#the conclusion of the 'nick at college' saga from the files

[kxlinthesky]

ESSENCE 8 SIDE STORY - Meow Meow Adventures

“HEY! Shaggy Hair! Gimme back Brat!”

So yelled the orphan Nick as he hounded Owl for the two of them to work together and find his missing cat Brat.

They looked high and low, from garbage cans to bus stops, on what was all accounts a perfectly ordinary search for a missing cat... or so it seemed, but then they somehow managed to find themselves involved in a major case...?

This is the story of how Owl and Nick, the detective agency’s wonder duo, first met.

■■■■■■■■■

“MASSIVE SUM STOLEN FROM MATHESON CO.! FIRM IS OFFERING A REWARD FOR –”

 Owl sat on a bench in the back courtyard, a newspaper spread before him. His shadowed gaze traced the words, lingering on the phrase “gang of robbers.”

“HEY! Shaggy Hair! Gimme back Brat!”

He raised his head to see a slender boy in a newsboy cap glaring at him and wheezing like he’d just run a race. One look at his thin knees and the scattered shrub leaves stuck to his shoulders, and Owl’s mouth opened. “... You’re the spy. You know, you probably shouldn’t make any more holes in the hedges. They’re the headmaster’s....”

“Wha – who the hell are you calling a spy?! Rude!” the boy scoffed. “... Ugh, never mind, now’s not the time! You know that really fancy red leather bag you had at your desk yesterday? Where is it?!”

“Red bag? I don’t have a red bag. What are you talking about?”

“Aah, my partner Brat... he jumped in it yesterday, and now he’s gone missing~! It’s aaawfuuul!!”

This was the first time Owl got a good look at the boy. This was his first meeting with the person who would eventually solve case after case by his side for years to come: his partner, Nick.

■■■■■■■■■

The royal university was said to be the country’s highest hurdle, its vast campus seen as any alchemist’s gateway to success. The college was isolated from the outside world, as the highly specialized knowledge and studies contained within were kept strictly confidential. In a way, it was harder to break in here than any bank vault.

And yet somehow, Nick had used the skills he’d honed avoiding the eyes of people in town to sneak his way in, and for the past few days had been snooping here and there around the grounds. The orphan boy had never set foot in a “school” before, but his partner, a cat called Brat, heard that “studying at a school” was apparently a requirement to being rich. The Black Rose Disease ran rampant in these parts; kids who’d lost their parents formed squads in the slums that only seemed to multiply as time went on. They were always in need of cash.

So it was that one week ago the de facto big brother of the kids, Nick, said, “Let’s give it a whirl!☆” and snuck into the famous college.

 Slinking his way into anyplace he wanted like a cat was Nick’s specialty. He could slip in and out without anyone knowing he was there and grab whatever info he needed. But things were different at the college – from day one, there was one student who always seemed to notice him. The guy looked kind of like a dullard at first glance, but by the time Nick noticed his presence he was constantly under watch. It didn’t matter where he hid – in the prep room, up a tree, in the loft, it always felt like the student’s eyes were boring into his back. It was unsettling, to say the least.

Maybe he was just imagining things? The thought did cross his mind. But then he found something under the tree he’d climbed up one day, and he promptly discarded that line of thinking. Someone had left a so-called children’s book meant for nursery school kids, with a blunt note saying “Help yourself” attached to the front.

“Ugh, that stupid Shaggy Hair!~ What, does he think I’m so dumb I need to learn my ABCs?!” Nick huffed and grumbled.

Brat, who had snuck in with him, looked up at the boy and suggested, “Let’s play a prank on him. I’ll leap out of his bag and we can watch that blank face of his crack.”

... So the plan went. Apparently.

 “And?... The cat jumped into a red bag that was in the classroom yesterday?”

“—Yeah.”

“And you had a rough idea of what time I’d arrive, so you dozed off, and when you woke up the bag and the cat had disappeared?”

“—That’s right.”

“Sounds like you reap what you sow, then.”

“B-But! It’s ‘cause it was in the seat you were sitting yesterday... so I mean, a-anyone would think the bag was yours!” Nick wailed.

Just then, another student wearing the same jacket as Owl called out to the pair as he walked up, looking rather intrigued by the commotion. “Yo, Owl. Weren’t you going to go investigate that train case... why’s there a kid on campus? He your friend?”

Owl turned to the newcomer. “—Chris... your friend Conrad’s got a red bag, right? A pretty flashy one? Did he happen to say if he saw a cat in it yesterday?”

“Huh? How’d you know that? Man, you’re as weird as ever,” said Chris. “Yeah, he said one jumped right outta his bag yesterday on the train....”

“Oh, no! Brat...!” Nick made a wild grab for Chris. “Where’d he see the cat?!”

Chris took a step back, startled by Nick’s intensity. “I think he had some sorta club activity, he was heading for the pier – Portsmouth, I think?”

As soon as he heard the name, Owl stood up. He turned to Nick. “... Oi, what are you just standing around for?” he asked. “Come on.”

“Huh?” Nick stared at him, befuddled.

Owl stared right back, as blank-faced as ever. “We’re going to go look for your partner, right?”

■■■■■■■■■

“—I don’t think you’re going to find your partner in there,” Owl called, annoyed. Nick kept stopping at every garbage can on the road to the station to peer inside, looking for Brat.

Nick ignored him. With a single white sock pinched between his fingers, he shouted, “BRAT!” His voice echoed all around them. The boy was clearly beside himself with worry for his socks wearing partner. “Brat’s an expert at finding good stuff in garbage bins,” he explained to Owl. “Like magazines that are still readable... and he’s even found notes that say where there are hidden treasures in empty houses!”

“Notes?... The cat finds them?” Owl repeated with furrowed brows. “Actually, now that I think about it, wouldn’t the cat just eventually come back on its own? They’re pretty free-spirited animals.”

“Brat wouldn’t just leave without telling me!... He’s my family. I have to find him.”

Nick was replacing the lid on the can as he spoke, so he didn’t notice the gentleman approaching and couldn’t dodge in time. The two collided. Nick opened his mouth to apologize at once, but the older man took one look at the boy and stepped back, lip curled in disgust. “You dirtied my clothes, you filthy little alley cat,” he hissed before moving along.

Nick’s expression darkened, and if Owl didn’t immediately yank him back by his collar he would’ve absolutely lunged at the man. It felt rather like walking around with an actual stray cat, and one who didn’t much care for people, at that. “Don’t,” he warned. “The investigation comes first, right? Let’s go ask around Kensington Station.”

“Wha – not Portsmouth? That’s why that guy said Brat went.”

“Kensington is past Portsmouth, and the train there... no, before that....” Owl suddenly dipped his hand into Nick’s pocket and came back out with a small wallet. He called out to the gentleman from before, halting him in his tracks, and strode up to him to hand the wallet off, saying, “You dropped this, sir.”

“Rude!” Nick objected. “That money was mine!”

“Give it a rest,” sighed Owl as he walked back. “You’re good, though – who taught you how to do that?”

“Marney did. He’s the oldest cat around here.”

“The one who taught you to pickpocket people was also a cat...?” Owl sounded torn between exasperation and amazement. He walked right past Nick down the street, forcing the boy to hurry after the eccentric student.

■■■■■■■■■

“—Hah? A cat? No, I haven’t heard anything about a cat. Now quit bothering me, I’m busy.”

The station master of Kensington Station was currently on the phone with someone, and he flicked his hand to shoo off the student and shabby looking kid who’d shown up out of nowhere to question him, staring at them with suspicion bright in his gaze. His attention quickly shifted back to the phone call. “Ahh, no, sorry, I was talking to someone on my end... yes... yes, that’s correct. It happened again. Ha, do you think we might actually be cursed? They keep vanishing like they were never there....”

 Owl raised a single eyebrow, listening to the station master’s one-sided conversation. Nick, on the other hand, started peering around at the office with an irritated huff once he realized they weren’t going to get any info about Brat out of the man. Why did this guy just – come with me, without putting up any kind of fuss? he wondered to himself, glancing at Owl.

 Nick wasn’t acting like himself at all today. He never thought he’d get so involved with a human he didn’t know.

-- Because humans? They were a huge pain to deal with. Because he’d try and talk to them, get through to them, but it never worked. Because even when it did, the adults that oh so happily got involved with the city orphans that supposedly “didn’t exist” almost always had some ulterior motive.

Brat might be a cat, but he was also his only family, the only one who ever understood him. If he couldn’t find him....

A coil of unease suddenly began to bloom in his chest. He had this creeping feeling, almost like the ground was going to open him up and swallow him whole at any moment. A chill worked its way up his throat. Whatever, let’s just ditch him. It’ll be a lot faster if I look for Brat by myself, same as always, Nick thought. He slowly turned to the entrance, ready to slip away....

Until Owl’s voice cut through the air, addressing the station master who’d finally hung up his call. “I won’t take up much of your time, sir. I’d just like you to confirm two things for me. First: last night, an incident occurred in which some train cars disappeared, yes? Specifically a freight train, most likely, up the tracks by Fareham?”

The station master’s mouth fell wide open in a remarkably accurate impression of a gaping goldfish. “Wha – how did you – ?!”

It wasn’t a confirmation, but anyone with eyes could tell that Owl was spot on. “... And second,” he continued, “have there by any chance been any conductors that have suddenly requested time off recently?”

“Who even are you? I can’t just tell you that....”

“Please... if you want to see this case resolved at all, answer my questions.”

“What’s a student like you going to do...?”

“I’m a detective,” Owl corrected, impassive as ever. “Though yes, I am also still a student.”

The station master faltered under the intensity of Owl’s questioning and gave him the name of a conductor who’d taken a leave of absence to take care of an ailing daughter. He also confirmed that a freight train had indeed disappeared last night, just as Owl said. The investigation was still being conducted internally – if word got out to the public, they’d no doubt start throwing around questions about accountability, something the company absolutely did not want – so it was no wonder the man was so flustered seeing this student waltz in out of nowhere and hit every single nail on the head.

 Owl scribbled something in his notebook and passed it to Nick. “Send this telegram,” he said, already rushing past. “I’m going to go get us a carriage.”

Nick wavered for a moment after Owl had already left, the memo clutched tightly in his hand, but eventually he made up his mind and dashed for the closest telegraph office, though not without a frazzled screech. “Damn iiiit!~~~”

■■■■■■■■■

The two rode the carriage Owl procured from Portsmouth to a vacant area on the outskirts of Southampton that had once held a rail line. The wide-open plot of land was completely deserted, leaving behind only the abandoned station building and forgotten train tracks stretching off into the distance with no end in sight.

“Oh, maaan, is this all dead track?~” marveled Nick.

“Would it surprise you to hear that there are abandoned tracks even in the middle of the city that are just left there?” Owl asked. “These ones here are leftovers from the Railway Mania. Loads of small-time businessmen wanted in on the boom and tried to rake in the profits by connecting every major city back in the day – it was basically a bubble economy, but just for railroads.”

“But why are we here? You do remember I’m looking for Brat, right?”

“—We need to trace his steps. Yesterday Brat leapt off the train at Portsmouth Station, but there’s no way a cat could travel all the way back to London from there on foot. All of the electric trains heading back into the city would’ve stopped running by then, so at that time of night the only way Brat could’ve made it back was by freight train. I’d been looking for that freight train myself for a different case, but according to the station master the entire thing vanished without a trace last night.” Owl paused in his explanation for a moment. “... I thought that maybe Brat happened to get on that train while it was stopped at Portsmouth.”

“And you’re saying it’s here?”

 “If my theory’s correct, then... ahh, is that it?” Owl pointed toward the track, where there did indeed seem to be a freight train standing all by its lonesome, wheels and engine still attached.

Nick rushed up to it in a tizzy, racing all around the exterior and shouting his partner’s name. Owl confirmed that there was no one in the engine room, then opened the door to the car at the very back of the train. Nick joined him and the pair peeked inside, only to find it empty.

They tried some of the other doors, too, but it wasn’t until they opened the second door from the back that they found some effects that had been left behind. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, the very train that had disappeared last night.

 “Braaat!~ Heeey! Answer me!... Dang it, he’s not even here.” Nick’s shoulders slumped.

Next to him, Owl inspected the ground around their feet, then nodded for some reason and hopped aboard the rearmost car. The whole thing was bare – the only things left inside were some faint marks left behind from some luggage being dragged around, an oddly new-looking pink ribbon, and a number of old newspaper pages scattered around. The latter looked as if it had been used as wrapping paper.

Owl picked up the newspaper and spread it open. Nick, peeking over from his side, suddenly let out a piercing yelp. “Ah, th-that – that’s a sign from Brat!” He jabbed a finger at the distinct cat-shaped paw pad stamped on the edge of the page.

“That’s definitely a cat’s footprint,” agreed Owl. “But... are you sure it’s from Brat? It’s hard to tell pawprints apart.”

“Lemme see! If it really was Brat, he might’ve left a clue behind....” Nick grabbed the old newspaper and spread it out facing the door they’d left open. The afternoon light streaming through the opening also streamed through some tiny holes dotted throughout the pages, each one barely bigger than the eye of a needle.

Owl peered at the paper. “... The holes are all above letters. D, E, C, O, N, S, and... M and B on the next page....”

“This is our secret code! We make marks with our nails like this and we can tell each other where we are and stuff. Where’s Decons? And what are the M and B...?”

“Hey, is it possible that... can you actually understand and... talk to cats?”

 Nick’s excitement popped like a balloon. His expression darkened in a flash. “... W-Well, who cares! It doesn’t matter, we got a hint on where to go next, so....”

“Does it have anything to do with how you’re ‘Possessed?’”

Nick stiffened. His hand shot down in a blink to cover his right knee, and he glared at Owl with his teeth bared in a snarl, looking for all the world like a cornered feral cat. If he had fur, it would absolutely be bristling menacingly.

Owl sighed, long and loud. “Oi, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t care if you’re Possessed or not.”

“... Huh?”

“It’s just that this isn’t just about your missing partner. This might be related to a much bigger incident. So I just want to make sure I have the facts as straight as possible, that’s all.”

“‘That’s all,’ he says...” Nick mumbled under his breath.

“Unfortunately, I’m used to seeing Possessed people,” Owl continued. “We’ve got one at my house, even.”

Nick blinked, staring at Owl with eyes blown wide. His confusion was only natural – he’d never before met a human so nonchalant, so accepting of the cursed population known as the “Possessed.”

“... When I was little,” he began haltingly, “my mom and I both caught the Black Rose Disease. I survived, but then I was Possessed, and everyone hated me. I hid the marks under my pants and everything, but I still got found out, in the end. That’s when I picked up Brat – he was just a tiny little kitten back then.”

Owl hummed. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but he did bend down a little to meet Nick’s eyes.

“He was all alone, and so weak, and he was so squeaky, more like a mouse than a cat... but I gave him milk every day, and he talked to me. At first it didn’t really sound like anything, just mumbling, but one day I heard him say one word, loud and clear: Nick. My name. But I’m the only one who can hear Brat’s voice.”

 “I see. Got it.” Owl nodded and picked up the ribbon and the newspaper before hopping out of the train. “Let’s go, then,” he called before walking back toward the carriage.

Nick scrambled after him. “W-Where are we going?!”

“Your partner spelled it out for you, didn’t he? M and B. And according to the maps, there’s a Decons Marina Boathouse up ahead. We’re going to go up there and return this ribbon to its rightful owner – the person being guarded by their own personal knight.”

■■■■■■■■■

Tensions had been running high at the police station for some time due to their failure to trace the whereabouts of the massive gang of thieves. The group stole astronomical sums of money from banks and famous companies all over the place, so it was really no wonder – at this point, it was no exaggeration to say that the force’s reputation was buried six feet under.

 And then last night, a new incident had occurred. At least ten thousand pounds in cash had been stolen from a Liberty Tea warehouse in the dead of night, an amount that was at once worryingly high and extremely bulky to be lugging around.

There had always been eyewitness testimony up to now, and even though the thieves always vanished like smoke when they fled the scene, they’d been lucky this time to find them in the middle of loading their stolen cash. The whole escape had turned into some kind of stage play between them and the patrolling police officers.

 The problem was that the police lost sight of the culprits’ carriage midway. Only for an instant, mind, but an instant was all they needed – by the time the police located the carriage again, it was abandoned, without a trace of either the thieves or the money left behind. Not even a single bill remained. It should have been difficult for the entire group to hide in the two or three minutes they’d gone unseen, and yet....

The police thoroughly searched the neighboring areas, but the robbers and their ill-gotten goods were long gone. The stress of the situation was so great that the chief of police, Fowler, tore out what little hair he had left.

 And now today, while Fowler’s subordinates walked on pins and needles around their boss, an impossible telegram arrived. It contained an outline of everything about the case up to that point, as if the sender had seen everything with their own two eyes.

“Bad news, sir! We received a second telegram! This one... has the location of the gang’s hideout!”

“Grr... who the hell is sending these?! We can’t just go leaping into action when we don’t know where it’s coming from...!”

“But sir, if the papers write any more articles, it’ll be your head...!”

“Everyone move out! We’re going to the Decons boathouse!”

■■■■■■■■■

The boathouse looked out on a small, enclosed bay. The port seemed to be used mainly for fishing and the loading and unloading of cargo. Several warehouses stood in a neat row nearby. Foot traffic in the area was rather scarce.

Owl and Nick first stopped at a pub in front of the boathouse to avoid standing out and decided to start asking some questions as casually as they could. It was still evening, but the sun was already setting and the whole area was starting to grow dark.

“Haven’t seen you boys ‘round here before,” the bartender commented. A quiet man with sharp eyes, he was well acquainted with the sailors who frequented his bar.

Nick flashed him a brilliant, innocent smile. “Oh, we’re just here looking for a lost cat.☆ We wanted to take a look in the boathouse over there to see if he was inside. Hey, is it open right now?”

Owl was impressed to see that any caution the bartender might’ve felt vanished under the boy’s charm. His tongue loosened in a blink, fully swept up in Nick’s pace. “Nowadays people are flocking to the trains, even ‘round these parts,” he replied. “Less and less tourists are going out boating, and the whole place shuts down completely during the off-season... but now that you mention it, I feel like I’ve been seeing some lights on at night these days, up on the second floor.”

Owl nodded and glanced up at the second floor of the building in question. It was difficult to see in the dark, but he could see the white paws of a cat scratching at the window frame up there. He poked Nick and furtively gestured in that direction. The boy’s eyes widened immediately. “That’s Brat!” he whispered urgently. “No doubt about it!”

However, as they watched for a while, they saw a finger stretch out, curl around the cat’s soft belly, and pull him inside the building.

Owl looked at his pocket watch for a while, but eventually he leaned down to whisper in Nick’s ear. “We don’t have time. There’s been a shadow making regular patrols around the boathouse for a while now. I’ll go take a look, so you....”

“You’re not really gonna leave me behind, are you?! Brat’s my family. And besides, I’d be way better at recon than you, right?”

“—Well... yeah, I guess so.”

 Nick casually hung around the pub until the shadows circling around the boathouse disappeared from sight before slipping out and heading for the building’s back door. Fallen leaves carpeted the private garden in the back. Broken machinery sat discarded here and there throughout the yard. The bartender’s testimony was spot-on, it looked like.

The back door was boarded shut when they reached it. Owl pulled a small canvas cloth out of his jacket and spread it on the ground in front of them, revealing an array of test tubes and strangely shaped implements in the pocket. “I’m going to open this, so you....” Owl glanced back over his shoulder. “Wha – oi! Where do you think you’re going?”

Nick paid him no mind, since he was already in the process of shimmying up one of the oak trees in the yard, silent as a shadow. He pretty obviously meant to slip inside through the window they’d seen Brat from.

“... You’re more of a monkey than a cat,” mumbled Owl. “Stay still up there for a sec.”

Nick kept one ear turned in Owl’s direction, but he also climbed up the rest of the tree in a flash until he’d reached the second floor, where he peeked through the window.

 The room inside was dark and completely barren, but Nick could see two occupants inside. One was a little girl. The other was his partner, the one he’d been so desperately searching for all this time, Brat. Nick lightly tapped his knuckles to the glass, and Brat’s golden eyes swiveled over to him. The cat meowed at the startled girl, giving her cheek a single lick.

The window was locked, but getting it open with a pair of wires was honestly child’s play. Nick carefully held the windowsill, mindful of how it creaked under his fingers, and stole inside.

 Brat gave one more meow to the girl before slipping out of her arms and flying into Nick’s.

“Brat!!~~~ I was worried about you, you dummy!~~~”

“Meow meooow!”

With his nose pressed into his partner’s fluffy back, Nick finally felt himself relax, and he turned his attention to the girl. She couldn’t be older than five. Her blonde hair was piled in a high bun. Her clothes were showy, but wrinkled – she must’ve been here a long time – but she had a healthy rose tint to her puffy cheeks, and she looked to be in good health.

“Hello,” said Nick gently. “My name’s Nick. This is my partner, Brat. What’s your name?... Uh, can you tell me what happened?”

“... Are you the kitty’s friend? Um, some strangers took Emma here.”

 Between the girl – Emma, apparently – and Brat, Nick was quickly filled in.

Brat figured out their little prank didn’t work by the time he got to Porstmouth Station. The red bag had been so comfortable he’d ended up falling asleep in it, and when he woke up and leaped out in a panic, he’d ended up at a station he’d never been to before, and he had no idea how to get back. But then he’d listened in on the conductor, who said the freight train that had just arrived had come from London, and that it was heading back that night once it was reloaded. Lucky!

So he’d hopped aboard, and that’s when he found the girl bound and gagged in the rear car. What’s more, a bunch of evil-looking guys had gotten on, too, and then for some reason the train started heading for Southampton, in the complete opposite direction of London, and Brat just got taken along for the ride. He couldn’t very well let them take the girl, so he hid in the luggage while it was being unloaded, and he even left a secret code in the newspapers they’d used to wrap the stacks of bills in –

Honestly, Brat had put the detective outside to shame, with all he’d accomplished.

 “Ohh, so you were keeping the girl safe!”

“Mm-hmm. The kitty was with me the whole time.”

The girl patted Brat’s head with a tiny hand, who leaned into it like he couldn’t get enough. “Meow!”

CREAK! The door suddenly flew open, and two humans and one cat screamed in unison.

“WAAAH!”

“... Keep it down, idiot, it’s just me. We’re getting out of here.”

“Shaggy Hair!”

“Ah – Papa!” Emma exclaimed.

Another person popped up behind Owl – a conductor that he’d rescued from elsewhere in the building. The man rushed forward to embrace his daughter. “Emma!”

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. At Owl’s urging, the group descended to the first floor and made a beeline for the back door. Unfortunately, their presence had already been noticed – when they reached the exit, they found a pair of men barring their way out, knives glinting in their hands. They turned back to the front entrance only to find three more standing between them and the exit. One of them had a gun.

 “—Do you have some business with us, Mr. Student?” the man with the gun asked mockingly. “This isn’t a place to be bringing kids, y’know – oi, is this everyone?”

“Looks like it,” replied yet another man glancing around the second floor.

The gun man – he had to be the leader – leered at Owl. “We don’t have time to be fooling around, so sorry, but I only have one question for you guys. How’d you find us? What do you know?”

“... That’s two questions, though?” Owl pointed out.

The leader’s face colored with rage.

“Well, whatever,” Owl continued. “What do I know, you said? Do you mean like how you’re a former employee of the recently bankrupted Oldcroft Railways?”

“Wha...?!”

 All five men stiffened at the company’s name and glanced warily at each other. Had one of them snitched?

Owl kept talking. “It was a neat trick, using the abandoned line and station of your former employer to transport the money. You could just hide the stash smack dab in the middle of the city, and if someone did figure out how you were moving it, they’d discard it out of hand as ‘impossible.’ Even the police wouldn’t catch on. You tossed everything on a moving freight train, threw it out somewhere along the line, and went back to recover it later. That also made it easy to hide your growing fortune in multiple spots, instead of letting it accumulate in one place.”

The leader snarled. He shot a glare at his men, who were by now openly apprehensive, then turned his livid eyes and his gun on Owl. “You... who the hell are you? How’d you even know the name Oldcroft...?”

“Because all the places you hit were in the wrong,” answered Owl. “Matheson & Company, Barclays Bank, Liberty... they were all former investors in Oldcroft. The connection’s easy to make if you consider how concerned the company must’ve been about losing its financial backing. Plus, looking at a map of all the discontinued railway lines, all of them are located near spots where the money you stole vanished. Anyone with a map of the train lines could figure it out. That said, the only reason we found this place is thanks to a brilliant informant.”

Brat meowed.

“After that, all you had to do was threaten one of the company drivers at one of your connecting stops into helping you move all the money you had in the city out here to the suburbs and you’d be home free. You could easily use the port here to send the money by boat, too.” Owl cast his gaze to the center of the room, where a pile of packages lay stacked. Each one was most likely full to bursting with a frankly absurd amount of money.

Emma decided to interject here, shouting, “You shouldn’t do bad things! Mama said so!” Everyone in their little group nodded sagely along.

The group of robbers shouted, “Be quiet, you!” The effect was somewhat marred by the audible tremor in their voices, though.

The leader raised his gun a little higher and flicked the safety off with a tiny, sharp click. “So that’s how it is. I thought you were an unusual student at first, but you talk too much. See, if I just finish you off here....”

 “I think it’d be better for you if you turned yourself in, personally.”

 Owl raised a single hand out and snapped his fingers. A golden transmutation circle sparkled to life around his fingertips, and in an instant the barrel of the man’s gun burned cherry red, smoke streaming from the metal. The leader flung it away with a high-pitched screech and cradled his singed hand. The rest of the gang fell into a blind panic, scattering like frightened rats.

Nick barely paid them a second thought, though, as he found his eyes drawn to the glowing circle Owl had drawn forth. This is alchemy, he thought to himself. ... Amazing.

 “Oi! Pay attention!”

Owl’s voice snapped him back to reality, but unfortunately a second too late. One of the criminals lunged at him with a knife.

In the same instant, a black shadow leaped forward, inserting itself like a shield between Nick and the oncoming attacker. The blade surged forward, poised to pierce the soft, fluffy fur coat.

 “Brat!! NO!!~”

 Glowing miasma shot out of Nick’s partner. It fluttered up like glittering flower petals, then fell as a thin membrane that cocooned the boy completely. The blade fell limply from the assailant’s grasp as he tried and failed to keep his eyes open, struck blind by the brilliant light.

“Rise and shine.”

 A voice rang out from within the dazzling display. The cocoon split apart like ice. A great burst of pale blue, powdery scales flew out of the crack, where they dispersed in the air in a sparkling cloud.

When the person inside the cocoon finally emerged, there was no trace of the orphan boy left in his face.

A coat inlaid with flowers. A staff carved from crystal. Hair that gleamed like lightning. Eyes the color of blood.

 Nick now resembled a lovely little fairy. With a flap of his wings, pale light flickered and spun through the air like snow, filling the entire cramped space at once.

Every single robber stopped dead within the sparkling space, and then, like dolls with their strings cut, collapsed to the floor.

■■■■■■■■■

“RING OF ROBBERS ROUNDED UP! A STUNNING VICTORY FOR THE POLICE!”

 “—Yeah, right.~ It was aaall thanks to Shaggy Hair.”

Owl was once again on a bench in the back courtyard reading the newspaper. This time, though, he raised his voice to the person up the tree nearby. “Would it kill you to show up like a normal person for once?”

 “... I just came to say goodbye. We got the reward money, and everyone in the slums is happy. I don’t have any reason to come around here anymore.”

Owl glanced up the tree to the pair of legs swinging from one of the highest branches. “Good for you, ‘Mr. Fairy.’”

“Wha – are you still calling me that?!~ I get enough of that from Emma! She keeps calling me a cute li’l fairy every time I see her....” Nick’s voice trailed off, then continued more solemnly, “Even though I’m actually Possessed.”

“It’s because she was so happy when Mr. Fairy gave her ribbon back.”

Nick snorted. “Well, I am cute, so I guess that’s fair,” he joked.

 “A ‘kindly civilian’ tipped the police off about the hideout. All the stolen money got returned, so all’s well that ends well and all that – but are you really okay with that? You’re not getting any credit. And even all the reward money went to me and Brat!”

“All I did was deduce the facts as a form of detective training. The entire gang was unconscious by the time the police raided the hideout, thanks to you, so I don’t see a problem with it.”

“Training, huh? Are you gonna be a detective someday, Shaggy Hair?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Huh. Y’know, I never really thought about what I wanted to do someday, until now. Now, I think I wanna use my power to be an information broker!”

 Owl nodded his approval. The leaves rustled overhead as Nick slipped down from the tree and landed in front of Owl. Slung across his shoulder was a red bag – the red bag – and Brat’s round, fuzzy face peered out from within. Apparently the boating club Conrad was in thought the bag was so disgraceful that he just gave it to Nick.

 Nick waved with an impish grin and dashed away, shouting, “Bye-bye, Shaggy Hair! When you’re finally a proper detective and need a good informant, let me know!”

  “... My name’s not ‘Shaggy Hair.’ It’s Owl.”

Nick glanced back a little, grin widening. “I’ll call you that when you become a real detective,” he replied.

[kotoprotranslations]

ESSENCE 8 SIDE STORY - Meow Meow Adventures

“HEY! Shaggy Hair! Gimme back Brat!”

So yelled the orphan Nick as he hounded Owl for the two of them to work together and find his missing cat Brat.

They looked high and low, from garbage cans to bus stops, on what was all accounts a perfectly ordinary search for a missing cat… or so it seemed, but then they somehow managed to find themselves involved in a major case…?

This is the story of how Owl and Nick, the detective agency’s wonder duo, first met.

■■■■■■■■■

“MASSIVE SUM STOLEN FROM MATHESON CO.! FIRM IS OFFERING A REWARD FOR –”

Owl sat on a bench in the back courtyard, a newspaper spread before him. His shadowed gaze traced the words, lingering on the phrase “gang of robbers.”

“HEY! Shaggy Hair! Gimme back Brat!”

He raised his head to see a slender boy in a newsboy cap glaring at him and wheezing like he’d just run a race. One look at his thin knees and the scattered shrub leaves stuck to his shoulders, and Owl’s mouth opened. “… You’re the spy. You know, you probably shouldn’t make any more holes in the hedges. They’re the headmaster’s….”

“Wha – who the hell are you calling a spy?! Rude!” the boy scoffed. “… Ugh, never mind, now’s not the time! You know that really fancy red leather bag you had at your desk yesterday? Where is it?!”

“Red bag? I don’t have a red bag. What are you talking about?”

“Aah, my partner Brat… he jumped in it yesterday, and now he’s gone missing~! It’s aaawfuuul!!”

This was the first time Owl got a good look at the boy. This was his first meeting with the person who would eventually solve case after case by his side for years to come: his partner, Nick.

■■■■■■■■■

The royal university was said to be the country’s highest hurdle, its vast campus seen as any alchemist’s gateway to success. The college was isolated from the outside world, as the highly specialized knowledge and studies contained within were kept strictly confidential. In a way, it was harder to break in here than any bank vault.

And yet somehow, Nick had used the skills he’d honed avoiding the eyes of people in town to sneak his way in, and for the past few days had been snooping here and there around the grounds. The orphan boy had never set foot in a “school” before, but his partner, a cat called Brat, heard that “studying at a school” was apparently a requirement to being rich. The Black Rose Disease ran rampant in these parts; kids who’d lost their parents formed squads in the slums that only seemed to multiply as time went on. They were always in need of cash.

So it was that one week ago the de facto big brother of the kids, Nick, said, “Let’s give it a whirl!☆” and snuck into the famous college.

Slinking his way into anyplace he wanted like a cat was Nick’s specialty. He could slip in and out without anyone knowing he was there and grab whatever info he needed. But things were different at the college – from day one, there was one student who always seemed to notice him. The guy looked kind of like a dullard at first glance, but by the time Nick noticed his presence he was constantly under watch. It didn’t matter where he hid – in the prep room, up a tree, in the loft, it always felt like the student’s eyes were boring into his back. It was unsettling, to say the least.

Maybe he was just imagining things? The thought did cross his mind. But then he found something under the tree he’d climbed up one day, and he promptly discarded that line of thinking. Someone had left a so-called children’s book meant for nursery school kids, with a blunt note saying “Help yourself” attached to the front.

“Ugh, that stupid Shaggy Hair!~ What, does he think I’m so dumb I need to learn my ABCs?!” Nick huffed and grumbled.

Brat, who had snuck in with him, looked up at the boy and suggested, “Let’s play a prank on him. I’ll leap out of his bag and we can watch that blank face of his crack.”

… So the plan went. Apparently.

“And?… The cat jumped into a red bag that was in the classroom yesterday?”

“—Yeah.”

“And you had a rough idea of what time I’d arrive, so you dozed off, and when you woke up the bag and the cat had disappeared?”

“—That’s right.”

“Sounds like you reap what you sow, then.”

“B-But! It’s ‘cause it was in the seat you were sitting yesterday… so I mean, a-anyone would think the bag was yours!” Nick wailed.

Just then, another student wearing the same jacket as Owl called out to the pair as he walked up, looking rather intrigued by the commotion. “Yo, Owl. Weren’t you going to go investigate that train case… why’s there a kid on campus? He your friend?”

Owl turned to the newcomer. “—Chris… your friend Conrad’s got a red bag, right? A pretty flashy one? Did he happen to say if he saw a cat in it yesterday?”

“Huh? How’d you know that? Man, you’re as weird as ever,” said Chris. “Yeah, he said one jumped right outta his bag yesterday on the train….”

“Oh, no! Brat…!” Nick made a wild grab for Chris. “Where’d he see the cat?!”

Chris took a step back, startled by Nick’s intensity. “I think he had some sorta club activity, he was heading for the pier – Portsmouth, I think?”

As soon as he heard the name, Owl stood up. He turned to Nick. “… Oi, what are you just standing around for?” he asked. “Come on.”

“Huh?” Nick stared at him, befuddled.

Owl stared right back, as blank-faced as ever. “We’re going to go look for your partner, right?”

■■■■■■■■■

“—I don’t think you’re going to find your partner in there,” Owl called, annoyed. Nick kept stopping at every garbage can on the road to the station to peer inside, looking for Brat.

Nick ignored him. With a single white sock pinched between his fingers, he shouted, “BRAT!” His voice echoed all around them. The boy was clearly beside himself with worry for his socks wearing partner. “Brat’s an expert at finding good stuff in garbage bins,” he explained to Owl. “Like magazines that are still readable… and he’s even found notes that say where there are hidden treasures in empty houses!”

“Notes?… The cat finds them?” Owl repeated with furrowed brows. “Actually, now that I think about it, wouldn’t the cat just eventually come back on its own? They’re pretty free-spirited animals.”

“Brat wouldn’t just leave without telling me!… He’s my family. I have to find him.”

Nick was replacing the lid on the can as he spoke, so he didn’t notice the gentleman approaching and couldn’t dodge in time. The two collided. Nick opened his mouth to apologize at once, but the older man took one look at the boy and stepped back, lip curled in disgust. “You dirtied my clothes, you filthy little alley cat,” he hissed before moving along.

Nick’s expression darkened, and if Owl didn’t immediately yank him back by his collar he would’ve absolutely lunged at the man. It felt rather like walking around with an actual stray cat, and one who didn’t much care for people, at that. “Don’t,” he warned. “The investigation comes first, right? Let’s go ask around Kensington Station.”

“Wha – not Portsmouth? That’s why that guy said Brat went.”

“Kensington is past Portsmouth, and the train there… no, before that….” Owl suddenly dipped his hand into Nick’s pocket and came back out with a small wallet. He called out to the gentleman from before, halting him in his tracks, and strode up to him to hand the wallet off, saying, “You dropped this, sir.”

“Rude!” Nick objected. “That money was mine!”

“Give it a rest,” sighed Owl as he walked back. “You’re good, though – who taught you how to do that?”

“Marney did. He’s the oldest cat around here.”

“The one who taught you to pickpocket people was also a cat…?” Owl sounded torn between exasperation and amazement. He walked right past Nick down the street, forcing the boy to hurry after the eccentric student.

■■■■■■■■■

“—Hah? A cat? No, I haven’t heard anything about a cat. Now quit bothering me, I’m busy.”

The station master of Kensington Station was currently on the phone with someone, and he flicked his hand to shoo off the student and shabby looking kid who’d shown up out of nowhere to question him, staring at them with suspicion bright in his gaze. His attention quickly shifted back to the phone call. “Ahh, no, sorry, I was talking to someone on my end… yes… yes, that’s correct. It happened again. Ha, do you think we might actually be cursed? They keep vanishing like they were never there….”

Owl raised a single eyebrow, listening to the station master’s one-sided conversation. Nick, on the other hand, started peering around at the office with an irritated huff once he realized they weren’t going to get any info about Brat out of the man. Why did this guy just – come with me, without putting up any kind of fuss? he wondered to himself, glancing at Owl.

Nick wasn’t acting like himself at all today. He never thought he’d get so involved with a human he didn’t know.

– Because humans? They were a huge pain to deal with. Because he’d try and talk to them, get through to them, but it never worked. Because even when it did, the adults that oh so happily got involved with the city orphans that supposedly “didn’t exist” almost always had some ulterior motive.

Brat might be a cat, but he was also his only family, the only one who ever understood him. If he couldn’t find him….

A coil of unease suddenly began to bloom in his chest. He had this creeping feeling, almost like the ground was going to open him up and swallow him whole at any moment. A chill worked its way up his throat. Whatever, let’s just ditch him. It’ll be a lot faster if I look for Brat by myself, same as always, Nick thought. He slowly turned to the entrance, ready to slip away….

Until Owl’s voice cut through the air, addressing the station master who’d finally hung up his call. “I won’t take up much of your time, sir. I’d just like you to confirm two things for me. First: last night, an incident occurred in which some train cars disappeared, yes? Specifically a freight train, most likely, up the tracks by Fareham?”

The station master’s mouth fell wide open in a remarkably accurate impression of a gaping goldfish. “Wha – how did you – ?!”

It wasn’t a confirmation, but anyone with eyes could tell that Owl was spot on. “… And second,” he continued, “have there by any chance been any conductors that have suddenly requested time off recently?”

“Who even are you? I can’t just tell you that….”

“Please… if you want to see this case resolved at all, answer my questions.”

“What’s a student like you going to do…?”

“I’m a detective,” Owl corrected, impassive as ever. “Though yes, I am also still a student.”

The station master faltered under the intensity of Owl’s questioning and gave him the name of a conductor who’d taken a leave of absence to take care of an ailing daughter. He also confirmed that a freight train had indeed disappeared last night, just as Owl said. The investigation was still being conducted internally – if word got out to the public, they’d no doubt start throwing around questions about accountability, something the company absolutely did not want – so it was no wonder the man was so flustered seeing this student waltz in out of nowhere and hit every single nail on the head.

Owl scribbled something in his notebook and passed it to Nick. “Send this telegram,” he said, already rushing past. “I’m going to go get us a carriage.”

Nick wavered for a moment after Owl had already left, the memo clutched tightly in his hand, but eventually he made up his mind and dashed for the closest telegraph office, though not without a frazzled screech. “Damn iiiit!~~~”

■■■■■■■■■

The two rode the carriage Owl procured from Portsmouth to a vacant area on the outskirts of Southampton that had once held a rail line. The wide-open plot of land was completely deserted, leaving behind only the abandoned station building and forgotten train tracks stretching off into the distance with no end in sight.

“Oh, maaan, is this all dead track?~” marveled Nick.

“Would it surprise you to hear that there are abandoned tracks even in the middle of the city that are just left there?” Owl asked. “These ones here are leftovers from the Railway Mania. Loads of small-time businessmen wanted in on the boom and tried to rake in the profits by connecting every major city back in the day – it was basically a bubble economy, but just for railroads.”

“But why are we here? You do remember I’m looking for Brat, right?”

“—We need to trace his steps. Yesterday Brat leapt off the train at Portsmouth Station, but there’s no way a cat could travel all the way back to London from there on foot. All of the electric trains heading back into the city would’ve stopped running by then, so at that time of night the only way Brat could’ve made it back was by freight train. I’d been looking for that freight train myself for a different case, but according to the station master the entire thing vanished without a trace last night.” Owl paused in his explanation for a moment. “… I thought that maybe Brat happened to get on that train while it was stopped at Portsmouth.”

“And you’re saying it’s here?”

“If my theory’s correct, then… ahh, is that it?” Owl pointed toward the track, where there did indeed seem to be a freight train standing all by its lonesome, wheels and engine still attached.

Nick rushed up to it in a tizzy, racing all around the exterior and shouting his partner’s name. Owl confirmed that there was no one in the engine room, then opened the door to the car at the very back of the train. Nick joined him and the pair peeked inside, only to find it empty.

They tried some of the other doors, too, but it wasn’t until they opened the second door from the back that they found some effects that had been left behind. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, the very train that had disappeared last night.

“Braaat!~ Heeey! Answer me!… Dang it, he’s not even here.” Nick’s shoulders slumped.

Next to him, Owl inspected the ground around their feet, then nodded for some reason and hopped aboard the rearmost car. The whole thing was bare – the only things left inside were some faint marks left behind from some luggage being dragged around, an oddly new-looking pink ribbon, and a number of old newspaper pages scattered around. The latter looked as if it had been used as wrapping paper.

Owl picked up the newspaper and spread it open. Nick, peeking over from his side, suddenly let out a piercing yelp. “Ah, th-that – that’s a sign from Brat!” He jabbed a finger at the distinct cat-shaped paw pad stamped on the edge of the page.

“That’s definitely a cat’s footprint,” agreed Owl. “But… are you sure it’s from Brat? It’s hard to tell pawprints apart.”

“Lemme see! If it really was Brat, he might’ve left a clue behind….” Nick grabbed the old newspaper and spread it out facing the door they’d left open. The afternoon light streaming through the opening also streamed through some tiny holes dotted throughout the pages, each one barely bigger than the eye of a needle.

Owl peered at the paper. “… The holes are all above letters. D, E, C, O, N, S, and… M and B on the next page….”

“This is our secret code! We make marks with our nails like this and we can tell each other where we are and stuff. Where’s Decons? And what are the M and B…?”

“Hey, is it possible that… can you actually understand and… talk to cats?”

Nick’s excitement popped like a balloon. His expression darkened in a flash. “… W-Well, who cares! It doesn’t matter, we got a hint on where to go next, so….”

“Does it have anything to do with how you’re ‘Possessed?’”

Nick stiffened. His hand shot down in a blink to cover his right knee, and he glared at Owl with his teeth bared in a snarl, looking for all the world like a cornered feral cat. If he had fur, it would absolutely be bristling menacingly.

Owl sighed, long and loud. “Oi, don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t care if you’re Possessed or not.”

“… Huh?”

“It’s just that this isn’t just about your missing partner. This might be related to a much bigger incident. So I just want to make sure I have the facts as straight as possible, that’s all.”

“‘That’s all,’ he says…” Nick mumbled under his breath.

“Unfortunately, I’m used to seeing Possessed people,” Owl continued. “We’ve got one at my house, even.”

Nick blinked, staring at Owl with eyes blown wide. His confusion was only natural – he’d never before met a human so nonchalant, so accepting of the cursed population known as the “Possessed.”

“… When I was little,” he began haltingly, “my mom and I both caught the Black Rose Disease. I survived, but then I was Possessed, and everyone hated me. I hid the marks under my pants and everything, but I still got found out, in the end. That’s when I picked up Brat – he was just a tiny little kitten back then.”

Owl hummed. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but he did bend down a little to meet Nick’s eyes.

“He was all alone, and so weak, and he was so squeaky, more like a mouse than a cat… but I gave him milk every day, and he talked to me. At first it didn’t really sound like anything, just mumbling, but one day I heard him say one word, loud and clear: Nick. My name. But I’m the only one who can hear Brat’s voice.”

“I see. Got it.” Owl nodded and picked up the ribbon and the newspaper before hopping out of the train. “Let’s go, then,” he called before walking back toward the carriage.

Nick scrambled after him. “W-Where are we going?!”

“Your partner spelled it out for you, didn’t he? M and B. And according to the maps, there’s a Decons Marina Boathouse up ahead. We’re going to go up there and return this ribbon to its rightful owner – the person being guarded by their own personal knight.”

■■■■■■■■■

Tensions had been running high at the police station for some time due to their failure to trace the whereabouts of the massive gang of thieves. The group stole astronomical sums of money from banks and famous companies all over the place, so it was really no wonder – at this point, it was no exaggeration to say that the force’s reputation was buried six feet under.

And then last night, a new incident had occurred. At least ten thousand pounds in cash had been stolen from a Liberty Tea warehouse in the dead of night, an amount that was at once worryingly high and extremely bulky to be lugging around.

There had always been eyewitness testimony up to now, and even though the thieves always vanished like smoke when they fled the scene, they’d been lucky this time to find them in the middle of loading their stolen cash. The whole escape had turned into some kind of stage play between them and the patrolling police officers.

The problem was that the police lost sight of the culprits’ carriage midway. Only for an instant, mind, but an instant was all they needed – by the time the police located the carriage again, it was abandoned, without a trace of either the thieves or the money left behind. Not even a single bill remained. It should have been difficult for the entire group to hide in the two or three minutes they’d gone unseen, and yet….

The police thoroughly searched the neighboring areas, but the robbers and their ill-gotten goods were long gone. The stress of the situation was so great that the chief of police, Fowler, tore out what little hair he had left.

And now today, while Fowler’s subordinates walked on pins and needles around their boss, an impossible telegram arrived. It contained an outline of everything about the case up to that point, as if the sender had seen everything with their own two eyes.

“Bad news, sir! We received a second telegram! This one… has the location of the gang’s hideout!”

“Grr… who the hell is sending these?! We can’t just go leaping into action when we don’t know where it’s coming from…!”

“But sir, if the papers write any more articles, it’ll be your head…!”

“Everyone move out! We’re going to the Decons boathouse!”

■■■■■■■■■

The boathouse looked out on a small, enclosed bay. The port seemed to be used mainly for fishing and the loading and unloading of cargo. Several warehouses stood in a neat row nearby. Foot traffic in the area was rather scarce.

Owl and Nick first stopped at a pub in front of the boathouse to avoid standing out and decided to start asking some questions as casually as they could. It was still evening, but the sun was already setting and the whole area was starting to grow dark.

“Haven’t seen you boys ‘round here before,” the bartender commented. A quiet man with sharp eyes, he was well acquainted with the sailors who frequented his bar.

Nick flashed him a brilliant, innocent smile. “Oh, we’re just here looking for a lost cat.☆ We wanted to take a look in the boathouse over there to see if he was inside. Hey, is it open right now?”

Owl was impressed to see that any caution the bartender might’ve felt vanished under the boy’s charm. His tongue loosened in a blink, fully swept up in Nick’s pace. “Nowadays people are flocking to the trains, even ‘round these parts,” he replied. “Less and less tourists are going out boating, and the whole place shuts down completely during the off-season… but now that you mention it, I feel like I’ve been seeing some lights on at night these days, up on the second floor.”

Owl nodded and glanced up at the second floor of the building in question. It was difficult to see in the dark, but he could see the white paws of a cat scratching at the window frame up there. He poked Nick and furtively gestured in that direction. The boy’s eyes widened immediately. “That’s Brat!” he whispered urgently. “No doubt about it!”

However, as they watched for a while, they saw a finger stretch out, curl around the cat’s soft belly, and pull him inside the building.

Owl looked at his pocket watch for a while, but eventually he leaned down to whisper in Nick’s ear. “We don’t have time. There’s been a shadow making regular patrols around the boathouse for a while now. I’ll go take a look, so you….”

“You’re not really gonna leave me behind, are you?! Brat’s my family. And besides, I’d be way better at recon than you, right?”

“—Well… yeah, I guess so.”

Nick casually hung around the pub until the shadows circling around the boathouse disappeared from sight before slipping out and heading for the building’s back door. Fallen leaves carpeted the private garden in the back. Broken machinery sat discarded here and there throughout the yard. The bartender’s testimony was spot-on, it looked like.

The back door was boarded shut when they reached it. Owl pulled a small canvas cloth out of his jacket and spread it on the ground in front of them, revealing an array of test tubes and strangely shaped implements in the pocket. “I’m going to open this, so you….” Owl glanced back over his shoulder. “Wha – oi! Where do you think you’re going?”

Nick paid him no mind, since he was already in the process of shimmying up one of the oak trees in the yard, silent as a shadow. He pretty obviously meant to slip inside through the window they’d seen Brat from.

“… You’re more of a monkey than a cat,” mumbled Owl. “Stay still up there for a sec.”

Nick kept one ear turned in Owl’s direction, but he also climbed up the rest of the tree in a flash until he’d reached the second floor, where he peeked through the window.

The room inside was dark and completely barren, but Nick could see two occupants inside. One was a little girl. The other was his partner, the one he’d been so desperately searching for all this time, Brat. Nick lightly tapped his knuckles to the glass, and Brat’s golden eyes swiveled over to him. The cat meowed at the startled girl, giving her cheek a single lick.

The window was locked, but getting it open with a pair of wires was honestly child’s play. Nick carefully held the windowsill, mindful of how it creaked under his fingers, and stole inside.

Brat gave one more meow to the girl before slipping out of her arms and flying into Nick’s.

“Brat!!~~~ I was worried about you, you dummy!~~~”

“Meow meooow!”

With his nose pressed into his partner’s fluffy back, Nick finally felt himself relax, and he turned his attention to the girl. She couldn’t be older than five. Her blonde hair was piled in a high bun. Her clothes were showy, but wrinkled – she must’ve been here a long time – but she had a healthy rose tint to her puffy cheeks, and she looked to be in good health.

“Hello,” said Nick gently. “My name’s Nick. This is my partner, Brat. What’s your name?… Uh, can you tell me what happened?”

“… Are you the kitty’s friend? Um, some strangers took Emma here.”

Between the girl – Emma, apparently – and Brat, Nick was quickly filled in.

Brat figured out their little prank didn’t work by the time he got to Porstmouth Station. The red bag had been so comfortable he’d ended up falling asleep in it, and when he woke up and leaped out in a panic, he’d ended up at a station he’d never been to before, and he had no idea how to get back. But then he’d listened in on the conductor, who said the freight train that had just arrived had come from London, and that it was heading back that night once it was reloaded. Lucky!

So he’d hopped aboard, and that’s when he found the girl bound and gagged in the rear car. What’s more, a bunch of evil-looking guys had gotten on, too, and then for some reason the train started heading for Southampton, in the complete opposite direction of London, and Brat just got taken along for the ride. He couldn’t very well let them take the girl, so he hid in the luggage while it was being unloaded, and he even left a secret code in the newspapers they’d used to wrap the stacks of bills in –

Honestly, Brat had put the detective outside to shame, with all he’d accomplished.

“Ohh, so you were keeping the girl safe!”

“Mm-hmm. The kitty was with me the whole time.”

The girl patted Brat’s head with a tiny hand, who leaned into it like he couldn’t get enough. “Meow!”

CREAK! The door suddenly flew open, and two humans and one cat screamed in unison.

“WAAAH!”

“… Keep it down, idiot, it’s just me. We’re getting out of here.”

“Shaggy Hair!”

“Ah – Papa!” Emma exclaimed.

Another person popped up behind Owl – a conductor that he’d rescued from elsewhere in the building. The man rushed forward to embrace his daughter. “Emma!”

But they weren’t out of the woods yet. At Owl’s urging, the group descended to the first floor and made a beeline for the back door. Unfortunately, their presence had already been noticed – when they reached the exit, they found a pair of men barring their way out, knives glinting in their hands. They turned back to the front entrance only to find three more standing between them and the exit. One of them had a gun.

“—Do you have some business with us, Mr. Student?” the man with the gun asked mockingly. “This isn’t a place to be bringing kids, y’know – oi, is this everyone?”

“Looks like it,” replied yet another man glancing around the second floor.

The gun man – he had to be the leader – leered at Owl. “We don’t have time to be fooling around, so sorry, but I only have one question for you guys. How’d you find us? What do you know?”

“… That’s two questions, though?” Owl pointed out.

The leader’s face colored with rage.

“Well, whatever,” Owl continued. “What do I know, you said? Do you mean like how you’re a former employee of the recently bankrupted Oldcroft Railways?”

“Wha…?!”

All five men stiffened at the company’s name and glanced warily at each other. Had one of them snitched?

Owl kept talking. “It was a neat trick, using the abandoned line and station of your former employer to transport the money. You could just hide the stash smack dab in the middle of the city, and if someone did figure out how you were moving it, they’d discard it out of hand as ‘impossible.’ Even the police wouldn’t catch on. You tossed everything on a moving freight train, threw it out somewhere along the line, and went back to recover it later. That also made it easy to hide your growing fortune in multiple spots, instead of letting it accumulate in one place.”

The leader snarled. He shot a glare at his men, who were by now openly apprehensive, then turned his livid eyes and his gun on Owl. “You… who the hell are you? How’d you even know the name Oldcroft…?”

“Because all the places you hit were in the wrong,” answered Owl. “Matheson & Company, Barclays Bank, Liberty… they were all former investors in Oldcroft. The connection’s easy to make if you consider how concerned the company must’ve been about losing its financial backing. Plus, looking at a map of all the discontinued railway lines, all of them are located near spots where the money you stole vanished. Anyone with a map of the train lines could figure it out. That said, the only reason we found this place is thanks to a brilliant informant.”

Brat meowed.

“After that, all you had to do was threaten one of the company drivers at one of your connecting stops into helping you move all the money you had in the city out here to the suburbs and you’d be home free. You could easily use the port here to send the money by boat, too.” Owl cast his gaze to the center of the room, where a pile of packages lay stacked. Each one was most likely full to bursting with a frankly absurd amount of money.

Emma decided to interject here, shouting, “You shouldn’t do bad things! Mama said so!” Everyone in their little group nodded sagely along.

The group of robbers shouted, “Be quiet, you!” The effect was somewhat marred by the audible tremor in their voices, though.

The leader raised his gun a little higher and flicked the safety off with a tiny, sharp click. “So that’s how it is. I thought you were an unusual student at first, but you talk too much. See, if I just finish you off here….”

“I think it’d be better for you if you turned yourself in, personally.”

Owl raised a single hand out and snapped his fingers. A golden transmutation circle sparkled to life around his fingertips, and in an instant the barrel of the man’s gun burned cherry red, smoke streaming from the metal. The leader flung it away with a high-pitched screech and cradled his singed hand. The rest of the gang fell into a blind panic, scattering like frightened rats.

Nick barely paid them a second thought, though, as he found his eyes drawn to the glowing circle Owl had drawn forth. This is alchemy, he thought to himself. … Amazing.

“Oi! Pay attention!”

Owl’s voice snapped him back to reality, but unfortunately a second too late. One of the criminals lunged at him with a knife.

In the same instant, a black shadow leaped forward, inserting itself like a shield between Nick and the oncoming attacker. The blade surged forward, poised to pierce the soft, fluffy fur coat.

“Brat!! NO!!~”

Glowing miasma shot out of Nick’s partner. It fluttered up like glittering flower petals, then fell as a thin membrane that cocooned the boy completely. The blade fell limply from the assailant’s grasp as he tried and failed to keep his eyes open, struck blind by the brilliant light.

“Rise and shine.”

A voice rang out from within the dazzling display. The cocoon split apart like ice. A great burst of pale blue, powdery scales flew out of the crack, where they dispersed in the air in a sparkling cloud.

When the person inside the cocoon finally emerged, there was no trace of the orphan boy left in his face.

A coat inlaid with flowers. A staff carved from crystal. Hair that gleamed like lightning. Eyes the color of blood.

Nick now resembled a lovely little fairy. With a flap of his wings, pale light flickered and spun through the air like snow, filling the entire cramped space at once.

Every single robber stopped dead within the sparkling space, and then, like dolls with their strings cut, collapsed to the floor.

■■■■■■■■■

“RING OF ROBBERS ROUNDED UP! A STUNNING VICTORY FOR THE POLICE!”

“—Yeah, right.~ It was aaall thanks to Shaggy Hair.”

Owl was once again on a bench in the back courtyard reading the newspaper. This time, though, he raised his voice to the person up the tree nearby. “Would it kill you to show up like a normal person for once?”

“… I just came to say goodbye. We got the reward money, and everyone in the slums is happy. I don’t have any reason to come around here anymore.”

Owl glanced up the tree to the pair of legs swinging from one of the highest branches. “Good for you, ‘Mr. Fairy.’”

“Wha – are you still calling me that?!~ I get enough of that from Emma! She keeps calling me a cute li’l fairy every time I see her….” Nick’s voice trailed off, then continued more solemnly, “Even though I’m actually Possessed.”

“It’s because she was so happy when Mr. Fairy gave her ribbon back.”

Nick snorted. “Well, I am cute, so I guess that’s fair,” he joked.

“A ‘kindly civilian’ tipped the police off about the hideout. All the stolen money got returned, so all’s well that ends well and all that – but are you really okay with that? You’re not getting any credit. And even all the reward money went to me and Brat!”

“All I did was deduce the facts as a form of detective training. The entire gang was unconscious by the time the police raided the hideout, thanks to you, so I don’t see a problem with it.”

“Training, huh? Are you gonna be a detective someday, Shaggy Hair?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Huh. Y’know, I never really thought about what I wanted to do someday, until now. Now, I think I wanna use my power to be an information broker!”

Owl nodded his approval. The leaves rustled overhead as Nick slipped down from the tree and landed in front of Owl. Slung across his shoulder was a red bag – the red bag – and Brat’s round, fuzzy face peered out from within. Apparently the boating club Conrad was in thought the bag was so disgraceful that he just gave it to Nick.

Nick waved with an impish grin and dashed away, shouting, “Bye-bye, Shaggy Hair! When you’re finally a proper detective and need a good informant, let me know!”

“… My name’s not ‘Shaggy Hair.’ It’s Owl.”

Nick glanced back a little, grin widening. “I’ll call you that when you become a real detective,” he replied.