Reika leaned back on her rather comfortable couch, enjoying the feeling of cold air being blown at her from her very expensive fan. She's had to threaten a few of those 'mad scientist' type of guys to get it, but in her humble opinion, owning a fan capable of blowing air at -50 Celcius felt pretty damn good.

She couldn't really sleep anymore, per se. Her powers had a few unpleasant side effects, and while she hesitated at calling her inability to sleep a defect, she did sometimes miss the ability to do so.

She cracked an eye open when she felt her work phone vibrating in her pocket. Today was not a working day, and her subordinates knew better than to piss her off by interrupting said days. She made it a point to make the lives of those who did very short and brutal, after all.

Annoyingly, the caller wasn't one she could ignore. After all, her second-in-command was a capable man, and while he wasn't particularly bright, he was god-damn effective at what he did.

"What happened?" She immediately spoke once the call began, not bothering with any pleasantries.

"The heroes are conducting a raid on one of our casinos. Do I kill them?" The man on the other spoke, his voice raspy. Reika frowned, processing the information while trying to decide how to proceed.

"Are the children with them, or is it just the adults?" She asked. Her subordinate didn't answer for a few minutes, likely running recognizance. 

"Yes. Metal Boy and Stripes are there." He said, his voice still lacking any inflations or tone. Reika pursued her lips in annoyance at his answer.

"Just scare them off. The adults you can hurt, but try not to kill them. No matter what you do, however, don't injure the children." She commanded. They were probably running a training exercise, especially since the two kids were very new to the scene.

Reika might kill the occasional hero here and there, after all, but she knew far better than most when to exercise restraint. Sure, she could tackle the entire hero population of the city alone and come out on top, and sure, she was one of the premier gang leaders of the city, but even she didn't want the top dogs coming down on her if she went too far and started hurting the next generation's heroes.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Besides, compared to some of the other gang leaders, she was positively tame. She forbade sex trafficking in her territory, the drugs she brought in were much less deadly than the shit the lesser gangs sold, and she wasn't a racist scumbag.

As she ruminated on how she was a shining beacon of morality, pointedly ignoring the fact that she had a body count in the triple digits, her subordinate hung up. Reika debated for a moment whether to go and help him out, but eventually decided against him.

He was a big boy, he could take care of himself. Besides, if everything went to shit, he could always call for backup from her other superhuman subordinates.

And even if the worst scenario came about and he somehow got caught by a bunch of kids and their supervisors, she could always go on a little rampage and break him out. It's not like the heroes were ballsy enough to try and kill one of her subordinates without offing her first.

She'd taught them why that was a horrible idea once. They hadn't felt the need to be reminded why ever again.

Settling back into her couch, she closed her eyes, trying to will the stress away, but it was too late. She'd had to spend hours beforehand relaxing in her freezing tub to work out all the stress that had accumulated, and now, it was all back.

"God damn it, I need to get laid." She bemoaned to herself before snickering silently at the thought of her, the mighty Dragon, being a shy virgin. Hell, she was fairly sure most people didn't even know her gender!

The thought helped settle down her thoughts, so she didn't even mind the faint bit of irritation that came with the last thought. It wasn't like she chose her power, nobody did, and if they claimed otherwise they were either delusional or a filthy liar.

With a huff, she rose from her couch, heading towards her studio. She'd recently received the newest issue of her favorite series, a gift from one of the local bookstores under her protection run by a nice black couple that was, suprisingly, genuinely grateful towards her. She supposed that living under a dragon was better than living under a bunch of racist skinheads whose favorite pastime was crucifying jews and blacks.

She scratched her head slightly once she was in her studio, eyes narrowed as she tried to remember just where the hell she'd put it. Ah, yes, it was right there---

A glowing circle of fancy runes suddenly appeared around Reika, and with a flash of golden light, she vanished.

The sudden vanishing of one of the premier gang lords of the city, with literally nobody having any idea just how it happened, would make a lot of people scratch their head in the future to come.

Not that Reika would have cared, since she was busy being nabbed.