body and keep anyone from peeking at my appearance, not that it would matter; I am unknown in this world anyway.

I walk a little distance to my targets, and I conveniently meet the two of them, one helping the other.

Such a beautiful show of camaraderie coming from the villains of this world. It would help to sell the inversion of values of this world to someone who doesn’t know that everyone here kinda sucks.

Yep, the heroes are bad people, but that doesn’t mean the villains are good people either.

I sneak up on the two to dramatically appear behind them.

D and XX, the two Dusters, footsoldiers of the Invader army, jump when they hear my cape flap.

“Red Dragon Keeper!” D, who is disguising himself as Sakurama Hibiki, shouts in surprise, even comically letting go of the female Duster he was helping, making her fall to the ground face first.

It seems the torture the Blue Dragon Keeper puts her through was very heavy; she is still recovering.

“Not exactly.” I say, not hiding the fact that I am not Akabane Sosei. Our builds and voice are very different, and it will be beneficial for me if they have this information. “I am just using his Divine Artifact.”

I point Red Dragon Salamandra to D, and I can see the eyes of Sakurama widening in realization.

He stole the Divine Tool at Suzukiri's instructions, so it is not hard for him to understand that I am probably on her side, and if I am on her side, it means I am against the Rangers.

“What happened with the Blue Keeper?” XX suddenly asks. The only characteristic that differentiates her from the average Duster is that she has long messy hair. 

But her human form was kinda cute… I wish she was on it right now. I would like eye candy in this grim world.

“Killed him.” I answer without hesitation.

“!” They don’t hide their surprise; that is good.

“I answered your question; now answer mine… Where is Peltrola?” I ask with a no-nonsense tone.

D looks confused, but XX can’t hide her surprise even in her mask-like features.

“Wha- Peltrola? Like, Lord Peltrola? What are you talking about??” D shouts, fully confused.

“Don’t go calling your supposed enemy ‘Lord’. It is gonna blow your disguise.” I say to him, revealing that not only does he know about me, but I know who he is too. And as predicted, he also gasps in surprise, even covering his mouth after noticing his slip.

Okay, shocking them is fun and all, but I have a schedule.

“Don’t worry… I am also against the Rangers. Take me to Peltrola; I have matters to discuss with him.” It is not exactly a lie, hehe.

XX is not convinced, but her face shows that she is afraid that I am gonna torture her as the Blue Keeper has done.

“Trust me… I just saved you from the Blue Keeper, didn’t I?” I say to her, using all my charisma

“...” She hesitates

“Let’s go.” D is the one who tipped the scales in my favor. He stares at XX with serious eyes.

Not only does he know that I am with Suzukiri, but I also bet he is curious about Peltrola too.

For him, all the Executives are dead, so discovering that one of them is alive must be quite the shock. He needs to know the full truth of what happened.

And he also must be having some thoughts on why they were abandoned. It is impossible not to feel resentment when he lived for years as a puppet to the Rangers.

Resentment is literally what made him come down from the Fortress and start this whole anime.

XX looks at D, then at me, and eventually she nods slowly and stands up.

“Lead the way.” I talk in a non-threatening way.

But I think it was unsuccessful… Well, smiling with this suit is very menacing. Especially when I am literally their natural enemy at the moment. Not only should their minds reject walking side by side with a Dragon Keeper, but even their body should unnaturally reject this suit.

But I remember that theory that those powers are kind of the same source… Too bad I only read till the timeskip and never confirmed.

I need to go to the Big Bang Theory eventually and get a database of the fictional worlds of my original universe.

Hm? Would I exist there? A question for another day…

…………………………….

XX guides D and me through some strange corridors of the Bailong Nest.

Truth be told… I kinda can guess where Peltrola is.

Knowing that he is hiding in this place, it is not hard to deduce that he is in this area, which is currently isolated from the rest for unknown reasons. Probably he invaded the computer and cataloged this as a restricted section under reform, and bureaucracy keeps him protected for now.

No one suspects a thing. How could they imagine that an Executive of the Invaders is here, and in the meantime he is accumulating more and more power.

If I remember correctly, his ability has something to do with copying the abilities of “things”, and the overpowered part is that “things” really means anything.

It is not only getting the abilities of animals he consumes… even technology works. He literally absorbed some cloning machines and became able to clone himself. Very crazy.

I am gonna kill him now because of that.

Those growing types have to die for my peace of mind.

Till now, I am keeping things close to canon, but at the next Dragon Keeper I target, things will start deviating.

Peltrola will die to balance things out, even if he escaped in canon.

………………………………………………….

Third Person P.O.V.

It is a tense walk; the weird trio doesn’t say one single word.

Two Dusters and a Dragon Keeper are not a group that is seen walking together every day, even if Hector is not a real Ranger.

D has many questions for XX, but he holds himself back for now.

Hector’s presence, wearing the Red Dragon Keeper suit, keeps the two Dusters tense by sheer PTSD.

‘Not that they're wrong in not trusting me.’ Hector’s senses obviously capture their nervousness, but he doesn’t care.

In this world, he is experiencing a lot of new sensations, and he is not gonna lie… He is enjoying not caring.

Normal people need to be careful with their actions because of the consequences, including in social interactions. The standard is, at the very least, being nice to people because you never know what the consequences of being an asshole to others will be.

Maybe you shouldn’t burn that bridge because you can one day need the other, or maybe the other person is crazy and can hurt you, or may even be connected with someone you know…

‘So that is how assholes live? It is kinda liberating.’ But Hector is experimenting, not caring.

He has seen many times people in the “wild” who are assholes; they create problems for small things, shout, start fights, cuss other people, road rage…

It is not his real personality, but he understands those people now.

‘They must have a lot of issues if they are willing to risk problems just to let off steam.’ He chuckles in his mind.

It is not in his personality, but Hector is doing an “Evil Run” to see what it's like, so he doesn’t need to play nice. Who knows? Maybe he will end up liking this way of life.

Or at least, he will have the experience in case he one day is forced to be the villain in some circumstance.

When they finally arrive at the destination, Hector enters character again.

“Lord Peltrola…” XX says as she steps into a dark room.

It is big, and in the middle of it exists a large tree with strange fruits hanging from the branches.

Hector doesn’t need them anymore.

PAH BOOM

XX receives a punch with the back of Hector’s hand, sending her flying to the side till she hits a wall.

“What! You- GAH!” D barely had time to react and shout something before Hector punched him through his chest, his gloved fist appearing on the other side of the Duster’s body.

D’s body cracked, and black smoke escaped from the wound, but he would not die. Dusters can only die if attacked by Divine Artifacts.

“I said that I am against the Rangers… I just forgot to mention that I am not exactly on your guys' side either.” Hector’s mouth moves, and with his forearm buried on D’s chest, he swings it back and sends the footsoldier flying through the hallway they came from.

D, as the main character of this world, can still be used.

And deep down, Hector thinks he will not care that much if he kills the Executives.

In canon, the footsoldier acted through his own selfish desires, losing his loyalty to the hierarchy of the Invaders.

“And you? Are you just gonna watch while I beat up your cute subordinates?” Hector’s mouth finally shows a little emotion: a taunting smirk directed at the tree.

Not only a smirk, but the actual Red Dragon Keeper also swings his Divine Artifact; flames appear around the bony blade and are shot at the monstrous tree.

At that moment, one of the big fruits hanging drops, just in the path of the attack, and if one were watching in slow motion, they would be able to see the fruits “hatching” in a twisted way.

From it, a humanoid creature appears and blocks the flames with a little effort.

“Hmmm~ The Rangers of nowadays-”

“Yamata no Orochi!” 

Hector disrespects the unwritten rule of letting the opponent monologue in Super Sentai and attacks immediately. If Peltrola was his first opponent of the day, he would humor the guy and enjoy the combat of Ranger versus Invader.

Now he just wants to be done with the day.

Eight dragon heads made of fire move all over the room, attacking the whole tree mercilessly.

The unprepared boss monster can’t do anything to defend himself while he was still in “talking mode”. Fires start consuming the tree and the fruits, the branches falling as they turn pitch black from being scorched.

That is one of the reasons Hector was confident enough to take both the Blue Keeper and Peltrola separately, instead of waiting for the two to fight each other.

The main one is that he wants the 1 vs 1, and because he is strong.

But what cemented his decision is the fact that he has the advantage over the Boss Monster.

In canon, the Blue Keeper has a lot of trouble dealing with this particular Executive, even though he seems stronger. That happened because of the bad compatibility.

Every Dragon Keeper has their specialty and even their main “element”.

As a user of water and “crowd control”, the Blue Dragon Keeper found difficulties in finishing the Boss Monster. Peltrola was a pretty sneaky/slippery enemy too.

The Executives of the Invaders also follow a theme. They represent the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and Peltrola is the Rooster.

Maybe it's not as relevant, but the Rooster is part of the Metal (gold) element of the five Chinese elements.

And Metal is weak to Fire.

And the Red Dragon Keeper is the fire user of the Rangers.

Fwwooosh Crack Crack

More and more branches start falling while the flames lick the room relentlessly.

Hector doesn’t know if the elements really matter in this battle between Dragon Keepers and Monster Executives. This world is not a game, after all…

But Peltrola was a chicken and a tree(more or less)… so he guessed fire would be super effective anyway. Very silly, but this world is themed around Super Sentai…

And it seems he was right.

The tree is being scorched in real time; the only move Peltrola was able to do is to save the fruits, making them fall from the branches before the fire consumes them and “hatch” to reveal more of him.

“Rangers lost their education by the time I was away.” The Boss Monster says, the middle one, while glaring at Hector.

“Don’t talk like you are taking a vacation. You are hiding because you are a loser.” Hector taunts.

Peltrola is a humanoid monster with the head of a chicken and four small wings covering his shoulders. Head, shoulders, and wings are white, but the rest is black. His torso is slim, resembling a skeleton with exposed ribs, and ends in a pitch-black skirt.

There are 9 of them right now, facing Hector in this burning room.

Because of the monstrous expression, it is unclear if Peltrola is looking at Hector angrily or if his face is just stuck like that.

Probably angry, because he suddenly shoots a laser at the fake Red Dragon Keeper.

All nine Peltrolas charge a blue ball of energy in front of their beak and release it at Hector simultaneously.

Hector practically disappears from his spot, waving around the room to dodge the attacks while approaching his enemies.

Truth be told, he doesn’t care which one is the real Peltrola or if it even matters. If all are “real” and even if he kills the real one, a clone will become the “main” Peltrola… He does not care.

He will destroy all of them.

Hector finally stops playing and finally starts using his Twelve Talismans.

Yes, he always had his Talisman belt beneath his suit; it was tight, but it was an assurance. He didn’t use it against the Blue Keeper not because he didn’t want to cheat; it was just for lack of necessity.

If two people have a Divine Artifact, the great difference will come from the individual wielding it…And which human in this world has better physical stats than Hector? 

Aoshima Shogo was destined to lose the moment he faced the Omniversal Traveler.

Certain of his victory, Hector then decided to enjoy the duel and all that.

But he had had enough of “fair fights” for today. Time to show who the real Boss is.

Swish Swish Swish Swish

With the full power of his superior body and the Rabbit Talisman, Hector eliminates four clones of Peltrola in an instant. He is moving almost as fast as if he used the Hi no Yagihayao no Kami Incantation

And that is exactly what he did next.

After eliminating the clones on the edge, the only ones remaining are in a somewhat straight line, so he activated the Incantation, the jets boosting his speed…

“What!”

WHOOSH

Peltrola only has time to try flying before him, and Hector destroys all the clones, cut in half by the fake Red Keeper, which moved so fast it was invisible to the naked eye.

And that is not enough for Hector.

He ends his attack, connecting with another, planting his two feet on the ground; he slides while spinning, already swinging Red Dragon Salamandra, the Divine Artifact bursting with flames.

“Yamata no Orochi!”

The roar of dragons fills the room, along with the heat of the flames, and all the bisected Peltrolas are engulfed by them, disappearing amidst the raging inferno.

“...” Hector pauses, Red Dragon Salamandra in hand. “So… did I win? Kinda easy…” So easy that it is suspicious.

Unfortunately, life is not a game, and he doesn’t have a Gamer System, so he can’t say when his opponent was truly defeated.

He went all out and the “type advantage” helped, but he is finding it too easy.

So he narrowed his eyes under his helmet.

But suddenly he shrugs…

“Well, he was trash. HAHA! Victory!” He ends up laughing and striking a Super Sentai pose.

He even swung Red Dragon Salamandra again to create an explosion behind him.

“My job here is done.” He flaps his cape once before walking away dramatically.

His steps echo in the room, but slowly grow distant as he leaves.

“...”

“....”

“.........”

“..............”

And only after that, a sound different from the burning flames appears in this place.

The crack of the three, not a crack of the wood burning, no… A crack of the wood breaking. In one of the roots, the black wood inflates a little as fissures spread from a single point.

Crack Crack

Then a figure emerges from the root, and it is none other than Peltrola.

The Boss Monster sits as his eyes narrow at the direction where Hector disappeared.

“What rude and problematic Dragon Keeper… I should abandon this place and move to another hideout.” The Executive says, “I already consumed the cloning ability anyway, now I just need-”

“...to fall to one of the oldest tricks in the book.” 

“!!!”

The voice behind Peltrola makes his monster eyes widen like never before.

“Impossible…” He murmurs unconsciously while turning around.

From his understanding, it is indeed impossible. He never took his eyes off the only entrance in this room, and the Red Keeper doesn’t have stealth abilities.

That is the specialty of the Yellow Dragon Keeper, who has an incantation that renders him invisible.

One of Hector's greatest advantages as an Omniversal traveler is that he can always go against the common sense of the world, existing in the blind spot of his enemies to catch them off guard.

That includes having strange abilities that they couldn’t predict or even conceive.

The Snake Talisman is as good as the Incantation of Yellow Divine Artifact; he never used till now, exactly for moments like those.

He preferred to transform into animals instead of using a much better, stealthier method, exactly because if invisibility exists here, it will not be weird for everyone to at least be a little aware of the ability.

“Nothing is impossible in the big Omniverse,” Hector says. His mouth, the only exposed part of his body, is smiling widely while his arm is already raised high in the air, holding Red Dragon Salamandra and charging it with flames.

Fwoosh Bang

His attack is merciless and without hesitation, giving Peltrola no chance.

The Boss Monster even accepted that he is dead. That body at least…

Instead of trying to defend himself or dodge, the Executive chose to clone himself faster and possess the clone to escape.

His cloning process is disgusting but is fast enough to dodge the attack that obliterated his previous body.

Hector is not happy seeing that, and pulls his Divine Artifact back to make a horizontal swing.

“Yamata no Orochi.”

He chose to use the incantation that has a wide range of attack to close all the escape routes.

But Peltrola did not survive all those years for nothing either. He attacked the fire dragons with his laser while cloning himself; the action is slower than before, but his counterattack dispersed enough of the power so that the two Peltrolas didn’t die.

But the recently created clone is already half destroyed. He is already creating another clone, though.

A smart move, because Hector is also already attacking.

Hector attacks and Peltrola makes another of himself. It goes like that multiple times, creating a chain of destroyed clones while Hector tries to kill all of them before they multiply themselves.

Peltrola is not even assessing the situation anymore; he is just desperately cloning himself to keep up with the relentless assault he is going through. And if he was not acting like that, he would already have been destroyed.

“Tch. That is what I wanted to avoid…” Hector clicks his tongue as he destroyed another half-made Peltrola, his eyes on the new one.

Peltrola's survival instincts must be giving him a buff because he is escaping Hector’s bloodlust by one second of spare time. If he makes a mistake or hesitates, he is dead for good.

Because of that, he is a helpless chicken that can only run and not do anything else, much less attack.

It becomes a battle of endurance and focus to see who slips first.

Eventually, there is no more space in the room, and Hector is pursuing him through the hallway.

One attack kills a clone, but there is already another.

‘What can I do to take away his focus?’ Hector ponders as his hands never stop moving. 

He is not as desperate as Peltrola, so with a clear mind he can think about the move ahead instead of worrying about surviving, his eyes darting around to find anything useful.

After all, his best skill is Telekinesis, and it will be perfect in this situation. But he can’t waste this surprise attack and end Peltrola for good, so he needs to make it count.

‘It will take too long to rip off a wall…’ He slowly diverted his attention, his telekinesis touching the space ahead like a thousand invisible hands. ‘Should I simply grab his body?’

While he was considering that option, an answer appeared, so he secretly smiled and continued to attack.

Hector continues to press so that Peltrola can only focus on him and not notice where he is guiding him… the underground parking lot.

The man wearing the Red Keeper suit attacks even more viciously his natural enemy, making him take turns to where he wants… left and right, right and left… quickly they are reaching the end of the corridors.

When the light of the exit starts shining at the end of the tunnel, hope appears in the heart of Peltrola. The Boss Monster starts preparing for the moment they will be in a bigger room to escape.

He is almost there; the light is already hitting their bodies.

But then it disappears… Peltrola can’t help but feel surprised when it becomes darker, sparing a moment to take his eyes off Hector and look at the exit.

“!” His eyes widen when a vehicle appears, a van blocking his path, flying in his direction.

Years of experience tell him how dangerous the situation he finds himself in right now is. He is between a rock and a hard place, so he points his beak and prepares an attack at the van to open a path.

But fighting is about turns, tempo… If he makes a move, it means his opponent can also make one. If he is attacking, he can’t defend himself…

Peltrola chose to attack… So his escape was compromised.

Peltrola chose to attack another target… So Hector is free to target him.

Hector, who was waiting for his moment, is fully ready. His mind controlled the van, but his body is already summoning the Incantation…

“Hi no Yagihayao no Kami.”

Whoosh Boom

A sonic boom was formed, and Hector goes through Peltrola even before he can shoot his laser at the car. Everything on his path is destroyed: the Boss Monster and even the van. 

He emerges in the parking lot while pulling the air from the tunnel with him, creating a small explosion and generating a loud sound.

He even strikes a pose while his feet slide to a halt on the ground.

“Victory…” He says, his cape fluttering over his head before slowly falling back into place.

After acting cool, he slowly straightens himself just to notice that he is not alone.

“Oh…” 

He is the very opposite of alone; practically everyone at the Bailong Nest surrounds him. From the cadets to the Junior First Class who are testing them. Even Suzukiri and D are there.

And all of them are surrounding him like they are readying to fight.

“...”

It is at this moment that the mortal remains of Peltrola start raining on him, a piece of the Executive head dramatically landing at his feet, making clear who he just killed.

“...” Hector continues to stare at the group while he stares back. “Alright people, good work today! Haha! Bye!” He suddenly laughs and tries to impersonate Akabane Sosei

“You are not fooling anyone!!” Kanon, the First Class Ranger of the Green Battalion, shouts angrily

“...” Hector pauses, and his friendly attitude evaporates as he sighs heavily, almost like he is exhaling his goodwill together with the air. “Too bad then…” His tone is so cold that it sends shivers through everyone.

And despite all their training and mental fortitude, they can’t help but feel a twinge of regret when he turns to face them.

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